Jean Robic (; 10 June 1921 – 6 October 1980) was a French road racing cyclist, who won the 1947 Tour de France. Robic was a professional cyclist from 1943 to 1961. His diminutive stature (1.61m, 60 kg) and appearance was encapsulated in his nickname Biquet (Kid goat). For faster, gravity-assisted descents, he collected drinking bottles ballasted with lead or mercury at the summits of mountain climbs and "cols". After fracturing his skull in 1944 he always wore a trademark leather crash helmet. Origins Robic has always been described as a Breton but he was born in the Ardennes region of France, where his father had found work as a carpenter. his father having lived in Brittany before he moved. His father was a racing cyclist and passed the interest to his son. Robic moved to Brittany when he was seven and lived at Radenac. His childhood home is in a street now named for him. Robic moved to Paris In February 1940 and became a cycle mechanic for the Sausin company. He started racing but made a poor impression on journalists. René de Latour of Sporting Cyclist wrote: If anybody had told you or me in 1939 that this skinny kid of 17, with ears large enough to be of help with a back wind blowing—if we had been told that here was a future winner of the Tour de France, we would just have laughed. When his name first became known to journalists, he quickly became known as le farfadet de la lande bretonne—the hobgoblin of the Brittany moor. His arrival in the Paris area was not sensational. Robic won a few races out in the villages but this did not mean much. We had hundreds of boys like him in France. Early career The outbreak of war in 1939 and then the German invasion of 1940 made cycle-racing possible but difficult in France. Robic rode cyclo-cross races and as many of the big road races that were still run. He turned professional in 1943. The following year he fell in Paris–Roubaix and finished the race with a broken skull. It was then that he started wearing the leather crash helmet for which he became known. The helmet won him the nickname of tête de cuir, or leather-head; his short stature also brought him the nickname "Biquet", or "kid goat". Tour de France The Tour de France restarted