that he looked like a canary. By the start of the penultimate stage from Metz to Dunkirk, he was leading by 30 minutes. His fork broke again, this time on the cobbles of Valenciennes and, although being within a kilometre of the nearest forge, he lost more than two and a half hours and the race while he made repairs. On the final stage he had a run of punctures and dropped from second to third overall behind Jean Alavoine. His story captured the public imagination and he was awarded the same prize money as winner Firmin Lambot. His prize – 13,310 francs – came from a subscription opened by L'Auto, the paper which organised the race. Donations ranged from three francs to 500 given by Henri de Rothschild. It took 20 lists in the paper to name every donor. Christophe kept the repaired forks in the basement of his home. 1922 race and another broken fork Placed in the top three and still in with a chance of overall victory, another broken fork on the descent of the Galibier in the Alps forced Christophe to once more walk out of the mountain on foot. The 1925 race The 1925 Tour was Christophe's last. He was 40 and finished 18th, 19 years after first riding the race. The anecdote of the race was that the Belgian, Émile Masson, was so tired from long and repeated days of racing that he asked Christophe to punch him in the face to wake him up. Commemoration The French cycling federation in 1951 placed a plaque on the wall of the building that stands now where the forge once stood at Ste-Marie-de-Campan. Christophe, then 66, re-enacted the day that cost him the Tour de France. He carried his bike on his shoulder, the front wheel in his hand, to the forge. There, wearing race clothes, he played out the way he had repaired his forks. With him were the judge who supervised him that day, and Corni, who as an 11-year-old had helped pump the fire. They were joined by Mme Despiau, the first woman Christope met on entering the village. The plaque on the wall read: Here, in 1913, Eugène Christophe, French racing cyclist, first in the general classification of the Tour de France, victim of a mechanical accident on the Tourmalet, repaired the fork of his bicycle at the forge. Having covered