Henri Desgrange

Henri was a very fast bike rider.

He set many records on tracks. He could ride for a whole hour.

Henri also worked for a sports paper. He helped start the Tour de France. This big race helped people see the shape of France.

He wanted everyone to be healthy. He thought people should exercise every day. He even ran for an hour each day.

During a big war, Henri was a soldier. He was over fifty years old. He fought to help his country.

Henri loved the challenge of sports. He lived a life of hard work.

Henri Desgrange was a fast bicycle racer.

He set twelve world records on bike tracks. One was the hour record. This means he rode as far as possible in sixty minutes. He also loved long rides. He started the Audax movement in 1904. This group helps people do long rides on bikes. Now, people use Audax rules for swimming and skiing too.

Henri was also a sports writer. He worked for a paper called L'Auto. He helped start the Tour de France in 1903. This big race was a huge success. It helped people learn the shape of France. The race maps showed the country looks like a hexagon.

Henri was a very tough man. He believed people must exercise to stay healthy. He often ran for an hour each day. Even during a big war, he stayed active. He was over fifty years old when he became a soldier. He fought for his country and won an award for his bravery.

He was a strict boss. He made many rules for his races. He wanted riders to show great strength and grit.

Henri Desgrange was a famous French bicycle racer and sports journalist.

He was a very talented athlete who loved speed. Desgrange set twelve world track cycling records during his career. One of his greatest feats was the hour record on May 11, 1893. He rode for sixty minutes at the Buffalo velodrome in Paris. He also held records for riding 50 km and 100 km. He even became a champion on a tricycle in 1893. These achievements showed his great skill and endurance on two wheels.

Desgrange was also a leader in the world of sports writing. He became the editor of a newspaper called L'Auto-Vélo in 1900. Later, the paper was renamed L'Équipe. He used this paper to help start the Tour de France in 1903. This idea actually came from his journalist, Géo Lefèvre. The race was a massive success for the newspaper. Before the race, the paper sold 25,000 copies. After the race, sales jumped to 65,000 copies. By 1933, the paper sold 854,000 copies during the Tour.

Running the Tour de France was not always easy for him. Desgrange was a very strict boss who made his own rules. He believed riders should show great strength and grit. In 1904, the French cycling authority tried to punish riders heavily. Desgrange thought their penalties were too much. He even feared the race might end because of these arguments. However, he kept running the Tour for another thirty years. He managed the race with a very firm hand.

Desgrange also wanted to help people stay healthy through exercise. He created the Audax movement in 1904 to encourage long rides. This movement started with cycling but grew much larger. In 1913, people started using Audax rules for swimming. Later, the rules were used for rowing and even skiing. He wanted people to challenge themselves against being lazy. He believed that physical effort helped build a person's character.

His work helped change how people saw their own country. In the early 1900s, many French people did not know their geography well. The maps printed for the Tour de France showed the race route. These maps helped people see that France has a hexagon shape. This helped make the idea of the "hexagon" very common. Even during the First World War, Desgrange was very brave. He was over 50 years old when he joined the army. He fought as an ordinary soldier and won the Croix de Guerre for his bravery.

Henri Desgrange was a prominent French bicycle racer and influential sports journalist.

He is most famous for founding the Tour de France, one of the world's greatest athletic events. Desgrange was also a record-breaking athlete in his own right. He set twelve world track cycling records throughout his career. On May 11, 1893, he set the prestigious hour record at the Buffalo velodrome in Paris. He also established records for distances of 50 km, 100 km, and 100 miles. In that same year, he became a tricycle champion. His life combined the physical grit of a racer with the organizational power of a media leader.

Desgrange's career in journalism began through competition and business necessity. He was unhappy with the leading sports paper, Le Vélo. He felt its advertising rates and political stances were problematic. This led him to become the editor of a new competitor, L'Auto-Vélo, in October 1900. After a legal dispute regarding the name, it was renamed L'Auto. This newspaper became the platform for his greatest creation. In 1903, his journalist Géo Lefèvre suggested a massive cycling race. Desgrange used the paper to announce and promote the Tour de France. The race transformed the newspaper's reach. Circulation rose from 25,000 copies before the race to 65,000 after the first edition. By 1923, daily sales reached 500,000 copies. Eventually, in 1933, the paper reached a record circulation of 854,000 copies.

Managing the Tour de France was a complex and often difficult task. Desgrange acted as a strict authority who imposed his own rules. He often clashed with the Union Vélocipédique Française (UVF), the official French cycling authority. In 1904, the UVF disqualified the first four riders of the Tour. This included Maurice Garin, who had already been fined 500 francs for taking food in a restricted area. Desgrange was angry because the UVF withheld documents and acted months after the event. He feared the controversy would kill the race. He even wrote that the Tour de France was "finished" due to these suspicions. However, he did not give up. He continued to run the race for another three decades with a very firm hand.

Desgrange's leadership style was known for being uncompromising and demanding. He believed that true sport required extreme tenacity and even pain. This "draconian" approach sometimes led to conflict with the athletes. In 1920, the famous rider Henri Pélissier left the race because Desgrange penalized him two minutes for a flat tire. In 1924, Pélissier and two others walked out of the race in Coutances. They were protesting rules regarding whether riders could remove clothing in the heat. Desgrange dismissed Pélissier as a "pigheaded, arrogant champion." Other riders, like Marcel Bidot, described Desgrange as a boss who tolerated no disagreement.

Beyond cycling, Desgrange founded the Audax movement in 1904. This movement was inspired by long-distance endurance riding. He wanted to encourage and regulate people who challenged themselves to ride great distances in set times. The movement began with Audax Français to organize such events in France. It grew from cycling into many other physical disciplines. In 1913, the movement expanded to include swimming through "Audax brevets," or certificates. It later included rowing and, much later in 1985, skiing. This movement helped create a global community of endurance athletes through the Union des Audax Parisien.

Desgrange was also a passionate advocate for national health and physical education. He believed that a lack of physical fitness had weakened France during the Franco-Prussian war. He fought against "Original Inertia," which he saw as the softening of the body in modern society. He practiced what he preached by running for at least an hour every day. He often ran up the fierce slope of Jardies hill in the Parc de St-Cloud. This commitment to physical effort was meant to build character and stoicism. He even trained thousands of soldiers for the Front at the start of the First World War.

Even during the First World War, Desgrange showed immense personal bravery. Although he was over 50 years old, he enrolled as an ordinary soldier, known as a "poilu." He served in combat and was awarded the Croix de Guerre. During this time, he used the pseudonym "Desgrenier" to continue his writing. After the war, he returned to edit L'Auto and restore the Tour de France. His work had a lasting impact on how people viewed their country. By printing maps of the race routes, the Tour helped people visualize the shape of France. This helped popularize the idea of France as a "hexagon."