Rosabicyclette
Les lieux de sport en France
The phenomenon of velodrome racing, which developed in the 1880s and rapidly reached its zenith in the 1890s, is a complex case-study of the influences and trends at work in the evolution of cycling as sport and leisure. The brief period during which the velodromes flourished was marked by the rise of professionalism, the decline in the role of clubs in the organization of races, the rise in the importance of the sporting press, the strengthening of links between racers and manufacturers and overall, a democratization of cycling. Cycle racing in the early decades of the sport had been organized – mainly by clubs but also increasingly, by the press – on public roads or in public spaces such as parks or urban boulevards, but the need had soon developed for permanent facilities for racing that were not subject to the vagaries of town councils or conflict with other uses of public space. It was thus that early influential clubs built their own race tracks, to be used both for races and training.
Le Velodrome
“Gentlemanly competition on tracks vs. proletarian racing on roads”
The south-west region was an enthusiastic early promoter of velodromes, with permanent facilities being built in the mid-1880s, such as that at Dax (1885), the Saint-Augustin track in Bordeaux (1886) and the Parc Beaumont track in Pau (1886). The Saint-Augustin track of the Véloce-Club bordelais allowed the club to transfer racing from the Place des Quinconces, but eventually represented a heavy financial drain on the club, whose demise in 1892 opened the way for fully commercial private-sector exploitation of velodrome racing in Bordeaux in the later 1890s. The 1880s were the decade of gentlemanly competition on the track between riders of social distinction, participating in races organized by the still socially elitist cycling clubs, as cycling had not yet become a mass entertainment. Track racers in the 1880s were generally predominantly middle and upper class, whereas on the road, racers had already become predominantly lower class. However, by the 1890s and the full flush of early professionalism, track and road racing came to be dominated by riders from humble social origins who aspired to sporting glory and its attendant rewards. Le vélodrome du Parc de Princes 1900.
Au Velodrome du Parc des Princes
"Le Velodrome" © Gallica
Although track racing was initially merely an ‘upper-class fad’ (both in terms of competitors and spectators), in the 1890s at least it was very rapidly taken up by the masses: Cycle races were the first popular sporting entertainment of modern times, and the first to offer numerous professionals an avenue of economic, hence social promotion, the famous Vélodrome d'hiver track founded in 1893 in the select Champ de Mars quarter in Paris was soon swamped with lower-class spectators, as track racing developed rapidly into commercial spectacle.
Vélodrome d'hiver, 1893
Le Vélodrome d'Hiver,Paris
The Vél' d'hiv' track was not the first to be set up in Paris: it succeeded the Palais des Arts libéraux (1890, in the Salle des arts libéraux built for the 1889 exhibition), which had soon been followed by the famous Vélodrome de Buffalo and the Vélodrome de la Seine in 1892 and in 1895 by a track at the Bois de Vincennes, and yet another at the Parc des Princes.
Vélodrome de Buffalo 1893.
Announcement of inauguration of Buffalo velodrome
Under the combined influence of burgeoning professionalism, entrepreneurial innovation and a vigorous sporting press, velodrome racing in the 1890s became something of a mania, but the popularity of the sport was always dependent on the fickleness of the public. Attracting a crowd to watch cycling in a stadium was more manageable than trying to make any money from the spectators of a road race such as Bordeaux–Paris, but once the first flush of enthusiasm for mere novelty (of the machines and the event) or for speed (and danger) had been exhausted, those who organized the track competitions had to find ways of maintaining interest. The life of a velodrome was often short, as backers became disillusioned with the uncertainties of the gate receipts. In the provinces, three or four velodromes in Bordeaux competed for the favours of the cycling public in the 1890s, but all eventually failed. Le Vélo was sufficiently concerned in 1897 to lead a survey of France's tracks, concluding that most were in a bad state. Publicity for the events was guaranteed by the sporting press. ‘Heroes’ were fashioned by the sporting press whose careers and lives became sporting soap operas, reported on daily by the newspapers. Although some managers and owners of velodromes were former riders, such as Henri Desgrange, both rightly emphasized the links between cycling as ‘spectacle’ created in track racing and other more traditional domains of popular entertainment that were forged by the ‘sporting impresarios’ who often ran the tracks.
The life of a velodrome was often short.
L’acrobatie au velodrome de Buffalo.
Velodrome d’hiver buffalo 1910. Gallica.
in the arts were Clovis Clerc of the Folies Bergères, manager of a track at Charenton in Paris, and literary man-about- town Tristan Bernard, owner of the Buffalo velodrome. It was perhaps their influence that helped develop races involving animals, revealingly dressed actresses, cycling acrobats and other gimmicks. In anticipation of the ‘hook’ to be found by Desgrange in 1903 for the Tour de France, however, velodromes seized on the notion of what could be called ‘extreme racing’, with non-stop duels between riders over distances of 1,000 km or more, or 24 hours. Such ordeals attracted crowds, but the public tired even of these spectacles of endurance and suffering, and the ‘star system’ of riders created by the press produced tensions between the velodromes and the most popular and successful racers. Difficulties such as these led to the creation of a riders' union and further complications for an unstable entertainment industry.
Crossover between sport and popular entertainment
Velodromes : Buffalo, Parc des princes, d’Hiver.
