The First domestique
Dargassies rode the Tour in 1905. There he met another rider, Henri Pépin, a prosperous landowner from Gontaud-de-Nogaret, east of Bordeaux. The two made a deal that Dargassies and another rider, Henri Gauban, would pace Pépin round the 1907 event. Instead of racing, they would take their time, stop at good restaurants, spend the night in the best hotels they could find. In return, Pépin would pay his helpers what they would have received had they won the race.
As hired hands sacrificing their own hopes for their leader's, Dargassies and Gauban became cycling's first domestiques, although the word wasn't coined until later.
The three riders never separated. They took 12 hours and 20 minutes longer than Émile Georget on the stage from Roubaix to Metz and the judges were powerless because the race was decided not on time but points. It mattered not what speed riders managed than the order in which they crossed the line. The judges had to wait for everyone. Pépin pulled out between Lyon and Grenoble on stage five, paid the money he had promised and set off for the train home. Dargassies joined him. Gauban pulled out on the 11th. It was Dargassies' last Tour.
Read more about this topic: Jean Dargassies