Louis Bobet was born one of three children above his father's baker's shop in the rue de Montfort,[2] Saint-Méen-le-Grand, near Rennes.

He qualified for the final of the unofficial youth championship, the Premier Pas Dunlop in 1943 at Montluçon and came sixth.

It brought him an invitation to ride the Tour de France, at that time disputed by national and regional teams.

The unexpected toughness of the race forced him to go home on the ninth day, in the Alps and to cry when the going got hard.

It brought him the nickname "cry-baby" in the bunch[3] and René Vietto referred to him as La Bobette, a mock feminisation of his name, for his tears and complaining.

The historian Dick Yates wrote: The former rider, Maurice Archambaud, took over management of the team from Léo Véron and took a chance on Bobet.

Bobet lost the yellow jersey the following day but regained it by winning the sixth stage, to Biarritz.

Both hoped to profit from the absence of Fausto Coppi, who was injured, but found themselves instead up against an unbeatable Ferdinand Kübler.

He lost 40 minutes on the last day in the mountains even though the race was taking it easy, Hugo Koblet already being unbeatable.

He climbed the Col d'Izoard alone on roads still rutted and strewn with stones and when the gearing on his bicycle forced him to fight to keep it moving.

Deledda, fulfilling the team contract in both letter and especially in spirit, buried himself towing Bobet to the great mountain.

Winning the time-trial cemented his lead and he got to Paris 15 minutes before Kübler A few weeks later he became world champion in Germany.

Bobet completed his hat-trick of successive wins in 1955, having that year won the Tour of Flanders and Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré.

The strongest French rider at first was Antonin Rolland and the manager, Marcel Bidot, asked the team to ride for him.

Nobody dared speak the word 'cancer'"[14] Bobet believed that enduring the sores during the Tour made him a lesser rider for the rest of his life.

In the heart of the gigantic rocks of the Cassé Déserte, Bob is arced on his bicycle, his kidneys crushed by the effort and his head, like a heavy, painful balance, oscillates above his handlebars.

Abandoned, alone, without help, streaming with sweat, he has no other weapon against his adversaries but the mountain, the bad weather and his crazy willpower.

Normally urbane, charming, interesting and witty, he could become vindictive, spiteful, mean and petty towards those devoted to his cause, and he never hesitated to get rid of a team-mate if he upset him.

The most striking feature of Bobet the man rather than rider was his ambition to behave like a Hollywood matinée idol, a sort of David Niven character in a dinner suit tuxedo.

[16] The British professional Brian Robinson called Bobet "a private man and a little moody" and said he would sulk if things went wrong.

The French journalist René de Latour said of Bobet in Sporting Cyclist that "he didn't look good on a bike" and that he had "the legs of a football [soccer] player".

[17] Bobet was driven by personal hygiene and refused to accept his first yellow jersey because it had not been made with the pure wool he believed the only healthy material for a sweating and dusty rider.

Louison was always exquisitely courteous but his principles were as hard as the granite blocks of his native Brittany coast.

[18]Goddet had to get Sofil to produce another jersey overnight, its logo still visible but artificial fabric absent.

[17] Le Bert said he had met Coppi, whom Bobet admired for his "modern" techniques but refused to have anything to do with the Italian's suitcase of drugs.

He was obliged to admit that he had drunk the small bottles prepared for him by his soigneur at the time without knowing exactly what they contained.

He remember that the two Britons arrived at Le Bourget airport without having brought passports – but that immigration staff gave them no attention because they were too busy trying to get an autograph from Bobet.

[21] Bobet's career effectively ended when the car carrying him and his brother Jean crashed outside Paris in the autumn of 1960.

Louison Bobet had a succession of businesses after he stopped racing, including a clothes shop, but he became best known for investing in and developing the seawater health treatment of thalassotherapy.

Bobet is interred in the cemetery of Saint-Méen-le-Grand, and there is a museum to his memory in the town,[26] the idea of village postmaster Raymond Quérat.