{"id":36321,"date":"2022-06-24T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-24T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.siroko.com\/blog\/c\/?p=36321"},"modified":"2022-06-17T11:34:37","modified_gmt":"2022-06-17T09:34:37","slug":"tour-de-france-bikes-history-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.siroko.com\/blog\/c\/tour-de-france-bikes-history-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Tour de France bikes history – Part One"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Tour de France is the cycling event with the largest number of viewers and huge media coverage. This means that both sponsors and brands related to cycling are involved in the Tour, showcasing their new products. The Tour, however, was actually created to promote a newspaper; and it was, indeed, a success, not only for the newspaper L’Auto but also for the bike and component brands. Just ask Campagnolo, Pinarello, Trek or any of the small manufacturers who, as we shall see, were lucky enough to have their invention approved by the Tour organizers. We are going to look at those inventions, changes and innovations as we go over the evolution of bicycles from the first Tour to the present day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No brakes and at full speed<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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We could say that the first Tour de France winning bicycle in 1903 was half-fixie half-gravel. A steel bicycle, with fixed gear, wooden rims, 32-38 mm wide tires, leather saddle and a handlebar that resembles some current gravel models. The key important thing to keep in mind was that when riding fixed gear, you could not coast unless you took your feet off the pedals and that the only way to brake was by applying back pressure to the pedals to slow down the bike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Freewheel freedom<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When the mountain stages appeared in the Tour de France, the freewheel came into use. This was despite the fact that Henri Desgrange (organizer of the Tour), a large part of the press and many riders felt that being able to coast decreased the difficulty of the race, diminished the differences between cyclists and added complexity to the bicycles due to possible breakdowns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It was the dangerous nature of descents that eventually led to the widespread use of freewheels. Another important factor was the improvement of brakes, which gradually changed from rod-operated brakes on the tire or rim to caliper brakes, often similar to today’s brakes, operated by cable and braking on the rim. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s time to switch<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Remarkably, although bicycle d\u00e9railleurs<\/em> had been around since before the first Tour, it was not until 1937 that the Tour director allowed them to be used by all riders in the race. Until then, they could only be used by participants in the isol\u00e9 (independent) category. In 1912, the first d\u00e9railleur of the Tour appeared on the bicycle of the isol\u00e9 cyclist (or rather cyclotourist) Joanny Panel. The derailleur was charmingly called Le Chemineau<\/em><\/a>, as opposed to today’s names such as Dura-Ace 9150.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In 1937 the final change took place and all riders were allowed to use only one model of d\u00e9railleur <\/em>: the Super Champion from the Swiss rider and manufacturer Oscar Egg. Who knows if there was an agreement, contract and commission deal between organizers and manufacturer, but the fact is that the 1937 winner (Roger Lap\u00e9bie) and 1939 winner (Sylvere Maes) used this derailleur and the sales of the Super Champion skyrocketed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It was a game changer at the time. Not only because it had 3 or 4 gears, but also because you could change gears without having to stop, remove\/reattach the wheel and adjust the chain tension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gear evolution<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Since that first 1937 d\u00e9railleur<\/em>, gears have evolved to such an extent that today’s electronic systems are so precise, fast, reliable and have such a gearing range that Desgrange would struggle to find a challenge as difficult as that 1910 Luchon – Bayonne stage. But that Super Champion bears little resemblance to what we get today. In the meantime, small but noteworthy technological evolutions have taken the gears from 3 to 24 and the shifters from the seat stays to the current shifters. These are the most significant changes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dropout parallelogram derailleur<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Tullio Campagnolo refined (copied and improved) already existing derailleurs and in 1949 he launched the first prototype of the Gran Sport model, a derailleur whose shape and performance could be considered as “modern”; it won its first Tour in 1951. By then, the shifters were already being placed on the downtube in order to operate both the rear derailleur and the front derailleur by pulling cables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indexing gears<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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