1929 Tour de France
The 23rd Tour de France took place from June 30th to 28 July 1929 and led over 22 stages. It was attended by 155 racers part in it, 60 of which were classified.
Route
From the French capital Paris, the 23rd Tour de France initially led to Brittany, then on the Atlantic coast to the Pyrenees and from there along the Mediterranean Sea. From Nice, the price went up in the north of France by Malo- les- Bains, from where the driver drove to the finish in Paris. The winner put the 5286 km back with an average speed of 28.320 km / h.
Race course
As a big favorite was Nicolas Frantz, winner in 1927 and 1928, started the race, also the winner in 1926, Lucien Buysse made his hopes for another victory.
First, the favorites were close together, so that the same three drivers were in the overall standings after the seventh stage front: Nicolas Frantz, André Leducq, Victor Fontan. On the tenth leg broke Victor Fontan, who wore the yellow jersey at this time, the fork of his bicycle. After a rule that was abolished after this tour, the participants but had to finish the race with which they had started with the wheel. So Fontan went from house to house, asking to borrow a bike, so he could still travel the 145 km to the destination. With his broken wheel on his back he finally arrived in tears at the target destination and abandoned the race.
By Fontans task of the Belgian Maurice De Waele took the lead and was able to defend it to Paris. On the stage to Belfort, he was weakened by a disease and could get through the day with only the help of his teammates. Henri Desgrange, the Tour director, said later that they had " let them win a corpse " and the result would correspond to " not the sporting truth. " To make the rider more on themselves, were introduced in 1930 teams.
On the last leg Jef Demuysere got a penalty of 25 minutes after he had taken a banned drink. And he thereby lost to the Italian Giuseppe Pancera his second place in the overall standings. André Leducq won five stages.