Race Details
In the first stage, the Alcyon-team suffered twenty punctures. The Dilecta-Wolber team won the first stage, led by Francis Pélissier, who was the first leader of the general classification. In the sixth stage, Francis Pélissier abandoned sick. His team mate Ferdinand Le Drogo became the new leader. In the seventh stage, Le Drogo was in the yellow jersey in the region where he was born. His supporters cheered for him, and he got excited and sped away from his team mates. That costed him too much energy, and he lost 20 minutes in that stage to the J.B. Louvet team, so the lead was transferred to Hector Martin, from the J.B. Louvet team. In stage 8, the Dilecta team lost more than one hour, and they saw nothing left to win, and abandoned the race. At the end of stage 9, the when the first group of team-time-trials stopped, there were only 57 cyclists left in the race, 35 of which were touriste-routiers, and only 22 had sponsors.
The first mountain stage was stage eleven. In that stage, touriste-routier Michele Gordini escaped secretly from the peloton. When the peloton found out he was away, he had already built a 45-minute advantage, and was the virtual leader of the race. Then he suffered from mechanical problems, and was passed before the end of the stage. Frantz won the stage, and took the yellow jersey.
In stages 12 and 13, Frantz finished in the leading group. Stage 14 was run in the team-time-trial format, and did not cause big changes in the general classification. Frantz then won the fifteenth stage and finished second in the sixteenth stage, and increased his lead to more than one hour. In the seventeenth stage, Frantz lost 15 minutes to second-placed Maurice De Waele, but because this was the last mountain stage, he had practically secured the victory.
The rest of the stages did not cause big changes in the general classification. The only exception was the 23rd stage, where De Waele lost more than half an hour, but his margin to the third-placed rider was large enough.
Read more about this topic: 1927 Tour De France
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