Claim A says A boy at a forge cost a Tour rider 10 minutes in 1913. Claim B says A 1913 Tour rider was fined for borrowing a spare bicycle. Claim A is true, and Claim B is completely made up.
The rider was Frenchman Eugène Christophe, and the setting was Stage 6 of the 1913 Tour de France, deep in the Pyrenees. He had just crested the Tourmalet with a lead of 18 minutes over his rivals.
Then he discovered his front fork had snapped. Tour rules banned outside help, so there was no team car, no spare bike, and no friendly mechanic.
Christophe shouldered the damaged bike and walked down the mountain to Sainte-Marie-de-Campan. By his own account, it took him about two hours just to reach a blacksmith's forge.
He repaired the fork himself, but a young boy, said in Tour lore to be about seven years old, worked the bellows to keep the fire hot. Race officials spotted the help and slapped him with the penalty. Christophe still finished 7th overall, and today a plaque marks the forge and a statue honors him in town.
As for Claim B, nobody fined Christophe for borrowing a spare bike. He had no spare at all, and his penalty came from the boy's help at the forge.
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