Roger Lapébie

Roger Lapébie was a French racing cyclist, born at Bayonne in 1911, who won the 1937 Tour de France and the Critérium National in 1934 and 1937. He made his Tour debut in 1932 with the French national team, won five stages and finished third in 1934, and was kept out of the 1935 team because of his strained relationship with the race director Henri Desgrange. His 1937 victory was controversial: he was the first winner to use a modern derailleur and was penalised for outside assistance, which led his Belgian rival Sylvère Maes to quit the race in protest. Derailleurs became standard in the peloton afterwards. Lapébie wrote about the race for left-wing magazines, and Desgrange kept him out of the 1938 Tour. He died at Pessac in 1996.