It was a great moment and yet one of the weirdest situations in the history of Tour de France, when, and, it seems to be more important, how the organisers decided to put Col du Tourmalet in the program.
Crossed Tourmalet stop. Very good road stop. Perfectly passable.
– these words stood in the telegram Alphonse Steinès sent to Tour de France boss Henri Desgrange after surviving his little adventure in the Pyrenees in early 1910.
But he did not tell the entire truth.
Although ascents were part of the program since the first Tour de France, and with Ballon d’Alsace, introduced to the race in 1905, the first “real climb” has arrived in the world of the French grand tour, Henri Desgrange was still not satisfied. He wanted something bigger, more spectacular, a place that would bring more drama into the race and help to increase the selling numbers of his newspaper.
And then, Alphonse Steinès, one of his journalists came with the idea to climb the Tourmalet, one of the highes passes of the Pyreness, which, of course, was not tarmacked yet in those days.
But this was not the biggest problem. Passing a place like Col du Tourmalet was pretty dangerous, even Steinès was struggling to find a guide who would help him through the mountains. It wasn’t useful either, that Steinès visited the place in January.
Finally, he managed to arrange a locar driver. But they rode only 16 km, when the car stopped. They had to continue their way on foot. But after another 600 m, the guide turned back and left Steinès alone. Apparently, the local man was affraid from the bears used to come from Spain when it snows.
But there were still people outside even in this hard weather conditions, like those boys, guarding sheeps, Steinès met during his adventure. He hired one of the, but soon this boy turned back too.
Steinès then decided to spend the night outside with sitting a rock. But soon he realised that
if he would stay there, he would freeze to death.
He started to walk in the snow, but slipped on the icy road and fell into a stream. Somehow he maged back on the road, but was unable to walk without falling again and again.
Fortunately, a rescue group of local people was sent after him and they were able to find him totally exhausted and almost frozen. They carried him to an inn, where he wrote that famous telegram about being everything fine and Col du Tourmalet being perfectly fit to be part of a cycling race.
The peloton of Tour de France crossed the pass first time on the 21st of July 1910. The first man on the top was Octave Lapize.
