Bordeaux Paris

Bordeaux-Paris was one of the last links to professional road cycling’s dustiest origins. The version that died in 1988 was a pale shadow of what was once arguably the greatest race of all – a race which also gave us perhaps the greatest feat in the sport’s history, courtesy of Jacques Anquetil.

- Suze Clemitson

17:20

It all starts at the Hotel Grillon in Chambéry. There’s just time for a shower, a shit and a massage before Anquetil is whisked away in a Ford Taunus, Géminiani at the wheel, in pursuit of a double inédit – the Dauphiné and Bordeaux-Paris, the longest, toughest, motherfucker of a Classic on the calendar. Anquetil is 32, at the summit of his legendary career: the first rider to win 5 Tours de France and all 3 of the Grand Tours, tester par excellence and winner of a record 8 Grands Prix des Nations to hammer home the point. None of this is his idea.

When George Pilkington Mills lined up at the first Bordeaux Paris he was there by right. Invited to ride by organisers Le Véloce sport, Mills had ridden an Ordinary from Land’s End to John o’ Groats in just 5 days and would attack the record ceaselessly over the coming years on bicycles, tricycles and tandems. The king of LEJOG was a perfect fit for the 600 km slog between the great south-western city of Bordeaux and the Parc des Princes velodrome in the south-west suburbs of Paris, now home to Paris Saint-Germain.

1891 was a busy year for G.P. Mills. At the age of 25 the designer and bicycle manufacturer went bankrupt and once again broke the LEJOG record, this time by 21 hours over his old mark, riding a Humber safety bicycle. He also breezed across the Channel with a couple of friends from the North Road Cycling Club, which he had cofounded in 1885 to promote ‘fast and long distance cycling on the Great North and other Roads’, to tackle some continental racing. Mills, Montague Holbein – who would unsuccessfully attempt to swim the English Channel at least 4 times – and Seymour Edge – future motor manufacturer and car dealer – would finish one-two-three in the first Bordeaux-Paris.