get rid of his energy. When he was 15 years old, he rode his first race, a track race that was meant for 17-year-olds. Henri Pélissier was so thin as a young man that friends called him Ficelle, after France's thinnest loaf of bread. The word also means "string". One of four brothers, three of whom became professional cyclists, he was by far the strongest. He also became known for a stubborn, difficult personality which had led his father to banish him from the family farm when he was 16. In the next years, Henri Pélissier rode a few small road races, but it was not until 1908 when he started to ride seriously as an amateur. By 1910, he had established his name as a competent rider, and in 1911, 22 years old, he got a professional licence. On 15 August 1911 he was walking near the Porte Maillot on the edge of Paris when he met one of the great cycling heroes of the day, Lucien Petit-Breton. The two knew each other slightly but Pélissier was more in awe of Petit-Breton than the other way round because Petit-Breton had already ridden the Tour de France four times and won it in 1907 and 1908. He had also won Milan–San Remo in 1907, which led to a further engagement to ride in Italy. He asked Pélissier if he wanted to join him. He had six hours to make up his mind, collect his bags and bike and meet him for the 9pm train to Milan. Their first race was the Tour of Romany-Tuscany. Pélissier crashed and didn't finish. But he won Turin-Florence-Rome and the Tour of Lombardy. He returned to ride the Tour of Lombardy the following year as well, crashing at the entrance to the horse track in Milan with Costante Girardengo, the Italian star. There were 400m to the finish and the leaders were going flat out. A heap of riders came down with them. Pélissier got back on and passed the rest before the line and the crowd was so angry at how it perceived he had ruined Girardengo's chances that they ran onto the circuit and began pushing and punching Pélissier so much that he had scramble into the judges' watchtower and wait for 80 policemen to quieten the angry spectators three metres below him. Pélissier came second in his first Tour de France, in