Joyeux Anniversaire, Espèce de Connard
October 24th, Octave Lapize
Octave Lapize,
October 24th, 1887.
Look, I don't mean to be rude or anything, but you're a lazy bastard, ain't ya? Don't worry, I'm a lazy bastard, too, although I do try and exercise daily, particularly as I get older and particularly because of that episode a few years ago when I went to popped into the hospital for a moment to see about that blood thing and they told me that I had six months to live, the rotters!
Turns out I didn't have six months to live, as you can tell by the fact that it's four years later, and here I am calling you a lazy bastard, you lazy bastard! I might tell you about it one day.
You might not, naturally, be a lazy bastard in comparison to some other lazy bastards, who may be considerably lazier than you. But that's largely the point, is it not? Even with my little regime of daily exercise, I am still far more of a lazy bastard than, say, any professional sportsperson.
If it makes you feel better, you can always fall back on the good old Romans, for whom a life of leisure was so important a pursuit that they had a term for it- otium. Tiberius, the emperor fellow, was a fine general whose military career was carefully laid out for him by his adoptive father, Augustus, until, in the early part of the first century AD, he simply downed tools and fucked off to Capri to live a life of otium, fed up of smacking people over the head with things in order to give someone else all the glory.
The official pursuit of a life of otium was, get this, not really seen as a bad thing, either. Nowadays, if you said that you were leaving the military to pursue a life of leisure, people would think you're a lazy bastard who spends all day on Capri, sitting next to the pool drinking mojitos, but to a Roman, otium was simply the opposite to a life of public service. In public service, such as a military command post, one did all manner of things and did them in the full glare of, obviously, the public eye. But in otium, one retired to one's villa to formally contemplate the nature of existence via meditation, oration, philosophical recourse, mental endeavour and the pursuit of literature, both reading and writing. Some of the greatest enlightenment in human achievement came from men (and it was nearly always men - women were far too busy to fuck about on Capri being a nonce) who had taken a 'vow' of otium and sat about all day inventing geometry and shit.
I'd like to think that otium might have suited me right down to the ground, although I can no longer enjoy the fruits of the mojito tree (oh, but were there such a thing!) thanks to that thing four years ago when they told me I had six months to live.
So I'm a lazy bastard, you're a lazy bastard, Tiberius was a lazy bastard, and it's all comparative. Because even a professional sportsperson who spends all day running about and then going home at lunchtime to play XBox all afternoon is a lazy bastard when compared to the endeavours and excesses of one Octave Lepize, who was not only a professional road racing cyclist and, therefore mad, but also volunteered to fly around in one of those barely credible aircraft of World War One that seemed to defy logic, but do so whilst the Germans shot at him. Which increases his status of 'mad' to the level of 'totally mad'. Throw into the mix that he was French and, therefore, likely constantly topped up to a level of semi-sobriety on a mixture of red wine and Gitanes and minutes away at any point from simply downing tools and attempting to sleep with your sister, and the Insanity Status of Monsieur Lapize topped out at an eye-watering 'fucking lunatic'.
Octave Lapize was born in 1887 in Paris and, like all Frenchmen, soon took to two wheels with aplomb, presumably so he could find a quicker way to get to your sister's house in order to have sex with her. Octave could push the pedals around with extraordinary vigour from an early age, which says either a lot about the young Octave or about the sisters of the arrondissements of early twentieth-century Paris. Perhaps both.
By 1908, Octave had decamped to rain-sodden London, far from any alluring sister, to compete in the men's Olympic 100-kilometre road race, coming in a hearty bronze medal position behind two stout yeoman British competitors who were fortified by proper British pluck and vast quantities of amphetamines.
The following year, Octave entered and won the infamous Paris-Roubaix road race, part of which, for reasons that are not satisfactorily explained, takes part over cobbles, which, as anyone who has ever ridden a bicycle will tell you, is just about the daftest surface to attempt to cycle over, not least because it's enough to dislodge your retinas, but also because the merest smattering of rain turns the surface into a death-trap. Not for no reason is the Paris-Roubaix known as L'Enfer du Nord - the Hell of the North. He came back the next year and won it again. And then again.
In 1911, he survived and won not only the Paris-Roubaix but also the Paris-Tours and the Paris-Brussels, winning the latter twice more in 1912 and 1913. Quite why these tours began and did not end in Paris seems an oversight, particularly as the lure of a few nights of rest and relaxation in the bordels of Paris might have tempted even the laziest bastard among us to give it a crack.
All this is, of course, missing the Big One.
His first Tour de France, in 1909, ended early when he encountered the wholly unreasonable problem of snow, which, considering it was the middle of July and all he had for warmth was an alarming moustache, seems rather unfair of the meteorological gods.
He was back the following year, moustache to the fore, to, for the only time, finish the race, which he won. Whilst climbing the Col d'Aubsique, he is reported to have shouted at the race organisers, "Vous êtes des criminels!" which might seem a little churlish until you factor in that l'Aubsique was at the height of 1,709 m (5,607 ft), was at the end of a stage that had stretched for a staggering 326 kilometres (202 miles), and that the final climb was the last of a series that went up the Col de Peyresourde, the Col d'Aspin, the Col du Tourmalet, the Col du Soulor, and the Col de Tortes before finishing at the Col d'Aubsique. All in one day. When he got to the finish, having won, in Bayonne, he is reported to have told reporters that "Desgrange [the race organiser] est un assassin".
He won four stages in 1910, on his way to overall victory and although he never completed another Tour, he won a stage in 1912 and another in 1914, before World War One cut his career short.
He joined the flying corps of the French Army because he was a fucking lunatic and was shot down near Flirey, Meurthe-et-Moselle, on the 14th of July 1917. He died later that day in hospital, aged 29.
A fucking lunatic man killed in a fucking insane war for little apparent reason. A lot of sisters would have wept. And brothers and mothers and fathers. And sons and daughters, cousins, uncles, friends, aunts ....