Vesoul (AFP)

He is 93 years old, competitive calves and a young man's enthusiasm: the Franc-Comtois René Gaillard, former regional glory of the 1950s and world time record holder in 2017, category 90-94 years old, is the new dean of the world cycling.

He was born on September 24, 1927 and in recent weeks, René Gaillard has changed status: in the classification of the International Cycling Union (UCI), he took up the torch from Robert Marchand the "super centenary" who died in May at the age of 109. , holder of the hour record for over 100 and 105.

"I am proud to still ride a bicycle at this age, I still have the health of being able to ride a bicycle without being ridiculous", confides to AFP René Gaillard, who has more than 550,000 kilometers on the clock.

In 2017, at the age of 90, the runner from Vesoul covered 29.278 km in one hour on the Saint-Quentin en Yvelines velodrome.

Never had a cyclist hung his name among the over 90s on the UCI table.

"The last ten minutes were an ordeal, I was in pain everywhere," says the Franc-Comtois.

"I have done thousands of kilometers on the track, I have raced with professionals, I have won races ... I still have that self-confidence."

Next year, he could attempt the 95-99-year-old hour record, an unprecedented one.

Unlike Robert Marchand, who had started cycling at the age of 60, René Gaillard had a professional career and revealed himself at the age of 18, entered by chance in a non-licensee race organized by a local bicycle dealer.

- Arms pass with Coppi -

"I didn't want to participate but the organizer repainted my bike and put on a racing handlebar. It was Peru for me, so I said okay", recalls René Gaillard who crushes the competition but forgets to cross the finish line.

“At the top of each pass, I was waiting for the others, and 300 meters from the line I waited again, but the guys sprinted past me. I didn't care, I didn't know what it was. a bike race. "

Finally, the young footballer puts away his crampons and gets on his first racing bike offered by his father in 1946, the year of his first license.

In an album entitled "My hopes, my joys and my sorrows, 1948-1954", he preserved the articles of the local newspapers recounting his exploits, and his "30 victories, 70 podiums" during the period.

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A professional career?

René Gaillard did not want it despite the requests.

"We had just married my wife, I refused", he recounts, "without regrets".

In 1951, classified "Independent first category", this sprinter likes to tell that he was scrapped with legends such as Louison Bobet and Fausto Coppi, entered in the Grand Prix du commerce et de l 'Industrie de Besançon.

"I was in front with them. At one point, Coppi turns to me and says to me with his accent: + It's hard cycling +. Let a man like him look at you and tell you that, to a small independent like me, it was worth a race victory, "he recalls.

Coppi won ahead of Bobet, René finished 16th.

- 10,000 km per year -

After his years of racing (1946-1954), the Franc-Comtois made a career at La Poste in Paris before returning to the region in 1990, without ever having stopped pedaling.

Paris-Vesoul in 1988, crossing the United States from Chicago to Los Angeles at age 72, pedaling in "the Valley of Death under 52 degrees in front of the group", the old fellow, embarrassed all his life by scoliosis poorly cared for in childhood, is more comfortable on a bicycle than on foot.

Each year, the 1.60 m courier travels another 10,000 km with the "Cyclotouristes vésuliens", but has all the same agreed, to keep pace, to buy an electric bike this winter which already has 3,500 km on the clock.

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His recipe to last: "Live normally, a little flexibility every day, the home trainer if I'm not lazy, no alcohol, or very little, and no particular diet".

Passionate about the Tour de France, which he follows every day, he says he "admires" in particular Julian Alaphilippe, "one of the best", but admits to having "lost sight of the current riders" a little.

© 2021 AFP