1983 tour de france bike

1983 Tour de France

70th edition: july 1- july 24, 1983, results, stages with running gc, map, photos and history.

1982 Tour | 1984 Tour | Tour de France Database | 1983 Tour Quick Facts | 1983 Tour de France Final GC | Stage results with running GC | Time bonuses earned | The Story of the 1983 Tour de France

Les Woodland's book Cycling Heroes: The Golden Years is available as an audiobook here .

1983 Tour de France quick facts:

3,862 kilometers divided into 22 stages plus a prologue individual time trial. Average speed was 35.915 km/hr

There were 140 starters and 88 classified finishers.

Tendinitis prevented 1982 winner Bernard Hinault from starting the 1983 Tour.

Peugeot rider Pascal Simon became the Yellow Jersey after stage 10, the only Pyrenean stage. The next day Simon crashed and broke his shoulder blade.

Simon continued riding, keeping the lead while suffering terrible pain.

23-year-old Laurent Fignon stalked him, but didn't attack, waiting for the inevitable collapse. The collapse came in stage 17 with its six Alpine ascents where Simon abandoned.

Fignon became the leader, holding the Yellow Jersey until the end.

Fignon's only stage victory was the final time trial.

Complete Final 1983 Tour de France General Classification

• Angel Arroyo (Reynolds) @ 4min 4sec
• Peter Winnen (TI-Raleigh) @ 4min 9sec
• Lucien van Impe (Metauromobili) @ 4min 16sec
• Robert Alban (La Redoute-Motobecane) @ 7min 53sec
• Jean-René Bernaudeau (Wolber) @ 8min 59sec
• Sean Kelly (SEM-Mavic-Reydel) @ 12min 9sec
• Marc Madiot (Renault) @ 14min 55sec
• Phil Anderson (Peugeot) @ 16min 56sec
• Henk Lubberding (TI-Raleigh) @ 18min 55sec
• Joaquim Agostinho (SEM-Mavic-Reydel) @ 19min
• Jonathan Boyer (SEM-Mavic-Reydel) @ 19min 57sec
• Stephen Roche (Peugeot) @ 21min 30sec
• Robert Millar (Peugeot) @ 23min 29sec
• Pedro Delgado (Reynolds) @ 25min 44sec
• Edgar Corredor (Colombia-Varta) @ 26min 8sec
• Patrocinio Jimenez (Colombia-Varta) @ 28min 5sec
• Claude Criquielion (Euro Shop-Splendor) @ 33min 29sec
• Jacques Michaud (Coop-Mercier-Mavic) @ 35min 34sec
• Christian Seznec (Wolber) @ 39min 49sec
• Pierre Bazzo (Coop-Mercier-Mavic) @ 40min 34sec
• Beat Breu (Cilo-Aufina) @ 43min 53sec
• Joop Zoetemelk (Coop-Mercier-Mavic) @ 47min 40sec
• Eric Caritoux (SEM-Mavic-Reydel) @ 52min 56sec
• Jean-Luc Vandenbroucke (La Redoute-Motobecane) @ 54min 8sec
• Dominique Arnaud (Wolber) @ 57min 23sec
• Gerard Veldscholten (TI-Raleigh) @ 1hr
• Kim Andersen (Coop-Mercier-Mavic) @ 1hr 2min 58sec
• Theo De Rooy (TI-Raleigh) @ 1hr 5min 41sec
• Marc Durant (Wolber) @ 1hr 9min 28sec
• Antonio Ferretti (Cilo-Aufina) @ 1hr 11min 33sec
• Pierre Le Bigaut (Coop-Mercier-Mavic) @ 1hr 14min 22sec
• Alain Vigneron (Renault-Elf-Gitane) @ 1hr 18min 13sec
• Bernard Gavillet (Cilo-Aufina) @ 1hr 21min 6sec
• Didier Vanoverschelde (Le Redoute-Motobecane) @ 1hr 24min 19sec
• Patrick Clerc (SEM-Mavic-Reydel) @ 1hr 25min 40sec
• Adrie van der Poel (Aernoud-Hoonved) @ 1hr 29min 53sec
• Patrick Bonnet (Wolber) @ 1hr 31min 53sec
• Alfio Vandi (Metaurobili) @ 1hr 39min 59sec
• Dominique Garde (Peugeot) @ 1hr 33min 50sec
• Philippe Leleu (Wolber) @ 1hr 34min 8sec
• Frits Pirard (Metaurobili) @ 1hr 39min 22sec
• Raymond Martin (Coop-Mercier-Mavic) @ 1hr 40min 25sec
• Abelardo Rios (Colomia-Varta) @ 1hr 40min 59sec
• Christian Jourfan (La Redoute-Motobecane) @ 1hr 42min 45sec
• Celestino Prieto (Reynolds) @ 1hr 46min 8sec
• Philippe Chevalier (Renault-Elf-Gitane) @ 1hr 50min 10sec
• Ludwig Wijnants (Boule d'Or-Colnago) @ 1hr 50min 12sec
• Paul Haghedooren (Euro Shop-Splendor) @ 1hr 51min 17sec
• Hubert Linard (Peugeot) @ 1hr 53min 15sec
• Anastasio Greciano (Reynolds) @ 1hr 53min 52sec
• Lucien Didier (Renault-Elf-Gitane) @ 1hr 54min 45sec
• Bernard Bourreau (Peugeot) @ 1hr 54min 46sec
• Jesus Hernandez (Reynolds) @ 1hr 58min 39sec
• Carlos Hernandez (Reynolds) @ 1hr 58min 39sec
• Charly Berard (Renault-Elf-Gitane) @ 1hr 59min 5sec
• Samuel Cabrera (Colombia-Varta) @ 2hr 3min 48sec
• Bernard Vallet (La Redoute-Motobecane) @ 2hr 4min 2sec
• Gilbert Duclos-Lasalle (Peugeot) @ 2hr 5min 18sec
• Claude Moreau (Coop-Mercier-Mavic) @ 2hr 6min 10sec
• Pascal Jules (Renault-Elf-Gitane) @ 2hr 6min 29sec
• Jacques Bossis (Peugeot) @ 2hr 6min 50sec
• Hendrik Devos (Euro Shop-Splendor) @ 2hr 7min 46sec
• Alfonso Lopez (Colombia-Varta) @ 2hr 9min 42sec
• Dominique Gaigne (Renault-Elf-Gitane) @ 2hr min 58sec
• Jean-François Rodriguez (Wolber) @ 2hr 10min 29sec
• Rudy Rogiers (Aernoudt-Hoonved) @ 2hr 10min 38sec
• Jan Wynants (Boule d'Or-Colnago) @ 2hr 10min 53sec
• Graham Jones (Wolber) @ 2hr 25min 3sec
• Eugène Urbany (Boule d'Or-Colnago) @ 2hr 16min 43sec
• Serge Demierre (Cilo-Aufina) @ 2hr 19min 33sec
• Johan Lammerts (TI-Raleigh) @ 2hr 21min 15sec
• Ludo De Keulenaer (TI-Raleigh) @ 2hr 22min 37sec
• Eric Dall'Armelina (SEM-Mavic-Reydel) @ 2hr 25min 54sec
• Enrique Aja (Reynolds) @ 2hr 29min 49sec
• Jean-Louis Gauthier (Coop-Mercier-Mavic) @ 2hr 32min 15sec
• Guy Janiszewski (Boule d'Or-Colnago) @ 2hr 35min 19sec
• Frédéric Brun (Peugeot) @ 2hr 44min 0sec
• Laurent Biondi (La Redoute-Motobecane) @ 2hr 44min 4sec
• Jan van Houwelingen (Boule d'Or-Colnago) @ 2hr 45min 47sec
• Henri Manders (Aernoudt-Hoonved) @ 2hr 45min 47sec
• Marc Dierickx (Aernoudt-Hoonved) @ 2hr 57min 16sec
• Julius Thalmann (Cilo-Aufina) @ 3hr 1min 48sec
• Erich Mächler (Cilo-Aufina) @ 3hr 16min 31sec
• Gilbert Glaus (Cilo-Aufina) @ 3hr 33min 56sec
• Guy Gallopin (La Redoute-Motobecane) @ 3hr 34min 57sec
• Marcel Russenberger (Cilo-Aufina) @ 3hr 42min 7sec
• Marcel Laurens (Aernoudt-Hoonved) @ 4hr 2min 46sec

Climbers' Competition:

• Patrocinio Jimenez (Colombia-Varta): 195
• Robert Millar (Peugeot): 157
• Pedro Delgado (Reynolds): 133
• Jean-René Bernaudeau (Wolber) 125
• Angel Arroyo (Reymolds): 121
• Jacques Michaud (Coop-Mercier-Mavic): 117
• Edgar Corredor (Colombia-Varta): 110
• Peter Winnen (TI-Raleigh): 105

Points Competition:

• Frits Pirard (Metauromobili): 144
• Laurent Fignon (Renault): 126
• Gilbert Glaus (Cilo-Aufina): 122
• Pierre Le Bigaut (Coop-Mercier-Mavic): 103

White Jersey for rider in his first Tour de France

Most Aggressive Rider

• Serge Demierre (Cilo-Aufina): 38 points
• Christian Jourdan (La Redoute): 33
• Pierre Le Bigaut (Coop-Mercier-Mavic): 26

Team Classification:

• TI-Raleigh: 322hr 39min 7sec
• Coop-Mercier-Mavic @ 4min 2sec
• Peugeot @ 9min 3sec
• SEM-Mavic-Reydel @ 30min 13sec

Time bonuses earned by the top ten riders:

• Laurent Fignon : 2min 42sec
• Angel Arroyo: 1min 4sec
• Peter Winnen: 2min 15sec
• Lucien van Impe: 56sec
• Robert Alban: 1min 20sec
• Jean-René Bernaudeau: 2min 10sec
• Sean Kelly: 5min 47sec
• Marc Madiot: 2min 2sec
• Phil Anderson : 4min
• Henk Lubberding: 40sec

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1983 Tour de France stages, results and running General Classification

Prologue: Friday, July 1, Fontenay sous Bois 5.5 km Individual Time Trial

• Eric Vanderaerden: 7min 2sec
• Bert Oosterbosch @ 2sec
• Jean-Luc Vandenbroucke @ 4sec
• Kim Andersen @ 6sec
• Joop Zoetemelk s.t.
• Stephen Roche s.t.
• Phil Anderson @ 10sec
• Regis Clere s.t.
• Pascal Poisson @ 11sec
• Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle @ 12sec

GC: same as prologue time.

Stage 1: Saturday, July 2, Nogent sur Marne - Créteil, 163 km

• Frits Pirard: 3hr 49min 38sec
• Jena-Louis Gauthier s.t.
• Pascal Jules s.t.
• Patrick Bonnet s.t.
• Benny Van Brabant s.t.
• Etienne De Wilde s.t.
• Didier Vanoverschelde s.t.
• Guy Gallopin s.t.
• Johan Van der Velde s.t.
• Roger De Cnijf s.t.

GC after Stage 1:

• Eric Vanderaerden: 3hr 56min 7sec
• Sean Kelly @ 21sec
• Bert Oosterbosch @ 26sec
• Phil Anderson s.t.
• Johan Van der Velde @ 32sec
• Frits Pirard @ 36sec
• Jean-Louis Gauthier s.t.
• Jean-Luc Vandenbroucke s.t.
• Joop Zoetemelk @ 38sec

Stage 2: Sunday, July 3, Soissons - Fontaine au Pire 100 km Team Time Trial

The stage was for time bonuses. I believe real times did not apply to the GC. Zoetemelk was later found positive for dope in this stage and eventually penalized 10 minutes.

• Coop-Mercier-Mavic: 2hr 18min 59sec
• Peugeot @ 17sec
• J. Aernoudt-Hoonved s.t.
• TI-Raleigh @ 43sec
• Wolber @ 2min 11sec
• SEM-Mavic-Reydel @ 2min 16sec
• Renault @ 2min 25sec
• La Redoute @ 4min 24sec
• Cilo-Aufina @ 4min 28sec
• Reynolds @ 5min 50sec
• Euro Shop-Splendor @ 6min 8sec
• Metauromobili @ 7min 58sec
• Boule-d'Or @ 8min 17sec
• Colombia-Varta @ 10min 38sec

GC after Stage 2:

• Jean-Louis Gauthier: 3hr 52min 58sec
• Joop Zoetemelk @ 2sec
• Pierre Le Bigaut @ 4sec
• Jacques Michaud @ 8sec
• Claude Moreau @ 16sec
• Michel Laurent @ 19sec
• Pierre Bazzo @ 25sec
• Raymond Martin s.t.

Stage 3: Monday, July 4, Valenciennes - Roubaix, 152 km

• Rudy Matthijs: 3hr 46min 6sec
• Kim Andersen s.t.
• Pascal Poisson @ 2min 9sec
• Sean Kelly s.t.
• Eric Vanderaerden s.t.
• Jan Wijnants s.t.
• Charly Berard s.t.

GC after Stage 3:

• Kim Andersen: 7hr 39min 10sec
• Joop Zoetemelk @ 2min 5sec
• Claude Moreau @ 2min 19sec
• Phil Anderson @ 2min 38sec
• Eric Vanderaerden @ 2min 42sec
• Stephene Roche @ 2min 50sec
• Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle @ 2min 56sec
• Bossis @ 3min 5sec
• Pascal Simon @ 3min 8sec
• Borreau @ 3min 18sec

Stage 4: Tuesday, July 5, Roubaix - Le Havre, 300 km

• Serge Demierre: 7hr 58min 11sec
• Sean Kelly @ 4min 50sec
• Eric McKenzie s.t.
• Pascal Poisson s.t.

GC after Stage 4:

• Kim Andersen: 15hr 42min 11sec
• Eric Vanderaerden @ 1min 54sdec
• Phil Anderson @ 2min 34sec
• Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle @ 2min 44sec
• Stephen Roche @ 3min
• Jacques Bossis @ 3min 5sec
• Sean Kelly @ s.t.

Stage 5: Wednesday, July 6, Le Havre - Le Mans, 257 km

• Dominique Gaigne: 7hr 9min 53sec
• Gilbert Glaus @ 9sec
• Henri Manders s.t.
• Johan Lammerts s.t.
• Frits Pirard s.t.

GC after Stage 5:

• Kim Andersen: 22hr 52min 13sec
• Eric Vanderaerden @ 1min 50sec
• Phil Anderson @ 2min 6sec
• Claude Moreau @ 2min 7sec
• Sean Kelly @ 2min 59sec

Stage 6: Thursday, July 7, Châteaubriant - Nantes 58.5 km Individual Time Trial

• Bert Oosterbosch: 1hr 18min 34sec
• Daniel Willems @ 45sec
• Julian Gorospe @ 1min 7sec
• Jean-Luc Vandenbroucke @ 1min 8sec
• Jean-Marie Grezet @ 1min 28sec
• Sean Kelly @ 1min 29sec
• Joaquim Agostinho @ 2min 2sec
• Phil Anderson @ 2min 7sec
• Jan Van Howelingen @ 2min 12sec

GC after stage 6:

• Kim Andersen: 24hr 14min 18sec
• Phil Anderson @ 42sec
• Sean Kelly @ 57sec
• Joop Zoetemelk @ 1min 19sec
• Eric Vanderaerden @ 2min 1sec
• Jean-Luc Vandenbroucke @ 2min 5sec
• Stephen Roche @ 2min 9sec
• Adrie Van der Poel @ 2min 25sec
• Pascal Simon @ 2min 40sec
• Claude Moreau @ 2min 41sec

Stage 7: Friday, July 8, Nantes - Ile d'Oléron, 216 km

• Ricardo Magrini: 5hr 45min 37sec
• Gilbert Glaus s.t.
• Jan or Ludwig(?) Wijnants s.t.
• Adrie Van der Poel s.t.

GC after Stage 7

• Kim Andersen: 29hr 59min 55sec
• Phil Anderson @ 38sec
• Sean Kelly @ 45sec
• Eric Vanderaerden @ 1min 41sec

Stage 8: Saturday, July 9, La Rochelle - Bordeaux, 222 km.

• Bert Oosterbosch: 6hr 16min
• Hennie Kuiper @ 1sec
• Jean-René Bernaudeau @ 1min 14sec
• Eric McKenzie @ 1min 17sec
• Daniel Willems s.t.

GC after Stage 8

• Kim Andersen: 36hr 17min 12sec
• Sean Kelly @ 25sec
• Phil Anderson @ 34sec
• Hennie Kuiper @ 2min 22sec

Stage 9: Sunday, July 9, Bordeaux - Pau, 207 km

• Philippe Chevalier: 5hr 46min 42sec
• Gerard Veldscholten @ 2min 37sec
• Sean Kelly @ 2min 49sec
• Etienne de Wilde s.t.
• Steven Rooks s.t.
• Hennie Kuiper s.t.
• Pierangelo Bincoletto s.t.

GC after Stage 9:

• Sean Kelly: 42hr 6min 38sec
• Kim Andersen @ 1sec
• Phil Anderson @ 39sec
• Joop Zoetemelk @ 1min 24sec
• Jean-Luc Vandenbroucke @ 2min 10sec
• Stephen Roche @ 2min 14sec
• Hennie Kuiper @ 2min 27sec
• Pascal Simon @ 2min 45sec
• Claude Moreau @ 2min 46sec
• Daniel Willems @ 2min 47sec

Stage 10: Monday, July 11, Pau - Bagneres de Luchon, 201 km

Major climbs: Aubisque , Tourmalet , Aspin , Peyresourde

• Robert Millar: 6hr 23min 27sec
• Pedro Delgado @ 6sec
• Pascal Simon @ 1min 13sec
• Patrocinio Jimenez @ 1min 30sec
• Edgar Corredor @ 3min 40sec
• Jean-René Bernaudeau @ 4min 6sec
• Laurent Fignon @ 4min 23sec
• Jacques Michaud @ 5min 45sec
• Marc Madiot s.t.
• Robert Alban s.t.

GC after Stage 10:

• Pascal Simon: 48hr 34min 3sec
• Laurent Fignon @ 4min 22sec
• Jean-René Bernaudeau @ 5min 34sec
• Sean Kelly @ 6min 13sec
• Joop Zoetemelk @ 6min 21sec
• Jacques Michaud @ 7min 16sec
• Marc Madiot @ 7min 36sec
• Pedro Delgado @ 9min 9sec
• Phil Anderson @ 9min 22sec

Stage 11: Tuesday, July 12, Bagneres de Luchon - Fleurance, 177 km

• Régis Clére: 4hr 27min 6sec
• Christian Jourdan @ 3sec
• Frits Pirard @ 5sec
• Ludwig Wijnants @ 25sec
• Michel Laurent @ 28sec
• Adrie Van der Poel @ 33sec
• Serge Demierre s.t.
• Henk Lubberding s.t.
• Pierre Bazzo s.t.
• Pedro Delgado s.t.

GC after Stage 11:

• Pascal Simon: 53hr 3min 15sec
• Sean Kelly @ 5min 57sec
• Pedro Delgado @ 7min 32sec
• Robert Alban @ 9min 9sec
• Phil Anderson @ 9min 19sec

Stage 12: Wednesday, July 13, Fleurance - Roquefort sur Soulzon

• Kim Andersen: 7hr 17min 49sec
• Pedro Delgado @ 1sec
• Gerard Veldscholten @ 9sec
• Pascal Poisson @ 9sec
• Joaquim Agostinho @ 29sec
• Sean Kelly @ 31sec
• Laurent Fignon s.t.
• Jean René Bernaudeau s.t.
• Peter Winnen s.t.

GC after Stage 12:

• Pascal Simon: 60hr 21min 35sec
• Laurent Fignon @ 4min 14sec
• Sean Kelly @ 5min 33sec
• Pedro Delgado @ 6min 42sec
• Marc Madiot @ 7min 28sec
• Joaquim Agostinho @ 9min 19sec

Stage 13: Thursday, July 14, Roquefort sur Soulzon - Aurillac, 210 km

Major climbs: Monjaux, Montsalvy

• Henk Lubberding: 6hr 6sec
• Hubert Linard @ 30sec
• Regis Clere @ 34sec
• Johan Lammerts @ 7min 26sec
• Philippe Leleu s.t.
• Lucien Didier s.t.

GC after Stage 13:

• Pascal Simon: 66hr 34min 25sec

Stage 14: Friday, July 15, Aurillac - Issoire, 149 km

Major climb: Puy Marie

• Pierre Le Bigaut: 3hr 39min 16sec
• Theo De Rooy @ 6min 14sec
• Dominique Arnaud @ 6min 16sec
• Carlos Hernandez @ 6min 21sec
• Robert Millar @ 6min 24sec
• Phil Anderson @ 7min 7sec
• Adrie Van der Poel @ 7min 8sec
• Bernard Gavillet s.t.

GC after Stage 14:

• Pascal Simon: 70hr 21min 2sec
• Sean Kelly @ 5min 29sec
• Phil Anderson @ 9min 11sec

Stage 15: Saturday, July 16, Clemont Ferrand - Puy de Dôme 15.6 km Individual Time Trial

Major climb: Puy de Dôme.

• Angel Arroyo: 40min 43sec
• Pedro Delgado @ 13sec
• Patrocinio Jimenez @ 29sec
• Lucien van Impe @ 30sec
• Michel Laurent @ 42sec
• Edgar Corredor @ 1min 9sec
• Sean Kelly @ 1min 10sec
• Peter Winnen @ 1min 10sec
• Johan Van der Velde @ 1min 15sec
• Laurent Fignon @ 1min 48sec

55. Pascal Simon @ 5min 10sec

GC after Stage 15:

• Pascal Simon: 71hr 6min 55sec
• Laurent Fignon @ 52sec
• Pedro Delgado @ 1min 45sec
• Angel Arroyo @ 4min 24sec
• Marc Madiot @ 4min 30sec
• Jean-René Bernaudeau @ 5min 20sec
• Johan Van der Velde @ 6min 4sec
• Joaquim Agostinho @ 6min 12sec
• Peter Winnen @ 6min 18sec

Stage 16: Sunday, July 17, Issoire - St. Etienne, 144.5 km

Major climb: Côte de Lavet

• Michel Laurent: 3hr 49min 38sec
• Jean-Luc Vandenbroucke 1min 7sec
• Christian Seznec s.t.
• Pascal Poisson @ 1min 8sec
• Gerard Veldscholten s.t.
• Pierre Bazzo @ 1min 10sec
• Christian Jourdan @ 5min 27sec
• Jan Van Houwelingen @ 5min 28sec
• Marc Durant @ 6min 21sec

GC after Stage 16:

• Pascal Simon: 75hr 3min 6sec
• Laurent Fignon @ 40sec
• Sean Kelly @ 1min 21sec
• Henk Lubberding @ 4min 54sec
• Johan Van der Velde @ 6min

Stage 17 : Monday, July 18, La Tour de Pin - L'Alpe d'Huez , 223 km

Major climbs: Cucheron, Granier, Côte de la Table, Grand Cucheron, Glandon, L'Alpe d'Huez .

This is the stage Pascal Simon abandoned.

• Peter Winnen: 7hr 21min 32sec
• Jean-René Bernaudeau s.t.
• Edgar Corredor @ 57sec
• Robert Alban @ 1min 22sec
• Laurent Fignon @ 2min 7sec
• Lucien van Impe @ 2min 9sec
• Pedro Delgado @ 2min 10sec
• Raymond Martin @ 2min 42sec
• Patrocinio Jimenez @ 3min 5sec
• Gerard Veldscholten @ 3min 7sec

GC after Stage 17:

• Laurent Fignon: 82hr 27min 28sec
• Pedro Delgado @ 1min 8sec
• Jean-René Bernaudeau @ 2min 33sec
• Peter Winnen @ 3min 31sec
• Sean Kelly @ 4min 20sec
• Marc Madiot @ 4min 52sec
• Robert Alban @ 5min
• Lucien van Impe @ 5min 58sec
• Angel Arroyo @ 6min 26sec
• Henk Lubberding @ 10min 2sec

Stage 18: Wednesday, July 20, Bourg d'Oisons - Morzine, 247 km

Major climbs: Glandon, Madeleine, Aravis, Colombière, Joux-Plane

• Jacques Michaud: 7hr 45min 25sec
• Angel Arroyo @ 1min 11sec
• Edgar Corredor @ 2min 15sec
• Lucien van Impe @ 2min 16sec
• Robert Alban @ 2min 19sec
• Stephen Roche @ 2min 48sec
• Robert Millar s.t.
• Laurent Fignon @ 3min 42sec
• Jean-René Bernaudeau @ 4min 11sec

GC after Stage 18:

• Laurent Fignon: 90hr 16min 32sec
• Jean-René Bernaudeau @ 3min 2sec
• Robert Alban @ 3min 37sec
• Angel Arroyo @ 3min 55sec
• Lucien van Impe @ 4min 32sec
• Marc Madiot @ 9min 12sec
• Sean Kelly @ 10min 20sec
• Jonathan Boyer @ 12min 54sec
• Phil Anderson @ 15min

Stage 19: Thursday, July 21, Morzine - Avoriaz 15 km Individual Time Trial

Major climb: Avoriaz

• Lucien van Impe: 35min 9sec
• Stephen Roche @ 36sec
• Peter Winnen @ 49sec
• Angel Arroyo @ 55sec
• Bernard Gavillet @ 1min 19sec
• Joaquim Agostinho @ 1min 28sec
• Pedro Delgado @ 1min 37sec
• Patrocinio Jimenez s.t.
• Edgar Corredor @ 1min 44sec
• Laurent Fignon @ 1min 45sec

GC after Stage 19:

• Laurent Fignon: 90hr 53min 25sec
• Peter Winnen @ 2min 35sec
• Lucien van Impe @ 2min 48sec
• Angel Arroyo @ 3min 5sec
• Robert Alban @ 4min 11sec
• Jean-René Bernaudeau @ 4min 52sec
• Sean Kelly @ 10min 37sec
• Marc Madiot @ 11min 10sec
• Jonathan Boyer @ 14min 57sec
• Phil Anderson @ 15min 19sec

Stage 20: Friday, July 22, Morzine - Dijon, 291 km

• Philippe Leleu: 7hr 22min 56sec
• Jean-Louis Gauthier @ 9min 17sec
• Sean Kelly @ 9min 21sec
• Ludwig Wijnants s.t.

GC after Stage 20:

• Laurent Fignon: 98hr 25min 18sec
• Peter Winnen @ 2min 59sec
• Lucien van Impe 2 3min 8sec
• Angel Arroyo @ 3min 29sec
• Robert Alban @ 4min 35sec
• Jean-René Bernaudeau @ 5min 16sec
• Sean Kelly @ 10min 11sec
• Marc Madiot @ 11min 34sec
• Jonathan Boyer @ 15min 21sec
• Phil Anderson @ 15min 43sec

Stage 21: Saturday, July 21, Dijon 50 km Individual Time Trial

• Laurent Fignon: 1hr 11min 37sec
• Angel Arroyo @ 35sec
• Stephen Roche @ 37sec
• Lucien van Impe @ 1min 8sec
• Phil Anderson @ 1min 13sec
• Joaquim Agostinho @ 1min 15sec
• Adrie Van der Poel @ 1min 21sec
• Claude Criquielion @ 1min 49sec
• Sean Kelly @ 1min 59sec
• Laurent Fignon: 99hr 36min 55sec
• Angel Arroyo @ 4min 4sec
• Peter Winnen @ 4min 9sec
• Lucien van Impe @ 4min 16sec
• Robert Alban @ 7min 53sec
• Jean-René Bernaudeau @ 8min 59sec
• Sean Kelly @ 12min 10sec
• Marc Madiot @ 14min 55sec
• Phil Anderson @ 16min 56sec
• Henk Lubberding @ 18min 55sec

Stage 22: Sunday, July 24, Alfortville - Paris (Champs Elysées), 195 km

• Gilbert Glaus: 5hr 30min 56sec
• Eugene Urbany @ 1sec
• Laurent Biondi s.t.
• Dominique Gaigne s.t.

The Story of the 1983 Tour de France

This excerpt is from "The Story of the Tour de France", Volume 2. If you enjoy it we hope you will consider purchasing the book, either print eBook or audiobook. The Amazon link here will make the purchase easy.

Who could beat Hinault in the Tour? After his flawless victory in 1982 there seemed to be no one who could topple the mighty Breton. It wasn't who would stop Hinault. It was "what". That spring he won the Vuelta and the Flèche Wallonne. During the Vuelta his tendinitis flared up again. It was the same right knee that caused him to abandon the Tour in 1980. On the eve of the start of the Tour, Hinault announced that he could not start. He had to quit racing and let his body heal or risk irreparable damage. That left his Renault team without a captain. At first they thought they would go for stage wins and perhaps their Marc Madiot or Laurent Fignon could earn the Best Young Rider category. As events will show, they really didn't know what they had on their team.

The Tour was again wide open with a new crop of young riders looking to contest the race. Colombia's national team was invited, bringing in several superb climbers although only the most optimistic believed that any of them were real General Classification hopes. Merckx said that the individualistic racing style in Colombia with its solo breakaways in the mountains made them poor contenders for a high placing. The high-speed early stages over bad roads would sap their reserves and weaken them for the mountains.

Forcing the smaller climbers to drain themselves while trying to maintain a hot pace throughout the pre-climbing stages of a Tour had been a classic Merckx stage-racing tactic.

Peugeot's Phil Anderson would require watching, having come in tenth in the 1981 Tour, his first. In 1982 he was fifth, wore Yellow for 10 days and won the second stage. In the spring of 1983 he had already won Amstel Gold, the Tour de l'Aude and the Tour of America as well as a second place in the Tour of Romandie. He had 2 weaknesses. The first was his suspect climbing abilities. The second was the crucial problem of team support. While he was Peugeot's number 1 protected rider, being a man from the English-speaking world he couldn't count on the absolute commitment of his team to support him. Those were different days.

It is interesting to note that no one really had the slightest clue as to who would win the Tour. Pierre Martin gathered the prognostications of 8 of the Tour's leading experts including the great writers Philippe Brunel and Pierre Chany. The eventual winner was not on anyone's top-8 lists. The 1983 Tour was truly a cipher to all.

After the 1982 Tour had tired the riders with too many transfers, the organizers promised that the 1983 Tour would have no transfers. The promise was easy to make and difficult to keep. There were several including a long one by high-speed train before the final stage in Paris.

Belgian tough-guy Eric Vanderaerden won the Prologue and kept the lead until the stage 2 team time trial, a 100-kilometer brute. The Coop-Mercier team won giving the Yellow Jersey to Jean-Louis Gauthier. When his teammate Kim Andersen got into a break the next day and beat the field by 2 minutes, the lead migrated to the Dane, the first man of his country to ever wear Yellow. Meanwhile, Joop Zoetemelk's constant losing battle with the mass spectrograph continued. He turned up positive for dope again and was penalized his usual 10 minutes.

This was to be a Tour in which misfortune played a large part, starting with Hinault's tendinitis. A new super climber, Scotsman Robert Millar, crashed in stage 3 and lost almost 17 minutes. Any hope of a high General Classification for him ended right there. A crash caused by Vanderaerden in the Roubaix velodrome took down Phil Anderson and French champion Marc Gomez. Gomez had to retire. Because it happened in the last kilometer, even though he had to walk his bike across the finish line, Anderson lost no time.

As the racers made their way across Northern France the riders had to endure stages long enough to remind one of the early days of the Tour. Stage 4 was 300 kilometers, stage 5 was 257 kilometers. Through all of this, Kim Andersen kept the Yellow Jersey. Meanwhile, Sean Kelly had been chasing intermediate sprint bonuses and moving up the leader board. On stage 9 he managed to get the lead, but only barely. Before the stage 10 trip into the Pyrenees, here was the General Classification:

The first day in the mountains and the only Pyrenean stage was 201 kilometers from Pau to Bagnères de Luchon. The riders would face the Aubisque, the Tourmalet, the Aspin and the Peyresourde. The first 2 were rated as hors category and the second 2 were first category climbs. Van Impe led over the Aubisque but it was Robert Millar who won the stage in front of Pedro Delgado. Pascal Simon was third at 1 minute, 13 seconds and became the new Yellow Jersey. Seventh in the stage was one of Hinault's young lieutenants Laurent Fignon, who had decided to go with Simon that day, 4 minutes, 23 seconds behind Millar.

And Phil Anderson? He crashed on the Aubisque and had his shoe come off. He had to undo the double knots (cycling shoes used laces back then) before he could get the shoe back on. Meantime, none of his teammates waited for him to pace him back up to the peloton. He did make contact with the leaders before the summit of the Tourmalet, the second climb, but the effort cost him dearly. Since Kim Andersen, who was the Yellow Jersey, had not been able to follow the leaders, Phil Anderson was the virtual Yellow Jersey. And here's where the suspect support of the Peugeot team comes in to play. Even though Anderson was the virtual Tour leader, his teammate Pascal Simon attacked him. As writer John Wilcockson noted, Simon could do this simply because he was French and Anderson wasn't. With the crash and tiring chase efforts, Anderson finished twenty-fifth, 12 minutes, 41 seconds after the stage winner Millar.

Phil Anderson was demoted to being a domestique for Simon.

In the General Classification Fignon had lifted himself up to second place, 4 minutes, 22 seconds behind Simon.

The General Classification after the big Pyrenean stage:

Earlier I wrote that misfortune would be writ large on the 1983 Tour. Early in stage 11 Joaquim Agostinho took off. Pascal Simon's Peugeot teammate Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle went with him. The Peugeot team, concerned that such an accomplished rider as Agostinho was away, started pulling him back. Agostinho's SEM teammate, Jonathan Boyer, went up front to be with the Peugeot chasers. Not wanting him there interfering with the pursuit, they tried to push him back, out of the way. In the resultant crash, 2 Peugeot riders went down, Bernard Bourreau and Pascal Simon. In his first day of riding in the Yellow Jersey, Simon had crashed and broken his shoulder blade. Simon remounted and with help from his team, finished the stage in sixty-first place, in the same group as Kelly, van Impe and Fignon.

The next 6 stages were an agony for Simon as he kept the Yellow Jersey as long as he could. He really did very well as the Tour went through the Massif Central, losing only a little time to Fignon. He was aided by a perception in the peloton that it would be gauche to attack the wounded man. There was a feeling that eventually he would be forced to abandon.

In the stage 15 time trial up Puy de Dôme, Simon's having only 1 working shoulder really began to tell. Fignon closed to within 52 seconds of Simon. Simon's performance was remarkable because he had to climb the extremely steep final kilometer of the dead volcano sitting down. Phil Anderson, despite his domestique duties, had so far managed to stay in the top 10 in the General Classification. That day on the steep slopes Anderson lost another 4 minutes, ruining his chances for a place on the podium in Paris.

The new General Classification:

The sense of entitlement that colors the professional peloton's attitude towards drugs was made very clear during stage 13. Patrick Clerc of the SEM team had been riding under a suspended sentence for refusing (along with Bernard Hinault) to give a urine sample after a criterium the previous year. It was announced that Clerc was the fourth rider of the 1983 Tour to fail a drug test. His suspended sentence should have been imposed automatically. To protest this potential penalty the riders did a go-slow ride and it's said that Duclos-Lasalle rode up to Colombian rider Patrocinio Jimenez, who was off on a breakaway, and got him to join the slowdown. After trying and failing to talk the riders out of their plans to ruin the stage and desperate to avoid a riders' strike, Tour boss Lévitan capitulated and announced that the suspended sentences had been abrogated and Clerc could continue to ride.

The Pascal Simon drama had to end, and on stage 17 it did. He had earned the love and respect of the fans, but his broken shoulder kept him from participating in the final ceremony of the day where the Tour leader puts on his Yellow Jersey. Facing 6 major climbs covering 223 kilometers and ending at the top of l'Alpe d'Huez, Simon's keeping the Yellow Jersey was out of the question. Simon abandoned after 95 kilometers and 2 climbs and Fignon, who took fifth in the stage, became the Yellow Jersey.

The General Classification now stood thus:

Because Fignon had already helped Hinault win the Vuelta, Renault boss Cyrille Guimard had originally planned not to bring his 22-year old rider to the Tour. Troubled that Fignon already had 1 Grand Tour under his belt this year, Guimard was hesitant to have him ride another 3-week competition. He didn't want to run the risk of over-racing his wonderful new young talent. With Hinault out of the Tour, Guimard decided that he needed Fignon's help. He put Fignon in the Renault roster but planned to pull him the minute he looked tired. In 1984 Guimard again had Fignon ride 2 Grand Tours, this time the Giro and the Tour. Fignon had a wonderful 1984 Tour, but could not ride the Tour in 1985, nor could he compete effectively again for years. Perhaps Guimard's original instincts were correct.

There were 2 more Alpine stages, one a time trial. Fignon did not cover himself with glory but he rode well enough to keep Peter Winnen in second place. Under Guimard's direction, Fignon was riding economically and carefully.

By stage 21, the penultimate day of the 1983 Tour, Fignon had a solid lead but had failed to win a stage. A win in the 50-kilometer individual time trial at Dijon let Fignon silence his critics and show that he was a deserving winner. Phil Anderson finished ninth, the best-placed rider on his team.

At 22, Fignon was one of the youngest winners of the Tour. He also joined another exclusive club, those who had won the Tour in their first attempt. The other freshman postwar winners were Coppi, Koblet, Anquetil, Merckx, Gimondi and Hinault.

The final 1983 Tour de France General Classification:

© McGann Publishing

1983 Tour de France: results and classification

General classification of the 1983 tour de france, jerseys of the 1983 tour de france, stages of the 1983 tour de france.

Prologue (Fontenay sous Bois - Fontenay sous Bois, 5.5 km in Individual Time Trial)

Stage 1 (Nogent sur Marne - Créteil, 163 km)

Stage 2 (Soissons - Fontaine au Pire, 100 km in Team Time Trial)

Stage 3 (Valenciennes - Roubaix, 152 km)

Stage 4 (Roubaix - Le Havre, 300 km)

Stage 5 (Le Havre - Le Mans, 257 km)

Stage 6 (Chateaubriand - Nantes, 58.5 km in Individual Time Trial)

Stage 7 (Nantes - Ile d'Oléron, 216 km)

Stage 8 (La Rochelle - Bordeaux, 222 km)

Stage 9 (Bordeaux - Pau, 207 km)

Stage 10 (Pau - Bagnères-de-Luchon, 201 km)

Stage 11 (Bagnères-de-Luchon - Fleurance, 177 km)

Stage 12 (Fleurance - Roquefort sur Soulzon, 261 km)

Stage 13 (Roquefort sur Soulzon - Aurillac, 210 km)

Stage 14 (Aurillac - Issoire, 149 km)

Stage 15 (Clermont Ferrand - Puy de Dôme, 15.6 km in Individual Time Trial)

Stage 16 (Issoire - St Etienne, 144.5 km)

Stage 17 (La Tour du Pin - Alpe d'Huez, 223 km)

Stage 18 (Le Bourg-d'Oisans - Morzine, 247 km)

Stage 19 (Morzine - Avoriaz, 15 km in Individual Time Trial)

Stage 20 (Morzine - Dijon, 291 km)

Stage 21 (Dijon - Dijon, 50 km in Individual Time Trial)

Stage 22 (Alfortville - Paris/Champs Elysées, 195 km)

• Championship and cup winners
• Club honours
• World Cup: results of all matches
• Winners of the most important cycling races
• Tour de France winners (yellow jersey)
• Best sprinters (green jersey)
• Best climbers (polka dot jersey)
• Best young riders (white jersey)
• Tour de France: Stage winners
• Australian Open: Men's singles
• Australian Open: Women's singles
• Australian Open: Men's doubles
• Australian Open: Women's doubles
• Australian Open: Mixed doubles
• French Open: Men's singles
• French Open: Women's singles
• French Open: Men's doubles
• French Open: Women's doubles
• French Open: Mixed doubles
• US Open: Men's singles
• US Open: Women's singles
• US Open: Men's doubles
• US Open: Women's doubles
• US Open: Mixed doubles
• Wimbledon: Men's singles
• Wimbledon: Women's singles
• Wimbledon: Men's doubles
• Wimbledon: Women's doubles
• Wimbledon: Mixed doubles

Cycling news and humor from industry veterans

Tour de France 1983

Last time , our story left off with the ASO being seduced by the concept of a Tour de France that occurs just once every four years, like the Olympics, FIFA World Cup, and UEFA European Championships. So. Did the 1983 Tour de France happen at all?

Well. Yes. Like the ASO’s half-baked plans to make the 1982 Tour a race contested by national teams, the organizers were quickly reined in by the realization that it would be an expensive experiment. Turns out that you can’t make money from TV and sponsors if you don’t run the race.

And so the 1983 Tour de France proceeded as expected. Bernard Hinault was at the start line ready to win a record-equaling fifth Tour de France, and—wait, the Badger was NOT at the start line. Huh. Then everything was to play for!

Le Tour 1983

Let’s be clear: Hinault wanted this Tour. He started the year strong as ever, winning the Fleche Wallonne and then securing his second Vuelta title. The Vuelta was one of the more exciting races an otherwise dominant Hinault had participated in thus far, and the back and forth battle between Hinault and his Spanish rivals remains one of the most spectacular editions of the race. During the race, his tendonitis returned and despite his best efforts to recover, Hinault found himself having to sit out the Tour de France.

Hinault’s directeur sportif, Cyrille Guimard, was left without a leader for the race. Laurent Fignon had impressed as Hinault’s domestique at the Vuelta and, despite concern at the rider’s young age, Guimard reluctantly agreed to take Fignon to the Tour.

The main contenders looked to be Lucien Van Impe , Joop Zoetemelk , Phil Anderson , and, perhaps, Peter Winnen .

The race started with a prologue in the eastern suburbs of Paris, then traveled north to Roubaix and proceeded anti-clockwise around the country. As with other Tours of its era, it was heavy on the time-trials, with six in total, including one prologue, one team time-trial of 100km, and one mountain time-trial to the Puy de Dome. There was also a summit finish at the Alpe d’Huez and mountainous stages into Bagneres-de-Luchon and Morzine.

Prologue to Stage Eight (1-9 July 1983)

In the absence of serious rivals for Hinault, we’d seen several young riders make their mark on the Tour so far in the 1980s. With Hinault now absent, questions arose as to whether the youth would take the opportunity to make the next step up, or whether the winner would be an elder statesman as in 1980, when Hinault withdrew due to injury. It was 37 year old Lucien Van Impe, who won the 1976 Tour and had finished second in 1981, and 36 year old Joop Zoetemelk, who won the 1980 Tour and finished second in 1982, who looked like the most likely candidates to take Hinault’s place.

The Prologue told a different story. All three Tour prologues in the 1980s had seen the same 1-2, and for the first time we saw a new rider take a victory. It was 21 year old Eric Vanderaerden who set the fastest time on the 5.5km route around Fontenay-sous-Bois, taking the yellow jersey ahead of track racer Bert Oosterbosch and prologue specialist Jean-Luc Vandenbroucke (yes, there’s a relation: he was Frank’s uncle).

Stage One was a flat stage, won in a sprint by Frits Pirard from the Metauromobili-Pinarello. Another new name for the Tour, and the stage turned out to be Pirard’s only major victory. Maybe this Tour was one of new opportunities, rather than of second chances. In other areas, it was business as usual: Sean Kelly was already staking a claim to the green jersey with intermediate sprints, and moved up to second place overall.

The 100km team time-trial on Stage Two was a return to normality, with the TI-Ral—wait, even they didn’t win? It was the Coop-Mercier-Mavic that took the victory, ahead of Peugeot-Shell-Michelin and J. Aernoudt-Hoonved-Marc Zeep. Coop-Mercier-Mavic riders made up the entire top ten, with Jean-Louis Gauthier taking over the race lead. His teammate Joop Zoetemelk occupied second place.

A messy Stage Three into Roubaix followed, with Rudy Matthijs winning the stage ahead of Coop-Mercier-Mavic’s Kim Andersen, Pascal Poisson and Sean Kelly making up third and fourth 2’09” later, and then a bunch led by prologue winner Eric Vanderaerden 3’40” down. Andersen, only 24, became the first Dane to wear the yellow jersey.

Stage Four from Roubaix to Le Havre saw yet another new name make an impact at the 1983 Tour. Serge Demierre won ahead of Sean Kelly to take his first and only Tour stage win in an otherwise relatively unremarkable career.

Another stage, another new winner. Dominique Gaigne had form: he’d won the Vuelta’s prologue earlier in the season, so his victory on Stage Five was not entirely out of the blue. Still, in retrospect it’s obvious that this Tour was going to be a change of pace when a lad who’d soon retire to become a builder started winning stages.

A 58km individual time-trial took place on Stage Six . Bert Oosterbosch took the win. Behind him, the ‘changing of the guard’ narrative was getting a bit heavy handed: Phil Anderson overhauled the excellent time-trialist Joop Zoetemelk to leapfrog him in the overall standings. Andersen and Anderson now occupied first and second place, with Sean Kelly in third. Surely Anderson wasn’t about to deliver Australia’s first Tour win?

Riccardo Magrini had won a Giro d’Italia stage in 1983 and added a Tour stage on Stage Seven . This was to be the final of his three professional victories… but if you’re only going to win three races, two of them might as well be Giro and Tour stages. If you recognized the name, it’s because he’s now a commentator for Eurosport.

Stage Eight saw Bert Oosterbosch take his second stage of the race, and the third of his career. Cycling didn’t see a Bert this good until Contador strolled up in his compression socks.

State of Play: Kim Andersen led the race by 25 seconds over Sean Kelly, and 34 seconds over Phil Anderson. 1980 winner Joop Zoetemelk hovered in fourth place. Sean Kelly wore the green jersey, and Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle led the mountains classification. Eric Vanderaerden led the young rider classification.

Stages Nine to 17 (10-18 July, 1983)

Kim Andersen had led the race for six days, but he couldn’t make it seven. In what’s rapidly becoming a pattern, Philippe Chevallier took his first and only grand tour stage victory on Stage Nine . Behind him, Sean Kelly swept up the bunch sprint to consolidate his lead in the green jersey, but this third place came with an unexpected benefit: Kelly took over the yellow jersey by one second. Andersen and Anderson moved into second and third places respectively.

Finally, the mountains arrived on Stage Ten . Finishing in Bagneres-de-Luchon, the 200km stage shredded the peloton and destroyed the general classification. It was Philippa York, competing as Robert Millar, who crossed the line first, taking the first of her three Tour de France stage victories. York had impressed in the Dauphine to earn her place at the Tour, and had now made the first monumental step in what was to be a legendary career. Six seconds behind her, another future legend of the sport, Pedro Delgado, took second place. Pascal Simon rounded out the top three, and took the yellow jersey from Sean Kelly. Another young talent, Laurent Fignon, finished seventh on the stage, and moved all the way up to second overall, albeit 4’22” behind Simon.

A flat-ish Stage 11 followed, won by Regis Clere from a fragmented breakaway. It was largely uneventful for the general classification contenders, apart from Pedro Delgado, who made up more than a minute and a half on his rivals and moved into seventh place. Oh, and apart from race leader Pascal Simon, who crashed and broke his shoulder blade. Somehow this didn’t affect his lead, and he proceded on with his race.

Pascal Simon had a huge lead in the general classification, with a cast of youngsters plus Jean-René Bernaudeau and Joop Zoetemelk rounding out the top ten. So of course, it was time to reintroduce a different name. Kim Andersen won Stage 12 , re-taking the yellow jersey– no, just kidding. But he did win the stage, and while it was inconsequential to his own general classification dreams, Pedro Delgado took a second place that moved him up to fifth overall. He’d gained two and a half minutes on Pascal Simon in two stages, and suddenly looked a threat.

Henk Lubberding won the transitional Stage 13 , the third individual Tour de France stage victory of a career that had already seen him win the white jersey in 1978 and seven team time trials. His breakaway companions trickled across the line seven and a half minutes ahead of the peloton, to no real consequence.

Another hilly transition followed with Stage 14 , won by Pierre Le Bigaut. Somewhat predictably for the 1983 Tour, this was his first and only Tour stage victory. The top ten remained the same, bar a couple of seconds gained by Phil Anderson to move him from ninth to tenth. The overall race was looking stagnant.

Stage 15 offered an opportunity to break the top ten deadlock. Running the tough 15.6 km from Clermont-Ferrand to Puy de Dôme, the mountain time-trial climbed to the 1,465m volcanic summit. Angel Arroyo was the surprise winner, coming home 13 seconds ahead of Pedro Delgado and 29 seconds ahead of Colombian José Patrocinio Jiménez. Behind, Sean Kelly finished an unexpected seventh, and Laurent Fignon tenth.

Pascal Simon continued to lead the race, but now by just 52 seconds over Fignon. A week or so after wearing the yellow jersey, Sean Kelly sat in third place, 1’29” down. The yellow jersey remained in his reach. Delgado was fourth, Arroyo fifth, and talented climber Peter Winnen in tenth.

Another transition followed on Stage 16 . Stage race veteran Michel Laurent took the win, albeit after the race jury decided to relegate Henk Lubberding to second place following a dangerous maneuver that caused Laurent to crash into the race barriers during the sprint. Lubberding nevertheless moved up to seventh overall. Fignon and Kelly closed the gap on Simon to 40″ and 1’21” respectively.

And so to the big one. The Alpe d’Huez. Stage 17 was a 223.5km route starting in La Tour-du-Pin and finishing atop the legendary Alpe d’Huez.

We’ve included the video. Everything happens in the first 25 minutes or so. But the short story is that Peter Winnen, winner here in 1981, escaped with Jean-René Bernaudeau on the ascent. They lasted all the way to the finish line, where they sprinted for the stage win. Peter Winnen was victorious, meaning Dutch riders had won six of the Tour’s nine ascents of the Alpe.

Pascal Simon’s tenuous grip on his race lead was expected to slip here, and it did, but not in the way the fans anticipated. His broken shoulder blade proved too much, and he withdrew from the race. Fignon crossed the line in fifth place, the best of the rest, 2’07” behind Winnen and Bernaudeau. He’d earned the yellow jersey, rather than merely inheriting it. Delgado moved into second place, Bernaudeau into third, and Winnen into fourth.

State of Play: The Alpe d’Huez had shaken up the race, and Laurent Fignon and Lucien Van Impe were the clear winners: they’d claimed control of the yellow and polka dot jerseys respectively, and now had just five days left to consolidate their late leads. Meanwhile, a rampant Sean Kelly was cruising in the green jersey competition, which looked securely on his shoulders, and was also sitting in fifth overall. In the general classification, Fignon led Pedro Delgado by 1’08” and Jean-René Bernaudeau by 2’33”. The race was far from over.

Rest Day (19 July 1983)

There was just one rest day in the 1983 Tour de France. But we’re still including two songs. Crack open a Kronenbourg because you’re going to be here for eight more minutes.

Five Stages to Fignon’s First (20-24 July, 1983)

If Fignon could endure five days of attacks, he’d win the Tour aged just 22. It was a baptism of fire for the young race leader though: Stage 18 was a tough 247km through the mountains from Bourg-d’Oisans to Morzine. Not only did he weather the storm, he actually extended his lead over Bernaudeau. Unfortunately, the peloton was packed with talent and difficult to control. Angel Arroyo put 3’31” into Fignon, moving up to fifth place, while Robert Alban climbed from seventh to fourth. Fignon had held off his closest rivals, but opened the door to others. Only Delgado lost his grip on the race, entirely dropping out of the top ten. Jacques Michaud won the stage… his first and only Tour de France stage victory of his career.

Love mountain time-trials? We do too. And so did the ASO in 1983. Stage 19 was the race’s second mountain time-trial, this time from Morzine to Avoriaz for a 15km that would unsettle the general classification once more. Fignon, this time, could only manage tenth place, losing time to Winnen, Arroyo, and stage winner Lucien Van Impe. A young Stephen Roche took second place on the day.

Finally, some respite for Fignon arrived on Stage 20 . Philippe Leleu got his, you guessed it, first and only career Tour stage win with an astounding solo victory almost ten minutes ahead of the peloton. Fignon marginally extended his race lead. There was just one more stage left, and Fignon had almost three minutes over Peter Winnen in second place. Unless he rode a terrible final time-trial, he’d win the Tour. But Fignon would never ride a terrible final time-trial, right?

Right. Well, right in 1983. A second time-trial in two days, at the end of a brutal Tour, as a 22 year old who never expected to ride, suddenly dealing with the pressure of leading the race? That was nothing for Fignon. He won by 35 seconds ahead of Arroyo, and 37 ahead of Peter Winnen. Arroyo leapfrogged Winnen and Van Impe to move up to second place.

And so to the Champs Elysees. Gilbert Glaus won with, all together now, his first and only career Tour stage victory. Fignon crossed the finish line and became the youngest Tour winner since 1933. Had his team leader, Bernard Hinault, been present, he would’ve not only missed out on the opportunity to win, but wouldn’t have ridden the race at all.

Maybe there wasn’t going to be room for Hinault and Fignon on the same team…

Final Results

General Classification

Points Classification

Mountains Classification

Young Riders Classification

We don’t normally include this, but look at these names…

Tour de France Winning Bikes by Year (1903 to 2023)

36 different bike brands won the Tour de France in 110 editions. In this article, cycling fan Alex Lee breaks down the top 12 bike brands that have won at least 3 times.

Jonas Vingegaard rode a Cervélo bike to his second Tour de France overall win in 2023 with SRAM Red eTap AXS electronic groupset and Reserve Wheels.

Depending on the stage profile, Jonas Vingegaard’s bike can be a Cervelo R5, S5, or P3.

• Cervélo R5 is an all-rounder, lightweight road race bike for the mountains.
• Cervélo S5 is an aero bike for the flat stages.
• Cervélo P5 is a time trial bike that Jonas rode to win the Stage 16 ITT.

Full specifications and setup of Jonas Vingegaard’s bike.

Cervelo bikes

2023 Cervelo R5 vs S5 vs Caledonia 5 vs Soloist

Cervelo S5 Frame Geometry (2018-2023)

Cervelo Soloist Frame Geometry (2022-2023)

Cervelo Caledonia Frame Geometry (2021-2023)

Cervelo Aspero Frame Geometry (2019-2023)

2023 Cervelo R5 Size Charts and Guide

Pinarello – 15 wins

L’auto – 10 wins, peugeot – 10 wins, gitane – 9 wins, trek – 10 wins, alcyon – 7 wins, eddy merckx – 5 wins, automoto – 4 wins, bianchi – 3 wins, colnago – 3 wins, helyett – 3 wins, la sportive – 3 wins, tour de france winning bikes by year.

Throughout 110 editions (up to 2023), the Tour de France has been won by 36 different bike brands . Many of these brands are unknown to cycling fans today. Few bike brands, such as Colnago, Pinarello , Specialized , and Trek , are synonymous with cycling fans today.

The road bike industry has undergone massive change and innovation in the past 20 years by introducing new technologies such as electronic shifting , carbon fiber frames, disc brakes, and tubeless tires .

This article will go back in history and explore all the Tour de France winning bikes .

Pinarello has a long history in cycling, dating back to 19534, when it was founded by Giovanni Pinarello in Treviso, Italy. With 15 Tour de France wins, Pinarello is the most successful bike brand at the Tour de France.

Pinarello’s dominance at the Tour de France can be summed up in two eras.

• Mid-1990s. Miguel Indurain won four consecutive Tour de France from 1992 to 1995, followed by Bjarne Riis (1996) and Jan Ullrich (1997).
• Mid-2010s. Team Sky (Ineos-Grenadiers) won seven Tour de France with Bradley Wiggins (2012), Chris Froome (2013, 2015, 2016, 2017), Geraint Thomas (2018), and Egan Bernal (2019).

Today, Pinarello’s top-of-the-line bike is the Pinarello Dogma F .

L’Auto (now L’Equipe) is not a bike brand but the French newspaper that started the Tour de France in 1903.

From 1930 to 1939, Henri Desgrange, the newspaper’s owner, required all riders to paint their bikes’ downtube with L’Auto as part of the marketing campaign and publicity stunt to increase the race profile.

During that period, riders competed based on national teams, so there wasn’t any commercial conflict of interest.

Today, most of us know Peugeot as the French automotive brand. Peugeot started making bicycles way back in 1882 and won their first Tour de France with Louis Trousselier in 1905 and their last win came in 1977 with Bernard Thévenet.

In the past 50 years, the bicycle arm of Peugeot has gone through various ownership. Today it’s part of Cycleuope, which owns bike brands such as Bianchi and Gitane.

Here’s an interesting fact; Peugeot has a complete bike lineup from road to mountain, city, kids, and electric bikes.

2023 Tour de France Bikes and Gear

2023 Tour de France Sunglasses Brands and Models Guide

2023 Tour de France Helmets Brands and Models Guide

2023 Tour de France Bike Brands and Models Guide

Gitane is a French bike brand synonymous with racing from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. All nine of Gitane’s Tour de France wins occurred during this period with legendary French riders such as Bernard Hinault (4), Jacques Anquetil (2), Laurent Fignon (2), and Belgian Lucien Van Impe (1).

Today, Gitane is part of Cycleuope, which owns the Bianchi and Peugeot bike brands. Gitane produces mostly city and mountain bikes today. They don’t have much presence outside of France.

Founded in 1976, Trek is one of the leading bike brands today with its men’s and women’s World Tour teams.

Trek’s first Tour de France win was in 1999 by Lance Armstrong. For the next seven years until 2005, Lance Armstrong dominated the Tour de France, helping to raise Trek’s profile in the United States and worldwide. In 2012, all seven of Lance’s Tour de France wins were nulled.

Trek’s other three Tour de France wins were with Alberto Contador in 2007, 2009, and 2010 although the 2010 win was later nulled.

Trek offers the riders three types of road bikes; Trek Emonda (lightweight), Trek Madone (aero) and Trek Domane (endurance), and the Trek Speed Concept (TT).

Alcyon was a French bicycle, motorcycle, and automotive brand active from 1903 to 1954. They sponsored their own cycling team from 1905 to 1959 under different names such as Alcyon-Dunlop, Alcyon-Soly, Alcyon-Armor, and Alcyon-Leroux

Their first Tour de France win was in 1909 with François Faber, a Luxembourgian rider. Their last win was in 1929 with Belgian Maurice De Waele. From 1930 onwards, the Tour de France organizers required the teams to paint their bikes’ downtube with L’Auto, the newspaper that started the Tour de France.

2023 Tour de France Riders’ Gear

Wout van Aert’s Red Bull Helmet at the 2023 Tour de France

Mark Cavendish’s Sunglasses at 2023 Tour de France

Mark Cavendish’s Shoes at 2023 Tour de France

Mark Cavendish’s Bike at 2023 Tour de France

Jasper Philipsen’s Bike at 2023 Tour de France

Eddy Merckx is no stranger to cycling fans. He’s widely known as the most successful cyclist of all time , winning the Tour de France (5 times), Giro d’ Italia (5 times), and 34 Tour de France stages .

The Eddy Merckx bike brand was only started in 1980 after he retired. Eddy Merckx was riding bikes built by Masi and Kessels with his name painted on the downtube for his five Tour de France wins.

In 2008, Eddy Merckx sold all his shares in the company to Sobradis, a Belgian holding company. In 2017, another Belgian company, Race Productions, which owns Ridley Bikes, took over Eddy Merckx after struggling with sales for the past decade.

Automoto was a French bicycle and motorcycle manufacturer that started in 1902. It was the dominant bike brand in the mid-1920s, with four consecutive Tour de France wins from 1923 to 1923 with three different riders.

In 1930, it was bought by Peugeot and sadly discontinued in 1962.

Bianchi is the oldest bicycle manufacturing company today. It was founded in Italy back in 1885 by Edoardo Bianchi who was a 21-year-old medical instrument maker.

All of Bianchi’s three Tour de France wins were achieved by Italian riders. Fausto Coppi won in 1949 and 1952 and Marco Pantini won in 1998. Bianchi was present at the World Tour with Team Jumbo-Visma (2014 to 2020) and Team BikeExchange (2021.

Team Arkea-Samsic will ride the Bianchi Oltre (aero) and Bianchi Specialissima (lightweight) at the 2023 Tour de France.

Today, Bianchi bikes are known for their Celeste color, also known as Bianchi Green.

Colnago has a long history, dating back to 1952. It was founded by Ernesto Colnago near Milan, Italy. In May 2020, Chimera Investments LLC, based in the UAE, acquired a majority stake in Colnago.

Colnago’s first Tour de France win was in 1960 by Italian rider, Gastone Nencini. It was a long 60-year wait for their second win until Tadej Pogačar won two consecutive Tour de France in 2020 and 2021. He also won the Best Young Rider and Climber Classification in these two years riding the Colnago V3Rs .

In 2023, Tadej Pogačar will be riding the Colnago V4Rs in an attempt to win his third Tour de France General Classification .

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Helyett is a little-known French bicycle manufacturer started by the Picard brothers in 1926. It took its name from a lead character from a late 19th-century play, Miss Helyett, which is why the Helyett logo has a young women’s face on it.

Frenchman, Jacques Anquetil won three of his five Tour de France onboard a Helyett bike in 1957, 1961, and 1962.

La Sportive’s three Tour de France wins occurred right after World War 1, from 1919 to 1921. Right after the war, Europe was in bad shape and many bicycle manufacturers were either out of business or didn’t have the manufacturing capabilities.

The remaining brands include Alcyon, Armor, Automoto, Clément, La Française, Gladiator, Griffon, Hurtu, Labor, Liberator, Peugeot, and Thomann came together. They provided more than half the peloton with various bicycles and components so that the Tour de France can take place.

Once each brand recovered from the aftermath of World War 1, La Sportive disbanded in 1922.

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Alex Lee is the founder and editor-at-large of Mr. Mamil. Coming from a professional engineering background, he breaks down technical cycling nuances into an easy-to-understand and digestible format here.

He has been riding road bikes actively for the past 12 years and started racing competitively in the senior category during the summer recently.

Mr. Mamil's content is for educational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not a substitute for official or professional advice. Please do your own due diligence.

Mr. Mamil participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. We also participate in various other affiliate programs, and at times we earn a commission through purchases made through links on this website.

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Laurent Fignon remembered

A look back at the Frenchman's career

Laurent Fignon stood out in the peloton during his 12-year career because of his distinctive round glasses, long ponytail and impulsive character.

Laurent Fignon passes away

Hinault leads Fignon tributes

He was nick-named the professor but was one of the classiest riders in the sport and one of the true greats of French cycling. He raced with panache, often throwing caution to the wind and making surprise, audacious attacks. However he had the ability to back up his aggression and won both Grand Tours and major classics.

Fignon turned pro in 1982 with the Renault-Elf-Gitane team after being spotted by former rider and legendary team manager, Cyrille Guimard. He won the Criterium International in his debut season and then stunned the cycling world by winning the Tour de France in 1983. It was his first ever Tour de France and he was just 22.

He then repeated the victory in 1984, winning five stages along the way. In 1984 he also finished second overall in the Giro d'Italia, winning one stage and the mountains jersey. He also won the French national title that year. He also won Milan-San Remo in 1988 and 1989 and Fleche-Wallonne in 1986.

The 1989 Tour de France

Of course, Fignon will always be remembered for how he dramatically lost the 1989 Tour de France to Greg LeMond in the final time trial stage to Paris.

He started the stage with a 50 second lead but LeMond won the time trial by 58 seconds to snatch his second of three career Tour wins.

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LeMond rode the time trial wearing an aerodynamic helmet and used aerobars. Fignon wore no helmet and his ponytail flapped on his back as he fought to hang onto the yellow jersey. He was also suffering from saddle sores, which he later claimed were the reason for his defeat.

Fignon was never the same rider after his traumatic defeat and was also dogged by injury. He withdrew from the 1990 Tour, but went on to finish sixth in 1991, and 23rd overall in 1992, taking his ninth and last Tour de France stage win in Mulhouse.

His last victory was at the early-season Ruta Mexico in 1993, while riding for the Italian Gatorade team. Fignon admitted he did not have the motivation to continue his career and retired. He initially turned to race management, taking over Paris-Nice, until ASO bought the race. He later opened a training centre in the Pyrenees.

Always outspoken but with huge ability to understand bike races like few others, Fignon made a perfect television commentator. Just like during his racing career, he was never afraid to speak his mind and criticise riders and teams.

He suffered with fatigue during this year’s Tour de France and his voice was affected by his cancer and treatment but he continued to commentate on the race, perhaps knowing it would be his last ever Tour de France.  

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1983 Tour de France (Q608649)

Identifiers

Wikipedia (22 entries).

• arwiki سباق طواف فرنسا 1983
• astwiki Tour de Francia 1983
• brwiki Tro Bro-C'hall war varc'h-houarn 1983
• cawiki Tour de França de 1983
• cywiki Tour de France 1983
• dawiki Tour de France 1983
• dewiki Tour de France 1983
• enwiki 1983 Tour de France
• eswiki Tour de Francia 1983
• euwiki 1983ko Frantziako Tourra
• frwiki Tour de France 1983
• fywiki Omgong fan Frankryk 1983
• huwiki 1983-as Tour de France
• itwiki Tour de France 1983
• jawiki ツール・ド・フランス1983
• lvwiki 1983. gada Tour de France
• nlwiki Ronde van Frankrijk 1983
• nowiki Tour de France 1983
• plwiki Tour de France 1983
• ptwiki Tour de France de 1983
• slwiki Dirka po Franciji 1983
• trwiki 1983 Fransa Bisiklet Turu

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Category : Tour de France 1983

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The Impossible Redemption of Jonathan Boyer

Does the best thing you do in your life make up for the worst thing you've ever done? This cycling hero—and convicted felon—might get closer to an answer than any of us.

The child molester prays before every meal. He offers thanks for his friends, and the food he is about to eat, and the wonderful day ahead. When he wakes at 6:30 he brews himself a cup of tea and answers e-mail and he walks his dog , a 12-year-old rottweiler named Cody, three blocks to the beach next to the Pacific Ocean , where they walk some more, and where the child molester thinks about his purpose in life, imagines ways he might help others.

He rides his bicycle an hour and a half a day, longer on weekends, and, afterward, he takes a sauna beneath ceramic infrared heaters. He drinks water that is alkalized with cathodes and cleansed of microbes by ultraviolet light. He sleeps on an electromagnetic pulsating pad. He doesn't smoke, or eat processed foods, or drink alcohol. He has been drunk twice in his life, both times when he was 14 years old. Once was from drinking champagne, the other, whiskey. He doesn't eat candy. "And I don't do Halloween." He doesn't watch television, or listen to the radio, or read the newspaper. He lives "in a media void." The books he reads are "biblical, or historical, or nutritional." He says he avoids fiction because, "I have so little time and I don't want to waste it." That said, he has a weakness for Jack London and has read every Sherlock Holmes novel, as well as Crime and Punishment. One of his favorite movies is Gladiator. He is slightly cold-blooded, with a temperature that runs from 95.8 to 96.5. He comes from money on his mother's side; his family owns a summer estate in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and a ranch in Wyoming. He has a pilot's license. He doesn't care for eggplant. He loves olive oil, but hates olives. He sells bicycle parts and nutritional supplements from a shop on a lightly used municipal airstrip. Many of his clients are middle-aged and they want better lives. "Being able to help them," he says, "is incredibly fulfilling." He thinks fluoridated water is bad for people, and that it was foisted upon the nation as part of a government conspiracy to cover up poisonous by-products created by atomic weapons. Saturday mornings he attends services at a Seventh-Day Adventist Church and in the summertime, he travels to Moab, Utah, where he joins other men as they sit around campfires in the high desert and talk about finding meaning in the world. He says things like, "Iron sharpens iron and one man sharpens another," and, "Regardless of my mistakes, [God] will take them and make them blessings." He is 53 and he lives in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, with his mother, in the house in which he grew up, and on the rare occasion when he eats at a restaurant in his hometown, people look at him funny and ask how he's been, if he's okay. One of his closest friends is the chief mechanic at a local hotel. Another is a man who has been divorced five times and who lives on a hilltop nearby, behind an electronic gate, at the end of a driveway in which sits a black Porsche 911, in a house filled with centuries-old wooden carvings imported from Afghanistan, with a pet macaw named Lorenzo and the hide of a snow lion on the floor of one room and the hide of a mountain lion on the floor of another room. The mountain lion had eaten Lorenzo's cousin, Harpo, and tried to eat Lorenzo, and the child molester's friend had shot it.

The child molester and I spend four days together in late spring 2007. It's terrible and perhaps unfair to refer to him as "child molester," because he accomplished things as an athlete that few others have, and over the past few years he has, by almost any measure, lived the life of a world-class do-gooder. But "child molester" is exactly how a lot of people who know a little bit about him, especially those who have never met him, think of him even if they don't refer to him that way.

We share meals, before which we always pray, and he makes me a salad at his mother's house, and we walk on the beach and he suggests some foods I might try to lose weight and improve my health. We have dinner at the house on the hilltop, where I admire Lorenzo and the hides on the floor. We talk a lot about cycling and how the child molester came to be the first American to race in the Tour de France and why European racers seemed to accept him more than his countrymen did. We talk about amphetamine-aided descents and the transience of athletic glory and how society can corrupt a man and how we all have choices, that we all need help.

We talk about his improbable triumph, as a middle-aged man just three years out of jail, in the 2006 Race Across America (RAAM), a 3,000-mile coast-to-coast bicycle race. We talk about his participation in Project Rwanda, a nonprofit organization working to improve the lives of the impoverished citizens of that country. We talk about religion and television, organic food and how, as a child, he dreamt of being a veterinarian in a game park in Africa. The subject he wishes didn't have to come up, but that he knows must, comes up on our third day together. We're up to 1997, when the cyclist was newly and, as it turns out, unhappily married, stagnant in his professional life. We both know what happens next. Silence. The longest silence in the time I have spent with him.

"Now," he says, "starts the whole different chapter in my life."

Of course, a lot of people don't care about the different chapters in the child molester's life. One chapter will do. That one chapter--the one titled "child molester"--is enough for them. The child molester prays? Good for him. Let him pray. He wants to help poor Africans? Keep him supervised and far from minors. He was a great athlete and he wants to be a good man? The first doesn't matter, and he gave up his rights to the second. That's what happens to child molesters. That's their fate. That's how a lot of people think. That's how I thought when I flew out to California to meet Jonathan Boyer. And then we prayed together.

Jock, third from left (with siblings Winston, left, and Liza, right), says leaving Moab and their father in 1961 was "the saddest day of my life." (Courtesy The Boyer Family)

He was so chubby as a toddler that people called him "Fatso." That's a fact. Here's another: His father was a dreamer and a drifter, a man who, after a bar-stool conversation in the desert with a stranger about hidden treasure, would leave his wife and three children and disappear into Mexico for weeks at a time. "A man who had a natural lobotomy for responsibility," his wife, Josephine Swift Boyer, told her oldest son, Winston. The family lived in Moab, Utah, until 1961, when Josephine packed up her three children--eight-year-old Liza, six-year-old Winston, and the baby, five-year-old Jonathan, whom everyone called Jock (after a friend of Josephine's)--and took them to her parents, the Swifts, in Pebble Beach, California. Moab was so remote in those days that Winston Boyer, senior, had to flag down the California Zephyr at the Crescent Junction station to get it to stop. As the train pulled away, the elder Boyer drove alongside for 20 miles in his red Ford station wagon. ("The cheapest one made, with two doors," Liza remembers.) He waved at his departing family, and the family waved back, at their father and husband, and at their dog, a black, tan and white sheepdog named Timbo. "The saddest day of all of our lives," Liza says. Jock says, "It was like yesterday. Indeed, the saddest day of my life."

Liza says that Jock "went from being the happiest, hugging-est, most generous and least shy, quickest to make friends, of all of us, to a child who was worried and sad. It took him a while to bounce back."

Two years later, the brood moved to Carmel. Their next-door neighbors in Carmel rode bicycles, so Winston and his little brother would tag along. Jock wouldn't see his father for six years. Other men in Carmel, though, took the boys under their wings. Sam Hopkins, another neighbor and a local cycling icon who had started racing competitively at age 50, encouraged the Boyer boys to enter some events. Jock loved it from the beginning.

A local restaurateur, Remo d'Agliano, who had raced in Europe, coached the Boyers and though there was no cycling culture to speak of--this was the early '70s--the Boyers finished at the top of almost every race they entered, along with another local boy named Tom Ritchey. Jonathan rode a black 10-speed Raleigh Competition, which was stolen from school after two weeks. Hopkins sold him a blue LeJeune for $180, which happened to be exactly the amount the insurance had paid for the Raleigh.

Winston drifted away from the sport because competition made him nervous. Ritchey liked long rides in the hills, and didn't enjoy the criteriums, with their short, narrow courses with tight corners, so he stopped road racing, too. That left Jock.

Partly because of d'Agliano's urging, partly because of competitive zeal and adolescent restlessness, he decided he wanted to race in Europe. The summer before his senior year (at Monterey's York School), he enrolled in an intensive course in French at the nearby Monterey Institute of Foreign Studies, where for nine weeks, seven hours a day, he studied the language. He also rode and waited tables at d'Agliano's restaurant. When he graduated high school, he had been accepted at the University of Colorado. He had also qualified to ride in the junior world championships in Munich. He asked the university if he could delay his freshman year. Then he took the $350 he had saved from waiting tables and bought a plane ticket to Paris. From 1973 until early 1977, he raced as an amateur for little-known teams such as UVSE Saint Eloy les Mines and ACBB Paris. Like almost all new racers at that level, he traveled between hotels where, he says, "the water smelled liked urine, the beds sagged and the sheets were made of that stuff that doesn't even feel like fabric." In one of the hotels, he got fleas. In another, crabs. Always strong in the mountains, he grew stronger, fashioned himself into an elite climber. He learned, and he won, and he learned and he won some more.

In May 1977, a professional team, LeJeune BP, invited him to join. That's when he realized how little he knew. "It was incredibly hard," he says. "There were more riders, better bike handlers; people were smoother in the pack. And the fitness levels were hard to believe. As an amateur, when you thought you were tired, that was nothing compared with the pro level. What I learned was that as an amateur, you don't know what being really tired is. Think of being completely exhausted, then train and ride as much as when you're fresh. That's what it means to ride as a professional."

His first professional contract was 3,000 francs, or four hundred dollars a month, which was about 500 francs more than most newly minted professionals. That's because Boyer was an American, a novelty. His citizenship wasn't the only thing that set him apart. By 1980, Boyer was showing up to races lugging suitcases packed with 20 pounds of fruits and nuts, and a blender to mix them. He was also reading the Bible regularly. Later, reporters would say that other riders perceived him as an oddball. (If true, it would be impressive; cycling counts as its recent champions a marble-shooting, pigeon-hunting, disco-hopping Italian who died of a cocaine overdose; an ecstasy-ingesting German who most experts--and riders--believe might have beaten Lance Armstrong had he been able to stop overeating during the off-season; and an American whose lawyers said a never-born twin might have been the cause of the positive blood test that got him banned for two years from cycling.) The fruit-and-nut eater won the 1980 Coors Classic, where overexcited and underinformed television announcers referred to him as "Jacques BoyAY," instead of "Jock BOYer." The same year, he finished fifth in the world championships, then accepted an offer from another team, Renault-Gitane, that wanted him to help Bernard Hinault in the mountains of the 1981 Tour de France. (Hinault, The Badger, had already won the Tour in 1978 and 1979, would win in 1981, then go on to win the race in 1982 and 1985.) No American had ever raced in the Tour before, much less finished, much less helped a teammate win. Boyer did all three.

Like winning a Pulitzer Prize, or discovering a distant comet, the distinction of being the first American to race the Tour de France might have furnished a first sentence for future obituary writers when they considered the life of this quiet, wiry vegetarian. His 32nd-place finish paved the way for Greg LeMond, who became the first American to win the Tour, in 1986, as well as the 7-Eleven team, which with sprinter Davis Phinney and mountain climber Andy Hampsten was the first American squad to successfully race in Europe, serving as a model and an inspiration for modern-day stars such as Lance Armstrong. Boyer was 26, and though he might not have known it, his fame was already receding. Infamy was decades away.

He has long eyelashes, graying hair, hazel eyes and the kind of looks that in another era might have been called matinee idol. He is 5-feet-101⁄2 inches tall, and his weight ranges from 145 to 150, as it has since he was a teenager. He looks about 15 years younger than his age. He credits this to clean living, which I presume includes the electromagnetic pulsating pad and the infrared sauna and the ultraviolet-treated water, and not just exercising a lot and eating vegetables. He favors black jeans and pullover sweaters, athletic sandals with socks. On Saturdays, when he attends church and celebrates the Sabbath, he wears a button-down shirt and polished black boots. He walks slightly duck-toed. The first time we meet, at a restaurant in Carmel, he says he likes snakes, especially pythons and boa constrictors, and loves roasted potatoes. Before we eat, he says a prayer. His voice is nasal, slightly high-pitched, absent any strong regional accent. He is something of a flirt, and when the waitress comes to take our order, he asks her how to say "poached" in Spanish and is rewarded with a big smile.

I ask how he'd like to be remembered, and he says, "I don't know. It's not something I think of. Perhaps as someone who made a positive impact on people." I ask if he has any regrets and he says, "I could have raced a little less," which he believes would have prolonged his career. He tells me that he knows himself better than he ever has. He says he realizes now that there was a lot of anger in his life, that "I have always had difficulty dealing with emotional issues."

He admits that he avoids television as much from weakness as strength. "If there's a program on, I'll get sucked into it, and then before you know it, two hours are gone. I'm a very emotional person. I get very affected by things."

He says that people are capable of great good and great evil. "I think we need to realize any one of us, given the right or wrong situation, we will do anything. . . Iraqis are no different than Americans. Muslims have the same makeup as Christians. We're all from the same stock. We can't point fingers and say 'I would never do that' and 'Those people are monsters.' We're part of the same race."

For three days, he doesn't mention his crime and I don't ask about it. We don't discuss how it has changed his life, how it has altered the way people relate to him, how it has changed how he moves through the world. He talks about God a lot and forgiveness and meaning, and I imagine it must be exhausting, not talking about something but talking about it all the time. I imagine it's what his life is like every day.

He generally shuns interviews, but he has agreed to meet because he is proud of his work for Project Rwanda, and he believes the publicity for it will be a good thing. He has been to Rwanda recently, will be piling a group of Rwandans into a 1972 Bluebird bus and driving them to race bicycles in the Utah desert the week after we meet, then will be returning to Rwanda a month after that. He doesn't take antimalarial medications before his trips, because he says he doesn't need them. On his most recent trip to Africa, he says, "I ate enzymes, herbs and mushrooms. I was incredibly healthy the whole time. I made it so my body was impossible for any parasite to live in." He says he is working on developing a wafer that will help mitigate the effects of giardia, "that will prevent against microbes and viruses and parasites you catch in foreign countries." I dutifully take notes and wonder which is more delusional, Boyer's efforts to develop a cracker that will save the planet, or his belief that his good works will make anyone forget--or forgive--what he did.

In the 1970s, Boyer (front, second from right) competed in local races in California. (Courtesy The Boyer Family)

He finished 10th in the world championships in 1982. In 1983, he finished 12th in the Tour. Boyer thought he would be in the top five in 1984, but he fell to 31st because of two crashes, dehydration during a stage he thought he could win and the vagaries of athletic chance. In 1985, the American who started it all did something odd. Instead of racing in the Tour de France, he entered RAAM. The year before, he had been discussing, with a television producer, a feud in American cycling. A group of ultracyclists, who specialized in riding hundreds of miles at a time, were touting the cross-country race as the ultimate test of cycling prowess, and then there were racers like Boyer. "The ultracyclists wanted to be recognized as serious athletes," he says. "We just thought they were good at staying awake."

On the day after Thanksgiving in 1984, Boyer told the producer, "I could beat those guys," and the producer said, "If you really mean that and are really serious about that, you owe it to the racing cycling community to do it." He enlisted a van and a crew. He invested in a motor home, a motorbike, a pickup truck and a rented sedan. The first day, he rode 445 miles. The second day he made it 400 miles, then another 400 miles after that. He was going so much faster than anyone else (he averaged 14.3 miles per hour, including rest breaks), that he could sleep more than his competitors. He rode into Atlantic City more than four hours ahead of his closest competitor.

"I won $5,000," he remembers. "And I spent $25,000 to do it."

In 1986, still recovering from the physical stress of his costly victory, he skipped the Tour. In 1987, living in Italy and racing with the 7-Eleven team alongside Eric Heiden and Bob Roll and Andy Hampsten, he finished 99th, his worst finish ever. It was his last year as a pro and his highest-paid. He made $50,000 and retired. With LeMond's victory in the world championships and the Tour de France, and Hampsten and Phinney's stage wins in the Giro d'Italia and the Tour, everyone was talking about American cycling. People were already starting to forget the man who had helped start it. "As I look back," he says, "I should have gone straight into mountain bike racing. When you stop racing, I think every athlete goes through the same thing, you go through a real serious depression. . . you're completely lost, nothing grounding you. . . .I just remember it as being a really hard period."

He started a new career importing bicycle parts into the United States, in partnership with a Dutchman he knew. He traveled to 26 countries a year, worked with 80 customers. He lived in Holland, would drive 500 miles to the French office, near Lyon, in the afternoon, and back the next morning. He rode a motorcycle, drove 150 miles per hour on the Autobahn.

"I had a house," he says, "but no home. I was fried." In 1992, he moved back to the Carmel Valley, and after his Dutch partner severed business relations (". . . a disaster. Basically I was kicked out without any shares. . . "), he imported and sold bicycle parts and supplies on his own. In 1992, he was baptized at the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Pacific Grove, 6 miles from Carmel. Two years later, he met a woman at the church, who lived in Seaside. They started dating, and in 1997 they married.

Boyer rode with the best of the Euro packs (center). (Winston S. Boyer)

Seaside, California, police officers arrested Boyer on May 16, 2002, after a 17-year-old girl told them the cyclist had molested her from 1997 to 2000. She was barely 12 when it started. On September 12, 2002, he pled guilty to seven counts of lewd and lascivious acts upon a child, and three counts of penetration by a foreign object or genital penetration on a person younger than 16. He said he was remorseful. On November 19, he was sentenced to 20 years in state prison, a sentence that was immediately stayed, then he was put on probation for five years, and sent to the Monterey County jail for a year. At the sentencing, state superior court judge Gary E. Meyer noted that Boyer posed little threat to the girl or to others and that he was a good candidate for rehabilitation. Those are the facts. He slept in a dorm with 60 other men. Breakfast was served at 4 a.m. He read 50 books, including the complete works of Christian evangelist Philip Yancey. He was released on July 7, 2003, after serving eight months. In 2006, at age 51, he won the solo enduro division of the Race Across America. His probation ended November 7, 2007. Those are facts, too.

In some states, a 16-year-old who fondles his 14-year-old girlfriend is guilty of a crime, just as guilty in strict legal terms as someone who stalks playgrounds, snatching and raping children. If you can accept that when it comes to sex offenses, even child molesting, there is a moral spectrum of heinousness, then should we try to put Boyer's crime--and Boyer--in some sort of context? Boyer thinks we should. "It's too bad all those [criminal] charges get put in the same box," he says. "The fact is they're so varied, the charges. . . they go from one end to the other. . . .you do have predators out there, the perverts, you do have people who are bent on molesting countless kids and who have issues with children. Then you have others who have overstepped certain boundaries and get put in the same. . . uh. . . same sort of description."

What exactly did Boyer do? According to court records, he twice "puts [his] hand inside of Jane Doe's pants and touches Jane Doe's vagina," and "digitally penetrates Jane Doe's vagina" a total of eight times. Once, during the act, he spoke French.

Boyer refuses to discuss the specifics of the crimes. His friends say his public silence is to protect the girl, now a young woman.

Lars Frazer is a photographer based in Austin, Texas. He has known Boyer for 20 years, and says the cyclist "became best friends with a 13-year-old girl who fell deeply in love with him. She had a high level of maturity and he showed poor judgment. When Jock said, 'This is not appropriate, it's not appropriate for us to have this level of friendship,' she lashed out," and the police were notified.

"Knowing what I know," says Frazer, "he shouldn't have spent a day in jail. He's not a predator. I have two daughters, six and three-and-a-half, and there's no question I would let them spend time alone with Jock. They know who he is, and they love him."

David Frost, a friend of Boyer's for 30 years, who works as a deputy district attorney in Monterey County, says, "I purposefully didn't read the files and I don't want to. I'm sure it'll never happen again. It's not something anyone will have to worry about. He's got a very strong character."

Others aren't quite as sympathetic.

In a precise and careful e-mail, Monterey chief assistant district attorney Terry Spitz said, after reviewing the file, "We are prohibited by the state bar ethics code from charging a crime based on a hunch or suspicion. We must have probable cause to believe the defendant actually engaged in the conduct charged. Of course, Boyer admitted to...engaging in such conduct."

Boyer could ascend with the starts in the Tour de France's Alps. (Winston S. Boyer)

Facts matter. Even a man as heavily invested in intention as Boyer knows that. He also knows that while facts might be immutable, faith is redemptive. "We can't go through life without tragedies," Boyer says. "It's what we do with the tragedies that define us. It strengthens our ability to help. One thing I've learned is that all of us are hurting. Each day we're given opportunities to help people. My purpose is to take those opportunities. Each day people cross our path who need some sort of help. Not necessarily something that's life-threatening. I think it's important, as a Christian, to help. You get lifted up when that happens, you get encouraged, you get hope, your trust grows. With every opportunity taken, you're given a bigger, better opportunity later."

I ask Boyer about the girl. Does he worry about her? I don't know how she feels, because I haven't been able to track her down. (The fact that I tried angers some colleagues, who tell me that I would be victimizing her all over again if I contacted her. The fact that I fail distresses others, who argue that a story containing even a measure of sympathy for Boyer, without his victim's perspective, is an outrage.) Absent her thoughts, I ask Boyer how he thinks she's doing. I ask how he thinks what happened affected her.

"It depends on which direction she chooses," he says. "If you let something destroy you, whose fault is that? God doesn't want you to be destroyed. We all have an opportunity to choose a path that will make us stronger. I just hope she's making the right choices in her life despite the past. We all are responsible for our choices. I was responsible for my choices and I take full responsibility."

Then he tells me the story of Corrie ten Boom, the Dutch Christian woman who hid and saved Jews during World War II, and was imprisoned in a concentration camp for her efforts. He recounts the story of how, after the war, a concentration camp guard from Ravensbrück, where she had been imprisoned, approached her.

"He said to her," Boyer tells me, "'I know that God forgives me, but my question is, do you?'"

("For a long moment we grasped each other's hands," ten Boom wrote in her book, Tramp for the Lord, which I looked through after I left Boyer. "The former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then.")

"We can't look at the pain we've caused," Boyer says. "We have to look at the good we can do, and though it can't erase the past, it certainly can eclipse some of the damage. Our choices are today."

Does Boyer see that the tale's power comes because it's the victim who is the narrator, the victim who is extolling the virtues of forgiveness? Does he understand that he's not the best person in the world to be suggesting that the child he molested would be better off if she would simply forgive and move on? Then again, what's the difference what he says? Or what anyone says? Don't a man's actions matter more than his words?

Boyer could grind out victories in the Race Across America in 1985 and 2006. (Kayvon Beykpour)

In January 2008 I receive a telephone call from Dan Cooper, a stock trader in Chicago. Cooper, one of the central supporters of Project Rwanda, is devoted to financing it and getting others to finance it. He has heard about the time Boyer and I spent together, and he is worried. "This is going to have a direct impact on my ability to keep the team sustainable," he tells me. "Project Rwanda has become the good-news story of cycling. bicycling magazine comes out with a story about Jonathan Boyer being a child molester, that good-news story could very easily evaporate."

The next day, Cooper would fly in a private jet with the president of Rwanda to meet the president of Starbucks, who was hosting a dinner at the behest of the president of Costco. Cooper was hoping to raise a lot of money. "We got to know Jonathan before we invited him to be part of the Rwanda team," Cooper says. "We know the background and the drama that unfolded there. . . .Externally, it's a little bit of a wild card when it comes to public perception."

Cooper and I talk for almost 30 minutes. He says Boyer would resign from the program "in a heartbeat" if he thought his presence would hurt the project. He says that only two people know exactly what happened between Boyer and the child. He says Boyer "is as close to a walking angel as I've met. I've never seen a guy who's been more self-sacrificing of himself than Jonathan. . . .being around Jonathan makes me better. There are very few people I can say that about."

Cooper is more reflective than insistent, as interested in talking about pain and redemption as he is about corporate sponsorship. It's easy to understand his success at fund-raising.

"This guy is wearing this huge, horrible scarlet letter," he says. "And at the end of the day, a guy can't keep paying for his crimes over and over and over again, especially someone doing so much good and spreading so much love, as Jonathan."

Getting arrested and serving time for child molesting--no matter the circumstances or mitigating factors--tends to winnow the number of a man's friends. Tonight, Boyer is having dinner with three who stuck by him. There is Ricky Gonzalez, chief mechanic for the past 26 years at the nearby Bay Park Hotel, a regular customer at Boyer's shop and the crew chief on the latest RAAM victory, who Boyer says "is like an older brother to me." Winston Boyer, Jock's real older brother, who is as impish and bawdy as Jock is pious and tightly wound, is there, too. The host for the evening is Peterson Conway, owner of Peterson Conway Imports in Carmel, speaker of six languages, ex-husband of five wives, world traveler since he joined the Peace Corps 38 years ago at age 17 and landed in Afghanistan, where James Michener hired him as his translator; he is also the owner of the Porsche and the mountain lion rug and Lorenzo the macaw, as well as the 8,500-square-foot house on the 17 acres sprawled near the top of Jack's Peak, the highest spot on the Monterey Peninsula, where we are all gathered. "What Sean Connery is to cinema, he is in my life," Boyer had told me earlier. Maybe it's because I had already been overloaded with sentiments about men sharpening men, and Nazi criminals seeking forgiveness and the dangers of fluoride, but at the time, the statement didn't seem as weird to me as it does now.

We sit at a counter made of Italian marble, beneath ceilings that once covered a maharaja's harem quarters, behind a door built in the 18th century, shipped here from India. Winston Boyer and Conway drink wine and Jock and I and Garcia have water as we talk about cycling and love and Lorenzo's dead cousin, Harpo, whose sad fate had led Conway to climb the tree outside his house with a shotgun and spend a night waiting for the animal that is now a rug. We swap stories. Conway remembers a moonlit night in Katmandu, and bowls of hash, and the strange sensation of cold cobblestones and hot liquid on his bare feet, and the stoned realization that it was the blood of oxen whose throats had just been slit, in an adolescent rite of passage, by teenaged Ghurka soldiers. Winston Boyer recounts the time he was scheduled to show a collection of masks he had photographed at a famous New York City art gallery, until, he says, the gallery owner ran into some financial and legal difficulty and got caught up in a murder investigation that involved sadomasochism. The man with the most notorious stories of all doesn't mention them. Conway flambes a flan with a miniature blowtorch and we all sample the best cheese I have ever tasted and then Winston's phone rings and he looks at it while we all look at him.

He smiles a tight smile. "Mom," he says, and he and Jock look at each other and we all chuckle.

Jock leads us in prayer before dinner, thanking God for the food, and his wonderful friends and the blessed day. I hear Conway mutter something I think is Farsi before he serves chicken in herbs that taste better than any herbs I have ever tasted, and the best tea I have ever tasted. "Don't bother asking him for the recipe," Jock says.

Over dinner we discuss Boyer's latest RAAM victory. There was a bad crash in Kansas, a potentially lethal hot-rodder in Arkansas and dead-of-the-night-searches for fresh fruit in East St. Louis, Illinois. There were terrible digestive problems and a racing heart rate and chafing so severe it required massive applications of lidocaine, which made it necessary for Boyer to drop to all fours in order to urinate. There were sleep-deprivation-induced hallucinations from coast to coast.

"I relate to pain," Boyer says. "Even now, for some odd reason, I'm at home in pain. It seems to be some old friend of mine.

"One of the things that draws me are natural disasters. . . adverse atmospheric conditions really draw me and I have no idea why. I'm attracted to natural upheavals. . . if there's this huge thundershower, lighting, huge windows, blizzards, I just want to be part of it."

"I attribute all this," Winston Boyer says, "to Jock not taking drugs."

Boyer and his wife separated in 2000, divorced in 2003. He hasn't dated since he was released from prison, he says, but now he's ready. He would like to meet someone, fall in love, settle down and start a family. His friends talk about fixing him up, joke that he wants a younger woman, and I make sure I don't obviously cringe. (A few minutes later, one says that 32 would be the ideal age.) Does Boyer know how what under most circumstances is merely manly joshing takes on a sinister, sickly cast, because of his history? If so, he doesn't show it. There is something reserved about him, guarded, which makes sense, because he's a smart man, he learned French in a summer, taught himself about nutrition and fitness, trained himself to be one of the best cyclists in the world. He forged a magnificent athletic career from--among other things--being cagey and hiding weakness.

Dinner is over, and the flan is delicious, and there is some more talk of past races, adventures and misadventures. Soon, Boyer will drive down the mountain and to his mother's house, where he will sleep on his electromagnetic pulsing pad, then wake in the morning, to his tea, and his walk on the beach with Cody, and his professions of gratitude to God, and to his best efforts to get on with his life.

Boyer, at his home in Rwanda in December, 2008, says those who see his team riding are "witnessing miracles. It blows people away." (Frederic Courbet)

Thirty-five years ago, when Boyer was first winning cycling races and dominating the sport in California, one of his chief competitors was Tom Ritchey. When Boyer went to France and opened the era that would lead to American dominance in the Tour de France, Ritchey turned his hand to building bikes and, with a handful of other men, created and rode the first mountain bikes. He launched Ritchey Design and was elected into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame in 1988, and today heads up his eponymous company that is one of the sport's leading manufacturers of high-quality bicycle components.

I meet Ritchey after four days with Boyer, on my way from Carmel to the San Francisco airport. Ritchey has ridden his bicycle from his home in the lush and green Woodside hills, where it sits among those of Internet millionaires and venture capitalists. We meet at Bucks of Woodside, a breakfast joint famous for flapjacks and Internet startup deals. People are dressed in jeans and casual-looking, high-performance, expensive athletic gear. Ritchey is tall and lean and fit, wearing cycling shorts and a bicycling jersey. He orders oatmeal.

He tells me that a few years earlier, he realized his life was empty: Money and status and a home among venture capitalists and Internet millionaires hadn't brought him real happiness; his business had gotten away from him; he was in his mid-40s, and while he had most everything he had ever wanted, he wanted more, and he didn't know how to get it.

When an acquaintance invited him to Rwanda, to take part in a project designed to help the citizens of that country, he was skeptical. "I'm not a giving person," he says. "I had never done anything like it. And I went there with prejudices, strong opinions." In Africa, everything changed. That's where Ritchey became involved with Project Rwanda. He designed a bicycle to help coffee farmers more efficiently transport their crop, and asked Boyer to be project director and coach of the Team Rwanda racing team, to help with publicity and awareness for Project Rwanda. "To me," he says, "Rwanda represents new beginnings. Goodness, mercy, hope. Rwanda is me. . . .It's anyone having to work through serious disappointments in life."

It takes Ritchey about 15 minutes to get from his adolescent race victories, through his middle-aged despair, to rebirth in Africa, and his oatmeal sits, cooling. He weeps while he talks, unapologetically and sloppily. He weeps when he speaks of his midlife crisis, and of the joy he discovered in Rwanda, and of the men's retreats he attends in Moab once a year, where, "We have a campfire every night, talk about our lives, share each other's burdens. We're honest about what's going on. We've got to take out the sword and put each other at point all the time. . . .It's a deeper way of relating, of connecting." Ritchey tells me I should think about attending one year. He gives me a Project Rwanda T-shirt and some Project Rwanda coffee.

Everything about the breakfast meeting--Ritchey's existential crisis, the men's groups in the desert, the sloppy tears, certainly the T-shirt and coffee--is slightly but not entirely surprising. Boyer and I had talked a lot about despair and new beginnings. When I had asked him for names of people who knew him, who might be able to share their perceptions of him, maybe he picked someone he thought might be in tune with the theme of his life as he had discussed it with me. Maybe he thought I was sympathetic. Or maybe he wanted someone who he thought knew him well. Certainly he wanted someone who could talk about his good works in Africa. In any case, while Ritchey is eloquent on the subject of men and meaning, and the economic calculus of African coffee production (Rwanda grows an enormous amount of coffee; the problem is inadequate systems to transport the product, which is where the bicycle comes in), his knowledge of Boyer is incomplete. Though they raced together when they were young ("We were more competitors than friends," Ritchey says), and they ride together now ("Very few people ride at the pace I do. . . He's someone I enjoy spending hours and hours and hours with in the saddle") there loom three decades between adolescence and middle age. So, granted, Boyer has been wonderful at spotting talent in Rwanda and conscientious about training young Rwandans to be elite cyclists. And yes, Boyer has been giving and honest and warm during their time in Africa and in the Utah desert. And sure, pain can help heal, and the point of the sword and all that stuff.

But what about the girl? What would the young woman she's become say? How much weight would she give Boyer's good works?

Ritchey had told me earlier during our breakfast that even during his greatest financial success, "I didn't know who I was." Now, he says, through pain and self-reflection, he has found the answer. "I am who my friends are," Ritchey says. "The people who are in my life are who I am. I had a realization: The people in my life right now are the reasons I am here. People like Jock."

I ask about what he says to people who want to know about Jock's crime. I ask what I can say to people who, when I'm telling them about Boyer's good works, and his athletic accomplishments, berate me when I get to the words "child molester." The people who tell me I'm doing harm by writing with anything other than indignation when I write about this particular crime. This particular criminal.

"You either believe people can change or you don't," Ritchey says. "It's that simple. You either experience that grace, that forgiveness, that ability to be merciful, or you don't."

Here are the facts of Jonathan Boyer's life: He won 87 races as an amateur, 44 as a professional. He was a member of the United States national team 15 times. He competed in nine world championships.

Here are the facts: He lives with 24-hour guards, behind walls, in a four-bedroom house in Musanzi, Rwanda. He has been here since autumn 2007. He travels the country looking for promising cyclists, testing them, training them, encouraging them to join Team Rwanda. He has tested 50 riders, and from them formed a team of 11. The team has raced in Algeria and Namibia and South Africa and Morocco and Cameroon and the United States. At the 2008 Continental Championships, in Morocco, Team Rwanda placed 10th out of 14. Next year, Boyer hopes to test about 300 to 400 more riders. Virtually every one of the Rwandan cyclists comes from a place with no electricity or running water, and not enough food. "They're definitely used to hard times," Boyer says. "They have an emotional stability beyond my comprehension." Boyer and I talk in November 2008. He has just returned from a race with his team in Morocco, and the next day will be departing for Lethoso. He wants to make sure I write about his recent work; that people learn about the impact the cyclists are making in their communities, in the country, in all of Africa. "People see Team Rwanda, and their first thought is, 'genocide.' They see these guys riding, and they witness miracles happening. It blows people away." He tells me that in four to six years, he plans for Team Rwanda to be racing in the Tour de France.

Here are the facts: Jonathan Boyer closed his business, moved out of his mother's house, left the United States to make a new life in a country where hundreds of thousands of people were murdered 15 years ago. Here are the facts: He is 53 years old, divorced, single, a convicted child molester living in Africa, helping people. He returns to Carmel, California, every October, for his birthday, so he can register as a sex offender, then goes back to Africa. Since he's been in Musanzi, two Rwandans he knows--a cyclist and a cook--have become fathers. The proud parents named their boys Jonathan.

You pray before every meal. You give thanks for the food you are about to eat, and for the friends who believe in you, and for the wonderful day ahead. You wake at 6:30, and you drink two cups of coffee before you walk your dog. You ride your bike, and that helps. You keep busy, and you eat right, and that helps, too. But there are quiet, still moments that must feel like lifetimes when you wonder if you will ever be forgiven.

You cheated your business partner. You lied on your income taxes. You betrayed a confidence. You gossiped about your best friend. You neglected your child. You hit your wife. You cheated on your husband. Maybe you did worse. Maybe you did much worse. You were cowardly. You acted out of lust, or wounded pride, or anger. You hurt people.

You're not a world-class athlete, and you were never convicted of a crime. You don't have to endure reporters' questions or public censure. You have to confront only yourself. You only have to make it through your own still, quiet moments. Do you apologize to those you hurt? Would it change anything? Do you give your clothes to the Salvation Army? Do you volunteer at a soup kitchen? Do you move and start your life over? Do you do good works to forget your sins or to atone for them? Does it matter? Does it change anything? Does it change what you did? Does it change who you are? And who are you? Who are you?  

Steve Friedman is a writer based in New York whose work has appeared in The New York Times, the Washington Post, Esquire, GQ, Outside , New York magazine, Bicycling, Runner’s World and many other publications.  

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