Early Life
Raymond Poulidor was the son of Martial and Maria Poulidor, small farmers outside the hamlet of Masbaraud-Mérignat, where the Creuse region east of Limoges meets the département of Haute-Vienne. He was born in the same year that his eventual directeur sportif, Antonin Magne, became world road race champion. Poulidor began working on the farm where, he remembered, "the soil was poor and we had to work hard; farming incomes were poor." The need for working hands on the farm meant he left school at 14 even though he wanted to continue his studies. Local entertainment went little further than village fairs, with coconut shies, sack-races, competitions for bottles of home-made jam... and inter-village cycle races.
| “ | My brothers, who were two and three years older than me, used to take part in these races. I would go by bike to watch. Sometimes I would ride home with the winner of the race, his winner's wreath on the bag on his back. In my head, it was me; the winner. I also wanted to race. I also wanted to bring bouquets home with me. That's what drove me. As soon as I was old enough, to the great disapproval of my mother, I went in for races. She was afraid of crashes. So when they happened, I never mentioned them. Unfortunately she found out when she found my bed sheets stained with blood. | ” |
Poulidor rode on a bike given to him by André Marquet, who ran a cycle shop in nearby Sauviat-sur-Vige. Marquet took Poulidor to his first races by motorcycle.
Success on a local level came quickly and Poulidor added the money he won - which he said could be considerable at the time because the crowd put up prizes all through the race - to the family's income. He acquired his first racing licence when joined La Pédale Marchoise at La Forêt-Montboucher when he was 17. He came seventh in his first race, at St-Mareil. He wanted to ride the local round of a national youth competition called the Premier Pas Dunlop. It fell in the middle of harvest, however, and Poulidor could train only at night after 15 hours in the fields. He raced for three years as an amateur, once beating Louison Bobet.
It was only when Poulidor was taken into the army for compulsory national service in 1955 that he first travelled in a train. Pierre Chany, a French reporter who followed 49 Tours de France, drew the comparison with Poulidor's eventual rival, Jacques Anquetil: by the time Poulidor first stepped into a train, Anquetil had already been to Helsinki, ridden the Olympic Games, won a medal for France, turned professional and won the Grand Prix des Nations. Yet there was less than two years between them.
The army sent Poulidor to the war then going on in Algeria, where he worked as a driver and put on 12 kg through lack of exercise. In 1960 he dedicated himself to cycling again and lost the weight in a month. He won his first race after army service by six minutes. When he then came second in the GP de Peyrat-le-Château and won 80,000 old francs, he calculated that he had won more in one race than he would have earned in six years on the farm.
| “ | I had never seen as much money all in one pile. | ” |
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—Raymond Poulidor, quoted by Vélo Magazine |
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His farming background went before him and whenever he won a prize, other riders would laugh: "Hey, Pouli can buy himself another cow!" Poulidor referred to his background throughout his career, once remarking: "No race, however difficult, goes on as long as a harvest."
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