An article in BicycleQuarterly No. 54 outlined the life and career of Jean Hoffmann.
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| Jean Hoffmann. From pdw |
Chances are, unless you’ve read BQ 54, you haven’t heard of him.
I hadn’t either, until my copy of the magazine showed up in my mailbox.
On the other hand, anyone who has followed bicycle racing for as long as it
takes to lap the Arc de Triomphe has heard of someone who “served in the trenches”,
if you will, with him.
That compatriot is none other than Jacques Anquetil,
the first five-time winner of the Tour de France.
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| Jacques Anquetil. From Ina.fr |
They rode for the same team—the legendary Raphael Geminiani —though not at the same time.
They did, however, serve together with the same French Army battalion in
Algeria. (At that time, even such
luminaries as Yves St.Laurent had their careers interrupted for mandatory
military service.) Although Hoffmann
crashed and was dropped after the 14th stage of the only Tour he
rode, in 1959, he arguably was, in his
own way, as much of an iconic figure of French cycling in the 1950’s and ‘60’s.
In those days, someone who won amateur hill-climbing
competitions like the Poly de Chanteloup or rode at or near the head of a major
randonnee like the Paris-Brest-Paris
could garner nearly as much attention as the professional riders who won
multi-day racers (which France certainly didn’t lack!) enjoyed. In fact, Hoffmann was known in the cycling
press—a major part of the French media at that time—before anyone heard of
Anquetil.
It didn’t hurt Hoffmann’s popularity that he so
dominated the qualifier for the Poly—on, as he recalls, a heavy old bike with a
single chainring and “way-too-large gears” at
age seventeen that Rene Herse loaned his own bike to Hoffmann for the
actual competition. It almost goes
without saying that Herse was delighted to have Hoffmann on his team—so much so
that he gave Hoffmann a velo de service
that was chromed, like Rene’s own, rather than the typical Herse blue (a lovely
color, by the way) other team members received.
After riding on Herse’s team for a few years,
Hoffmann couldn’t resist the urge to race.
He quickly found success, mainly because of his climbing abilities. One of his major successes was winning the
climber’s jersey in the 1955 Peace Race, often nicknamed “the Tour de France of
the East”. He was selected to ride in
the 1956 Olympics. But, fate intervened: He—and Anquetil—were drafted.
After completing his military service, Hoffmann
continued his racing career, turning pro in the year he rode his only
Tour. He would retire from racing after
three years. He never stopped riding,
though: He rode gentleman races—which
pitted young riders against older ones and gave the latter a handicap based on
his age—as well as rides like the Audax and Randonee Paris-Brest-Paris. Today, at age 81, he does a 50 km ride (which
includes at least one climb) every day.
Interestingly, he rides a Look carbon bike. He has no interest in machines like the one
he rode for Herse’s team in the ‘50’s.
In those days, it was the most technically advanced bike available;
being a racer at heart, he moved on to what technology offers today.
As we all know, Jacques Anquetil not only rode in
the Tour; he would become the first cyclist to win that race five times. No one disputes that he is among the handful
of greatest racers of all time: in the same league as Eddy Mercx, Bernard
Hinault, Gino Bartali and a few others.
He retired in late 1969.
In contrast to Hoffmann, Anquetil did not come to
racing from the world of randonees and other such endurance rides. He also didn’t retreat to that milieu. In fact, Anquetil got on his bike only three
times after retiring. “I have done
enough cycling,” he declared. He died in 1987, at the age of 53.
After reading the BQ article, I have the impression
that Jean Hoffmann might live to be 100—and won’t stop riding!
