The First Bicycle Race in Annaba (1889)
“Around the year 1889, I witnessed the start of a ‘bicycle’ race in Bône (now Annaba). It was on a Sunday morning, on Gambetta Street. The competition was to take place on the road between Bône and Mondovi, round trip, covering a distance of about fifty kilometers.
The roads at that time were far from what they are today, and the stretch between Bône and Mondovi was likely the worst in the region due to the heavy daily transport traffic, especially related to wine transportation from the large vineyards.
The roadway was constantly damaged—full of holes, ruts, and dust.
The starting point was right on Gambetta Street, in front of building number 6, where the organizer’s shop was located, and where the competitors would return a few hours later.
These ‘bicycles’ were a strange kind of vehicle, popularly nicknamed ‘spiders’, consisting of one large wheel about 1.5 meters in diameter and a much smaller rear wheel. Both wheels were made of iron and equipped with thin solid rubber bands. The rider sat directly over the hub of the large wheel, where the pedals were mounted on either side to directly power it.
The race, which I watched from the sidewalk on Gambetta Street, was a true test of endurance, energy, and courage.
The bicycle had not yet made its appearance in Bône, whose streets were still filled with diverse and archaic means of transport: heavy carts pulled by oxen, camel caravans resting on the sidewalks, and heavily loaded donkeys and mules—all painfully slow.
The ‘little queen’ (La Petite Reine, the nickname for the bicycle) only arrived after 1890, about ten years after her Parisian birth, astonishing onlookers with her speed as she circled around our Cours National, under the amazed gaze of people who had never seen anything like it.”
المصدر :
Dépêche de Constantine du 19/10/58