The cracking of the pines.

Ultimately, this week was about the pursuit of happiness. That was always the idea. And it came from a furniture salesman from the Moselle, an amateur cyclist called Roland Fangille who had found a new home and a life in Bessèges. Throughout the 1960s he rose through the ranks of the local cycling club to the position of President. He had become a personal very close friend of Raymond Poulidor.

By 1971 he had secured enough goodwill and sufficient sponsorship to launch this very particular race, which is still going today.

In November 2020, Fangille was rushed to hospital with low blood pressure, and he tested positive for covid. Sadly he never came home again. He died at 80.

You cannot move at this bike race for people wanting to impress on you what a tremendous man he was, and how greatly missed he still is. I am glad, in a way, he was not around to witness the chaos and occasional rancour of the past few days. I think it would have upset him greatly. But then again, I think it might not have happened under his watch. I think he might have banged heads together.

When he died, Marc Madiot, with a typical poet’s flourish, described him as being, ‘an institution, like the start of a new school year, like a good mood, conviviality, like cycling in the country.’

Like a good mood. What a wonderful epitaph.

La bonne humeur returned today to the race. From the moment the riders woke to see that the clouds had rolled aside and that the sun of the opening days had returned, everything felt better. In fact the bitter north easterly wind direction had switched too, and milder air had rushed in to the Gard, bringing relief to all. It felt more like the south of France.