There was a time when running the Tour it was one aventura, almost crazy, in the good sense of the word, who went to France, as they could, looking for their lives many times. Planes hardly existed and train travel, for example, from Bilbao to Parisit became an endless journey, with smoke that permeated everything, noise and a slowness that at least served to admire the landscapes and start thinking about the role you could play in that race that everyone was talking about, the hardest , which had only been interrupted because of the Big war.
Ruben Peris, recently re-elected as president of the Volta, is the one who puts me in the background of a cyclist who, really, I did not know. He was named jesus dermit and was originally from Vizcaya. Yes, he had read and even written on occasion about his good friend Federico Ezquerrawho continues to be a hero among the Basque pioneers who one day went to the French round to begin to mark the path of future generations.
The great Federico Ezquerra
Definitely, left was much more successful than Dermatitis and he was even able to arrive in Paris in 1936 in the 17th position overall. And it must not have been an easy task because the coup d’état caught him in the middle of his career. Coincidentally, on July 19, one day after the start of the war, he alone won the stage from Nice to Cannes. He still ran one more Tour, the following year, in full conflict in Spain, between those who wanted darkness and those who defended the Republic.
Your good friend’s career Jesus Derrit it wasn’t that bright. He was born in Bilbao in 1909 to die in Getxo, in 1988. And he could not boast of finishing a Tour, precisely because of the previous conditions with which he faced the race.
With the suitcase in tow
He arrived in Paris a few days before the start of the Tour and had to sleep in a garage in the company of his bike and suitcase. The place belonged to a friend from Biscay, installed in the French capital. Accustomed to Basque food, his stomach could not stand what we could call a local diet, all cooked with butter. Oil, at that time, was neither there nor expected.
So, in these conditions, without a doctor to help calm his stomach, without a masseur to get his muscles ready and without a mechanic to check his bike, he set out on the path of the first stage; 206 kilometers between Paris and Caen. He was part of a very interesting Spanish team that included, among others, Salvador Cardona, Vincent Trueba y Francisco Cepeda. Trueba, who was called the ‘Torrelavega Flea’, was the first king of the mountain of the Tour back in 1933. Cardona He was the leader of the ranks because a year before he had finished fourth overall. He ended up acquiring French citizenship and died in Pau in 1985. Cepeda had worse luck. He died on July 14, 1935 in Grenoble after falling down the Galibier. He became the first fatality on the Tour.
the blissful butter
But what we were going to Dermatitis, sick, managed to finish the first stage. He did it 18.38 minutes behind the first yellow jersey, a French institution of the time, Charles Pelissier. But the second one was already so long that he had to give up. The butter had started to drive him out of control. He never ran the Vuelta or the Giro. His record includes victories in five local Biscayan races. But you will never know what his performance would have been like if he had traveled properly, slept in a hotel and eaten properly before debuting on the Tour.
2023-07-11 07:12:43
#TOUR #FRANCE #unknown #hero #Tour
