Jean Robic (pronounced [ʒɑ̃ ʁɔ.bik]; 10 June 1921 – 6 October 1980)[2] was a French road racing cyclist who won the 1947 Tour de France.

[4] For faster, gravity-assisted descents, he collected drinking bottles ballasted with lead or mercury at the summits of mountain climbs and "cols".

[4] Robic has always been described as a Breton but he was born in the Ardennes region of France, where his father had found work as a carpenter.

When his name first became known to journalists, he quickly became known as le farfadet de la lande bretonne—the hobgoblin of the Brittany moor.

[4] "He was hardly interviewed by journalists; his retirement on the first day would not have earned him more than a line in small type at the bottom of an obscure page of the papers", said de Latour.

[4] Robic, recently married, told his wife Raymonde he would bring her the Tour's yellow jersey as a wedding present.

We thought so more than ever when, the next day, the route included the great Galibier, and Robic was out of the picture, with the Franco-Italian Camellini unapproachable up there in the snows.

[4]The Tour then had easy stages along the Mediterranean where he could recover before riding still more strongly in the Pyrenees, leading the race over the Aubisque, Tourmalet and Peyresourde on the day from Luchon to Pau.

[11] The main field was uncertain what to do and unfavourable to Brambilla so soon after the war because he was riding for a team of Italians living in France.

They had lost too much time during the month that the Tour had lasted to challenge for race victory and so Léo Veron of the French national team told Lucien Teisseire to drop back and help Fachleitner.

'"[14] Robic, who until then had never led the race, reached the finish at the Parc des Princes 13 minutes ahead of Brambilla.

More certain is that Robic gave his only yellow jersey to the Sainte-Anne-d'Auray basilica, where it still is, in thanks to Anne, patron saint of Bretons.

Robic also won the Rome-Naples-Rome in 1950, the world cyclo-cross championship in 1950,[17][18] and the Tour de Haute-Savoie and Polymultipliée in 1952.

Pierre Chany said:He had a face that was speckled like a bitter apple, large ears and a little nervous and muscular body.

One writer said: He was five-foot nothing [and] so light in weight that he ballasted his water bottles with lead to increase his momentum on the downhills.

Tiny guy, blond curls crimped under a string-of-sausages helmet, gnarled face and Mr Punch hooked chin and nose...

Other riders were required to finish the day within a set percentage of the winner's time and Robic didn't make it.

He collected lead filled drinking bottles at the top of major climbs because his lightness led to his descending mountains slower than he wanted.

[5] He bragged of his talent, once dismissing Gino Bartali and saying of the other leading Italian that he had " a Fausto Coppi in each leg"[5]—meaning he was twice as good.

A fellow professional, André Mahé, said in Procycling in 2007 that Robic's personality and self-importance was such that he would stand in the doorway of a restaurant until all the diners had noticed him and then announce: "Oui!

The historian and television commentator, Jean-Paul Ollivier, wrote of the 1950 Tour de France in which he said Robic was deeply depressed, weeping abundantly.

Escorted by his team-mates, Robert Bonnaventure and Gino Sciardis, he finished the stage pitifully at St-Étienne and dropped from fourth to seventh place in the standings, 37 minutes behind Ferdi Kübler.

His soigneur, Libaud, gave him an injection of solucamphor to get him going again [pour le remonter][20]Robic said doping had always existed but that the most he had taken was a bottle of coffee mixed with "calva"—(Calvados).

[21] In 1943 Robic met Raymonde Cornic, whose father owned the Rendez-vous des Bretons bar near the Gare Montparnasse in Paris.

Jock Wadley wrote:Puteaux was where Robic had scored an important cyclo-cross win at the beginning of his main career.

[3] He died in a car accident near Claye-Souilly on his way home from a party at Germigny-l'Évêque in which Joop Zoetemelk was celebrating his own win in the Tour.