1929 Tour de France

A sick De Waele wins, Fontan carries his broken bike, and the trade teams are shown the door.

The 1929 Tour de France was the 23rd edition, held from 30 June to 28 July over 22 stages and 5,286 km. Nicolas Frantz was chasing a third straight win and Lucien Buysse another title, but the race was won by the Belgian Maurice De Waele, despite his being ill during the race. Its most famous episode came on stage 10 in the Pyrenees, when yellow jersey Victor Fontan crashed and broke his forks; the rules required finishing on the bike you started with, so he went from house to house to borrow one, rode 145 km with the broken machine strapped to his back, and quit in tears that night. The rule was scrapped for 1930. Unhappy that the strong Alcyon team had carried a sick rider to victory, the organisers replaced sponsored teams with national and regional teams from 1930.