Race Details
In the first stages, the cyclists remained close to each other. Aimé Dossche won the first stage, and kept the lead for the next two stages. In the fourth stage, Maurice Dewaele and Louis De Lannoy escaped from the bunch. De Lannoy won the stage, while Dewaele took over the lead in the general classification.
In the seventh stage, Dewaele had two flat tires, and was not in the first group. Three man from that first group now shared the lead. There was no rule for this situation, so all three cyclists were given the yellow jersey in the next stage. In stage eight, this situation was solved, as Gaston Rebry took over the lead.
In the ninth stage, the first mountain stage, Lucien Buysse, the winner of the 1926 Tour de France and now racing as a touriste-routier, took the lead early in the race, and mounted the Aubisque first. In the descent, Dewaele and Victor Fontan caught him. Dewaele then punctured and lost eight minutes. Fontan was caught by the Spaniard Salvador Cardona, but his second place in the stage gave him the lead in the general classification. Fontan is the second-oldest yellow-jersey wearing cyclist in the Tour de France, behind Eugène Christophe. In the tenth stage, after only seven kilometers Fontan broke his fork. Some sources say he hit a dog, others say he fell in a gutter. He is said to have knocked on every door of a small town before he found a replacement bicycle. According to the rules, he had to finish the race with the bicycle he started with, so he strapped the broken bicycle to his back, and rode for 145 through the Pyrénées with a broken bicycle on his back, before he finally gave up.
After that tenth stage, Maurice Dewaele was leading the general classification. One hour before the start of the fifteenth stage, he collapsed. The Alcyon team asked for the stage to be started one hour later, which was granted. Dewaele was literally dragged on his bicycle, and his team mates rode shoulder-to-shoulder to prevent opponents from attacking. At the end of the stage, his team mates had helped him so much that he had lost only 13 minutes to the winner, finishing in 11th place. In the sixteenth stage, Dewaele became better, and only Charles Pélissier could win time on him.
After the race was over, Jef Demuysere received 25 minutes penalty time in the general classification because he had taken drinks where this was not allowed. This moved him from the second place in the general classification to the third place.
Read more about this topic: 1929 Tour De France
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