“I am 77 years old, and I am still in the Tour, in the Gruppetto certainly …”
With the Tour de Francenow the wind of the epic and the legend can blow again. And refresh us a little. Friend Emmanuel Potironme this: “Take advantage of you who like nostalgia, make us share it“. You think if I jump on the occasion, and with joint feet. Come with me, I don't have a guide cap, I am simply a lover transi heroic times, and great champions, and unknown facets of the saga of this sacred”Large loop“.
I discovered it in my village of Langogne on the sidelines on July 23, 1954. It was a Friday. I was seven years old, I arrived at the height of the belt of the captain of the firefighters, which contained the crowd … These horns, this fever, this fervor, and the yellow flash of Louison Bobet, never left me.
I am 77 years old, and I am still in the Tour, in the gruppetto, of course, but I hang on, and the turn helps me. It's absurd, right? Maybe. The tour has enlightened my life, may he shed light on yours a little. I know it is not perfect, but what happiness despite everything. So take with me, the compassionate wheel of Faber, the Colombes giant, bite a little chocolate to swallow the passes, you will then see that it is the climbers, which gave its 2nd breath around and enlarges France, finally, in apotheosis, we will plant Lepic. You will see, it's epic!
Faber, reincarnated bayard …
If you don't know the knight Bayardthe one who was “without fear and without reproach”, if Gargantua, and his fierce appetite, say nothing to you, you will find it difficult to enter this little story of a hero of heroic times, still topical today, because he is still in the top 20 of “road giants” in 2025, and not only because we had also baptized him “the giant of Colombes …” is one of the first to have introduced it … and not only because he remains the only one to have crossed the Bayard pass in mind three times.
It was 110 years ago, on May 9, that on May 9, 1915, on the side of Carency, near the “white works”, in the Great War and Battle of Artois, he fell arms in hand, during an attack on the French army, where he was involved in the Foreign Legion, although Luxembourg subject. “He could have escaped the conflict, but no, he wanted to give back to France, a little of this glory, of this recognition that she had given him.
Yes, we want to mention here and pay tribute to a champion, and to a man like cycling has never seen it. You read that right, never seen !!! We want to talk about François Faber (1887-1915). In his place, the nicknames parade: the giant, the big one, the giant of Colombes, the locomotive man. His kindness, his power, his generosity, his appetite, his panache, his talents were such, that he made like no other champion unanimity, “the best” for Desgrange. It is only to read the relationship of the 1911 Tour by Georges Rozet, where children lower to brush their ankles.
He was so fabulous that it took more than ten days to officially announce his death! He was believed to be untouchable, invincible. Desgrange himself says in his necrology on the front page of the car: “It was a big child …” The ability to wonder of this phenomenon is even retrospectively pure happiness. 300 km escapes, a letter of 300 letters per day on the Tour, a dozen chops or three soles engulfed, by hand, the “pictorial craters” (Editor's note: of the corton) locks in Tire-Larigot.
And with all this between two indigestions, and beautiful injuries in the race (fracture on the Tour 11) an extraordinary harvest, with in the Musette, a Bordeaux-Paris (he makes it a point of honor to beat Lapize), a Paris-Roubaix, two Paris-Tours, a Paris-Brussels, a tower of Lombardy, and the trifle of 19 stages on the Tour !!! Who says better? We could also evoke his 1909 round, a terrible 4,500 km round that he flies in in the rain, the cold, the mud, then the heat wave, removing five stages of row, from Metz to Nice. With his yellow and black jersey, and his beautiful candid look where the blue sky is king, this former 22 -year -old tank top, hovers on the race like no one. We even said that he could have won all the stages, so much he was “strong” that year, but he shared a little with his friends from Alcyon, Alavoine, Duboc, Garrigou, and his half-brother Ernest Paul.
Faber: a bayard, gargantuan
From the top of his 1m79, his 91 kg, with “rods” that enchant the observers, he crushed the 1909 Tour so head at the Ballon d'Alsace, Col Bayard, Laffrey and Porte, please “preserve the suspense” of the Tour 1910, Desgrange and Steinès will introduce it, the high mountain and the Pyrenees, a little ogre.
And this famous trap tower of 1910, he will narrowly lose it, certainly, a little because of the high mountain, but especially because of a stomach ulcer and the bad maneuver of his half-brother Ernest Paul, manipulated by this Roublard de Lapize in the last stage. It will therefore be second, as in 1908.
François de Colombesfrom Aulnay on Iton, and of Luxembourg, it is a nature, a climbing edge … Not a climber, like Emile Georget, Pottier or Garrigou, no, he, he moved in power, at the Hinault … In addition, frank as gold, generous, as no one, he helps everyone, he has no adversary, except perhaps Lapize, his “classard”. They are both of 1887, François is a Aquarius, with panache, Lapize is a calculator scorpion, to whom it is missing 15 cm and 25 kg … Lapize rolls parsimonious, François, him, trains everyone in his wake, including the tired, who take his wheel, like a lifeline. He gives, he rushes without looking at, without back thought. Here he spends eating, there, he discreetly throws a hose, so as not to break the regulations.
In this 1911 Tour, which Rozet tells us in “La Revue de Paris”, Garrigou, who triumphs, it is the pendulum man, Faber remains the man-orlocomotive, who wounded will abandon in the 12th stage. His heart on the hand, his kindness, quickly make him the most charismatic runner, and the most popular and by far … He inspires poets, writers, caricaturists, posters. Cycles brands argue, Saphy, Alcyon, Labor, Allelulia, or Peugeot, he does not know where to turn.
Fortunately, Alphonse Baugé, or his compatriot Alphonse Steinès, guide him, advise him. With them, he will take on another dimension, while remaining this force of nature that seduces everywhere, he writes, he answers, he speaks, he gives conferences, in short, cut stone becomes a beautiful polished stone.
Abroad in the combins, to jealousies, he cuts his route, straight, even if sometimes he zigzag a little, because he is a good living like his friends Jean Bouin, or Georges Carpentier, or Lucien Gaudin, the stars of running, boxing, or fencing, with whom he shares notoriety, and a magician masseur named Pastaïre. Finally, in the category dreamed of by Desgrange, that of the nobility of the Tour !!!
The boss of “the auto” fascinated by Napoleon wanted to transpose on the tower a nobility of the muscle, as there had been an imperial nobility forged to the fires of the battles … Here, by escaping, by winning stages, in brilliant in the mountains, or by winning the tour, we can also be considered that a general of Empire or a marshal. And soldier Faber is part of this fabulous disproportionate logic, which can be called the social elevator.
His worst year will be 1912, where he won no step on the Tour. He had to leave Alcyon for incompatibility with Lapize, and at Automoto, he is not comfortable. He will finish 14th, disappointed but serene, his rival, however well placed, has made a new crisis, suspecting the Belgians of collusion and abandoned.
It was 110 years ago …
In the duel between the two champions, since it is necessary to talk about this, we realize that the pragmatism of Lapize, perhaps prevails over the panache of Faber, not on popularity. Fafa and Poupou, same fight. Lapize competes six towers from France, takes away six stages, wins once, and abandons the other five !!! Faber, who is the same age, aligns in nine “large loops”, takes away 19 stages (you have read) wins the 1909 edition (one of the hardest), finished twice, once 5th, 7th, 9th and 14th, and abandons twice on injury.
Eugène Christophe said of Lapize, “that it was the smartest”, perhaps. What is certain is that it is in the plume of “Grand”, “Bayard”, that spectators rallied. If we push the parallel later, we realize, that they made equal play in the mountains, and in the classics. So advantage to the “Father François”, who after his bad year 1912, spent Peugeot and finds his wings, or almost, removing in 13 and 14, two of the last stages of the Tour, proof, that he ends strong, and that he is especially not finished.
The war will break its hopes, on August 3, 1914, it was mobilization, and barely one month after having completed its 9th round (5,411 km), it engages in the Legion !!! His camaraderie and his good humor are still and always wonderful in the trenches, where he smokes the pipe, like many hairy, to chase the smells. The pipe, survival instrument. On May 9, 1915, he set off, it was the great battle of Artois. French and English do a lot of prisoners, but losses are heavy.
Among them, many legionaries. The killing was such that we could not find the body of the “Colombes giant”, to the great despair of its Darragon friends, or Miquel. He seemed so invincible “the great” so invincible, that we even doubted his death. Her package sent to her widow Eugènie, who had just given birth four days before, providing immense joy, the last, to her husband, contained a famous pipe, that of “the locomotive man”. Thanks to André Leducq to whom Eugènie offered him, and to a fervent journalist who then preserved her, she crossed the time. It was 110 years ago, Lapize, the rival, would also fall as a hero, during an air fight, on July 14, 1917. Postoric, and legend gathered them forever.
