Sport et Technique à la « Polymultipliée » — L’Officiel du cycle, 3 June 1950, the Chanteloup Criterium

From L’Officiel du cycle, 3 June 1950, page 3: the editorial on the Critérium de la Polymultipliée at Chanteloup-les-Vignes, the cycling festival, with its winners and the derailleurs that took the day. The title, headings, captions and lists are transcribed as printed; the text is summarized in Ebykr’s words, and the page images carry it in full. It belongs to the trade columns that the weekly addressed to the French cycle dealers, the vélocistes.

— Page 1 —
SPORT ET TECHNIQUE
A LA « POLYMULTIPLIÉE »

[Ebykr summary; the article’s text is not reproduced. The « Critérium de la Polymultipliée », better known as the « Poly de Chanteloup », is called a true festival of the bicycle, unique in Europe, which makes the modest village of Chanteloup-les-Vignes the capital of the “petite reine” for a day. Its program, the fruit of long experience, is said to satisfy everyone who cares about the cycle: sporting enthusiasts drawn to athletic feats, methodical cyclotourists with lovingly equipped machines and friends of pure technique. The writer remarks that these “classes” are not sealed off from one another but mix, often within families.]

[Ebykr summary, continued. The events ran this year, as in earlier years, in a particularly happy atmosphere; the paper explains that the business news of the trade kept it from reporting them at the start of May and that it catches up now, without straying from its own program, since technique and sport are closely married here. First, over a 73-kilometer course, the mixed tandems competed: the constructeur René Herse once again saw his machine win (ridden by Prestat and Mlle Lily Herse) and his marque win the team classification. In the « Course » category Métropole, ridden by Geminiani (“a vélociste himself”), won by covering the 145 kilometers in 4 hours 35 minutes; by teams « la Perle » finished first. Among the Randonneurs, Hugonnier-Routens won with François Rota and took the J. Moyne challenge “until next year”.]

[Ebykr summary, continued. Derailleurs were naturally among the stars of the day: « Le Simplex » and « Le Cyclo » shared the laurels, the first in the Course category and the second in the two other categories, though their rivals are said to have been no less good in operation whatever “the fortune of arms” gave them. Huret is named, and the paper notes that it prints Huret’s remarkable record of wins for the 1950 season elsewhere in the issue. On general technique there were no sensational novelties, but many very interesting finds, to be discussed later under the « Bicyclette » heading, and above all complete machines reaching the summit of perfection conceivable at the time. The open-air Salon on the plateau de l’Hautil had grown considerably this year: all the paper’s construction firms and makers were there and drew a large and friendly crowd; the paper promises to review them shortly.]

[Ebykr summary, after a blank line. « L’Officiel du Cycle et de la Motocyclette » offers its sincere congratulations to the organizers of the « Poly », particularly M. Claude Tillet, Directeur of the « Cycle »; it reports that the many personalities present at Chanteloup, among them the paper’s own Directeur, M. Alexis Tantet, came away delighted.]

[A full page of text only, with no illustration. The title stands across the head in two lines of large spaced sans-serif capitals, “SPORT ET TECHNIQUE” above “A LA « POLYMULTIPLIÉE »” with guillemets, and below it sits a short centered ornament of three ruled lines. The article runs in two justified columns of roman text divided by a thin vertical rule; the right column ends with a separate closing paragraph set off by a blank line. The folio “— 3 —” is printed centered at the foot. Faint traces of type from the reverse of the leaf show through in the upper margin.]