I was watching the special features portion on the DVD of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's "A Very Long Engagement" today and was surprised to see a cycling reference. In the deleted scene where the condemned soldiers start going over the top into no-man's land (I think it was Six-Soux) stops on the ladder and offers a small packet to another soldier, saying it's his tire patch, and that without it he couldn't have won the 1911 Paris-Roubaix. In fact it was Octave Lapize who won that year, the third of his three consecutive wins in Roubaix. Lapize died July 14th, 1917, during aerial combat over Pont-à-Mousson (Verdun).
Aldo Ross
Middletown, Ohio, USA