Paul de Vivie, who wrote as Vélocio[4] (28 April 1853[1][2][3]– 27 February 1930) was the publisher of Le Cycliste, a developer and early champion of derailleur gears, and father of French bicycle touring and randonneuring.

Paul de Vivie lived at Tarascon, Meyzieu, and studied at Lachassagne, near Lyon until 1870.

Evidence that de Vivie was a reasonably prosperous man is shown in a club rule that allowed membership only to amateurs, a definition which excluded ordinary working men.

[6][7] Further evidence is the writer Jean-Pierre Baud's calculation that a bicycle cost 200 francs or 56 times the daily wage of an everyday worker.

"[6] A friend challenged de Vivie to ride his new bicycle 100 km in six hours and he set out to the mountain resort of Chaise-Dieu.

[8] De Vivie felt challenged but also trapped: if he lowered his gear, he would go slower on the flat.

[9] In 1901 Velocio combined his invention with the four-speed proteon gear of the English Whippet, which used a split chain wheel.

The organiser of the Tour de France, Henri Desgrange, dismissed them in L'Auto as fit only for invalids and women.

The Touring Club de France organised a challenge in 1902 in which a female rider, Marthe Hesse, participated riding a Gauloise with a three-speed derailleur.

[10][11] Desgrange, though, wrote: De Vivie's invention is in the museum of art and industry at St-Étienne.

His friend, Albert Raimond, developed the idea and started the Cyclo gear company.

His obituary in the Gazette of the Cyclists' Touring Club pictured him with an open-framed small-wheel bicycle.

Vélocio wrote of his tours in a language that inspired a nation - France - in which holidays with pay were unknown: Or again: De Vivie was a vegetarian,[2] a speaker of Esperanto[4] and a strict man who started every day of his later life by reading ancient Greek.

[2] On 27 February 1930 the last words he read were from Seneca to Lucius: Then he collected his bike and began pushing it across the road.

[1] Its inscription reads: "Paul de Vivie, alias Vélocio (Pernes 1853 - St-Étienne 1930).