Thévenet was born to a farming family in Saône-et-Loire in Burgundy and lived in a hamlet called Le Guidon (The Handlebar).

His parents needed him on the farm too much to be keen on his racing,[2] but they knew their son's ambitions.

There was a row and the club president intervened by inviting the parents to see their son's next race.

[4] In 1967 the manager of the ACBB club in Boulogne-Billancourt Mickey Weigant, drove to his house to enrol him.

He said: "I wasn't even a reserve in 1970 but, because two riders[6] in the team had fallen ill at Peugeot, the directeur sportif picked me two days before the start."

That I'd saved my season and, because of that, my job, because the obligatory two-year contracts for new professionals didn't exist then.

As he began to regain his memory, he looked down at his own Peugeot jersey and wondered whether he might be a cyclist.

In the 1975 Tour, Thévenet attacked Eddy Merckx on the col d'Izoard on 14 July, France's national day.

Merckx, who was suffering stomach pain from a punch by a spectator, fought back but lost the lead and never regained it.

"[3] Thévenet - who had taken the climb on the larger chainring[3] - went on to win the Tour, which that year finished on the Champs-Élysées for the first time.

Several months later Thévenet lined up for the 1978 Tour de France but had to abandon the second mountain stage in an ambulance.

[11] He returned to a French team in his final year, 1981, where he won a stage in the Circuit de la Sarthe.