Origins
Robic has always been described as a Breton but he was born in the Ardennes region of France, where his father had found work as a carpenter.
| “ | "I was born in the Ardennes by mistake," Robic always insisted | ” |
his father having lived in Brittany before he moved. His father was a racing cyclist and passed the interest to his son. Robic moved to Brittany when he was seven and lived at Radenac. His childhood home is in a street now named for him.
Robic moved to Paris In February 1940 and became a cycle mechanic for the Sausin company. He started racing but made a poor impression on journalists. René de Latour of Sporting Cyclist wrote:
If anybody had told you or me in 1939 that this skinny kid of 17, with ears large enough to be of help with a back wind blowing—if we had been told that here was a future winner of the Tour de France, we would just have laughed. When his name first became known to journalists, he quickly became known as le farfadet de la lande bretonne—the hobgoblin of the Brittany moor. His arrival in the Paris area was not sensational. Robic won a few races out in the villages but this did not mean much. We had hundreds of boys like him in France.
Read more about this topic: Jean Robic
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