The Horton Collection - Goggles & Dust: Images from Cyclings Glory Days

THE HORTON COLLECTION Copyright 2014 by Shelly and Brett Horton All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America by VeloPress, a division of CompetitorGroup, Inc. 3002 Sterling Circle, Suite 100 Boulder, Colorado 80301-2338 USA (303) 440-0601 Fax (303) 444-6788 E-mail Distributed in the United States and Canada by Ingram Publisher Services A Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-1-937715-29-8 eISBN 978-1-937716-63-9 For information on purchasing VeloPress books, please call (800) 811-4210, ext. 2138, or visit www.velopress.com. 3.1 On the cover: Jef Demuysere and Gaston Rebry, 1929 Tour de France Wheel to wheel on the Col Bayard, stage 14 The authors gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of the Bibliothque nationale de France, the moral rights holder of many of the photographs in this book. 3.1 On the cover: Jef Demuysere and Gaston Rebry, 1929 Tour de France Wheel to wheel on the Col Bayard, stage 14 The authors gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of the Bibliothque nationale de France, the moral rights holder of many of the photographs in this book.

A note to readers: Double-tap on photographs to enlarge them to full screen size. For Trevor INTRODUCTION From the turn of the 20th century through the late 1930s, cycling was an important part of a magical era. Bicycle racing, particularly stage racing over Europes snow-covered peaks and along its unmade roads, quickly became the continents most popular sport, creating an ambience that was both grueling and romantic. While the names of the great riders were celebrated with increasing fervor in the daily press, the races devised to showcase their abilities became diabolically difficult. To draw crowds and sell newspapers, race directors sought the most difficult routes, the highest passes, the hardest conditions, the longest distances. The 1926 Tour de France, for example, spanned 5,745 kilometers, or 3,570 miles, over a mere 17 stages.

Todays much more humane and realistic races, by contrast, run about 3,400 kilometers over 21 stages. The giants of the sport endured all this and more, and their names have been carved into cycling immortality. Many are represented here, including Andr Leducq, Georges Speicher, Ren Vietto, Nicolas Frantz, Learco Guerra, Ottavio Bottecchia, Maurice Garin, Antonin Magne, Roger Lapbie, Eugne Christophe, Lucien Buysse, Honor Barthlmy, and Maurice De Waele. The events these riders contested made them the leading sports heroes of their time, and their feats and legacy have been celebrated in cycling literature ever since. Yet while written accounts of the races have been told and retold over the years, the photographs from this period have become increasingly scarce. As commercial photo libraries have become consolidated over the decades, and as the conversion to digital archiving has enforced a de facto selectivity, the variety and number of images available for general viewing have shrunk.

This consolidation of available photographs has had a pernicious effect on our appreciation of the sport because the contemporary images of the events and people capture the soul of bicycle racing in a way that is nearly impossible with words alone. It is only when one studies the etched lines on the faces of the riders as they toil up a rutted, muddy mountain road that one appreciates the true difficulty of the eras contests. And as we linger over the images, we then notice the joy in the eyes of the fans, both young and old, who stand along those same roads to cheer and encourage their heroes. The story further unfolds when we see the slumped shoulders of the defeated rider, the joyous upthrust arms of the victor coming across the finish line, the concerned mother watching the peloton that includes her son race by the doorstep of the family home. All provide gripping glimpses of the impact of the sport on the lives of the competitors and their fans during a time that witnessed incredible advances across nearly every facet of life while it devastated the land with two catastrophic wars. Emerging from the ashes of World War I, cycling did its part to unite communities and countries, providing a sense of hope and normalcy on the heels of a very challenging time in history.

Races across Europe, particularly the Tour de France, embraced riders from many countries. The races gave reasons to celebrate life. Despite the difficult conditions, communities would come together to prepare their village for the passing of the peloton. While resources were meager, a towns citizens would break out their finest clothes, often well-worn and carefully mended, to celebrate the arrival of a race. The effects of war and the economic depression that followed are clear to see, both in the racers clothing and equipment and in the conditions of the places they visited. As much as we treasure the photographic evidence of these times, I must admit that my wife, Shelly, and I never set out to collect original vintage bicycle racing prints.

In fact, the only reason we initially acquired them was to document and help authenticate some of the older racing jerseys and accessories in our collection. However, life has a way of leading one in strange and often wonderful directions. Through nothing more than dumb luck, over the course of several years we were able to assemble an ever-increasing number of original photographs and negatives that focus exclusively on racing from the late 1800s through the 1970s. We found photos at auction, through other collectors, and at flea markets while also acquiring the photo archives of a few defunct periodicals. It wasnt until recently that we began to inventory the photos and realized we had amassed more than 350,000 original images! Today, for us, it is an absolutely transcendent experience to sit down with a folder containing a stack of images of a specific rider from many years ago. In these photos, careers are captured and brought to life.

In some cases we may have five or six photos of a rider, whereas for others we have collected several thousand. It is in those comprehensive folders that you see the fresh-faced amateur who turns pro, rides to many triumphs, and then ages before your eyes. For many of cyclings champions, the end of their racing did not mean an end to their relationship with the bike. Many went on to be part of race organizations, to run teams of their own, or to open bicycle shops in their hometowns. The longer Shelly and I have had the opportunity to enjoy these photos in our care, the more special they have become and the more we have come to realize what an honor it is to have stewardship of them. To introduce our son, Trevor, to these images and to watch his interest grow has made the collection even more rewarding.

For this book, we focused narrowly on the first four decades of the last century, striving always to find dramatic images that not only were representative of the races of their time but also have not been widely reproduced. In fact, most of these images have not been printed since they first appeared in the newspapers and periodicals of the day. We tried to select the best available representation of each image. In some cases, we have both the original negative and multiple enlargements to sort through. In other cases, a lone and sometimes damaged print is the sole artifact available. Which brings up the somewhat thorny issue of originality.