<\/a><\/p>\n Raymond Riotte has died at the age of 86. He had a career in two parts, a blazing debut and then seven years of more patient work as domestique<\/em> to many top names.<\/p>\n Born in 1940 to parents who were farm workers near Chablis in France\u2019s Yonne department, Riotte was one of eight children. He wasn\u2019t interested in cycling at first, preferring football where he was a goalscorer for FC Ch\u00e2tel-G\u00e9rard. France had compulsory military service and at the age of 19 Riotte was sent to Algeria, then a French colony, where he spent 28 months. Not knowing anyone on his arrival at camp, he found an ally from Le Creusot, a town the other side of the Morvan hills. This friend lent him his bike he told his local newspaper Le Journal du Centre<\/a> and he got a taste for cycling.<\/p>\n On return from Algeria, at the age of 22 he took out a racing licence\u00a0 and thrived. Starting out as a fourth category rider he moved up a level each year and by 1965 he was the amateur champion of Burgundy and earning good prize money most weekends. Sometimes professionals raced the local criteriums but there was a clash, the pros wanting to top-up meagre wages while for locals \u201cthese were our Worlds, we wanted to impress the pros\u201d Riotte told Le Journal du Centre.<\/p>\n During the Ronde de Seignelay in 1966, Riotte\u2019s local race but also staged as a post-Tour de France criterium, Jean Stablinksi, captain of the Ford team that had just won the Tour de France pleaded to Riotte to stop showing up the pros. Accounts of this from Riotte vary across outlets but the synthesis is \u201cStab\u201d noted Riotte might be earning cash but he was having to pay his own expenses when it came to kit and the Ford captain said something mid-race to the effect of \u201cleave us alone and you\u2019ll get your own material\u201d. Riotte said he thought the remark would be forgotten once the race was over but he was suddenly offered a pro contract. Only \u201cit was 500 Francs [NB: per month, \u20ac725 in today\u2019s money] and I could get that in my local races in two weekends\u201d he told L\u2019Equipe in 2015. He turned down the offer.<\/p>\n In the following spring Riotte won another local race in Nevers against pros and while the Ford team had become Bic that year it still wanted to recruit Riotte. Team manager Rapha\u00ebl Geminiani gave him an ultimatum: sign or we won\u2019t ask a third time. Riotte agreed and turned pro in the spring of 1967 for Bic team, joining the likes of Jacques Anquetil, Lucian Aimar, Julio Jiminez<\/a>, Jean Graczyk, Vic Denson and especially Jean Stablinski. The two became good friends, one the son of miners, the other from farming. He may only have earned 500 Francs to start with but everything would change soon.<\/p>\n He proved helpful in the classics, rode the Vuelta and come the summer won a stage of the GP du Midi-Libre, a now-defunct stage race before the Tour de France that was as important as the Dauphin\u00e9. That summer\u2019s Tour de France changed format and was ridden by national teams. Jacques Anquetil opted not to ride but team manager Marcel Bidot was still spoilt for choice with the likes of 1966 Tour winner Lucien Aimar, Raymond Poulidor<\/a> and Roger Pingeon<\/a>. Bidot had Stablinski as a road captain and he lobbied to bring Riotte. It may not have been an easy conversation to pick a rider who had turned pro just three months ago but Riotte had impressed in a short time and was hired to work as a domestique<\/em>.<\/p>\n On Stage 5 of the Tour de France the Tour was racing on the roads near Roubaix that were home to Stablinski and mid-stage he spotted Riotte and Pingeon lurking at the back of the peloton. \u201cTake Pingeon to the front right away<\/em>\u201d ordered Stablinski and as they moved up a breakaway was going clear so Riotte sprinted to join it, towing Pingeon across. It was the right move and Pingeon was in yellow that evening and Riotte in green. Things were only going to get better.<\/p>\n On Stage 7 to Strasbourg Riotte got in the breakaway only to get beaten in the finish by Michael Wright, a British rider but who\u2019d grown up in Li\u00e8ge and barely spoke English, he was seemingly in cahoots with Belgian rider Georges Van den Berghe who had grabbed Riotte\u2019s jersey before the final corner to slow Riotte. This act of European co-operation in Strasbourg enraged Riotte who was fuming at the finish. Only for TV reporter Robert Chapatte to stun him by telling him he\u2019d got the yellow jersey.<\/p>\n It was only for a day because the next stage was in the Vosges mountains and Riotte was adrift to the point of being worried about being eliminated from the race while wearing yellow. He finished and saw team mate Aimar take the race lead, as L\u2019Equipe said at the time it was impressive for a neo-pro who three weeks before did not dream of wearing the French tricolore<\/em> jersey, let alone yellow.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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