Obviously, you liked the mood posts of Marc Fayetso we put it back for 2024 and we obviously end this season with Marc Fayet's secret notebooks ! You were able to discover it and read it on Cyclism’Actuwith his column or rather his section “The secret notebooks“. As a reminder, Marc Fayetborn in 1961, is a man of the theater and the stage. Actor and director, but also Cycling enthusiast, Marc has always been involved: he writes, comments, acts as much as he can in cycling, particularly on the Tour of Finistère of which he is today and since 2021, the president of the organizing committee. Marc Fayet and “its” secret notebooksit can now be found regularly on Cyclism’Actu.
Video – The shadow of doping on an over-medicalized peloton… The Investigation
“It was most likely Bernard Sainz, alias Doctor Mabuse”
It was rue de Londres in the 9th arrondissement of Paris on Wednesday November 27, 2024 around 1:30 p.m. that on the sidewalk a man on a very modest mount was heading in my direction: Thin frame, quite old, yellowish in color, straight handlebars VTC but with small section wheels. This man of a certain age who was heading towards the Place de l'Europe appeared to me to be a familiar face. It was only a few seconds after his passage that my brain suddenly told me that it was most likely Bernard Sainz, alias Doctor Mabuse. Having no proof of this, because this vision was too fleeting, I nevertheless had the feeling that it was indeed this individual with the famous pseudonym, who over time had become more famous than the character whose name had been attributed to him. .
I felt a sort of satisfaction and unease at the same time because I wondered what he could be doing in the neighborhood, and it's been a long time since he stopped making the cycling legal headlines. So what? Will you tell me? Was he going to commit other crimes? And why not? For the elements of suspicion, let us remember that during the edifying investigation by Elise Lucet which had put our wizard at the heart of the news, the good doctor fixed his appointments in a brasserie located in the Villiers district, straight ahead, 200 meters in the direction taken by the old cyclist I had just passed. It was in this place, remember, that a hidden camera allowed us to discover the wise advice he gave to an accomplice cyclist who came there looking for some recipes or products allowing him to increase his performance due to a period of doubt and disbelief.
“At a time when rumors about carbon monoxide machines, ketones and others are current…”
My mind, as well as my imagination, immediately led me to visualize a corner of this large café where, seated on one of the armchairs, a runner in full doubt was waiting for this visit as one of his last hopes of repeating another season , with the right form and not its past troubles. And then in the middle of November, it was the ideal period, that of the break when each cyclist takes stock of the past year and prepares the objectives for the next one. Period of reflection, preparation and sometimes perdition. Yet at a time when rumors about carbon monoxide machines, ketones and other microdoses are current, the dubious Doctor's prescriptions, consisting of cold showers on the testicles and taking drops for 100 euros containing water and caffeine, seemed very anachronistic.
And yet? What can hold back a man who has plagued generations of runners from the 80s to the 2010s and beyond. It's easy to imagine that nothing can stop this type of character who has managed to make himself indispensable, essential, indisputable, undetectable! Using his psychological influence, there is something of a snake about him and his gaze recalls that of the Python Kaa from the Jungle Book, when he hypnotized his prey to broadcast their worst thoughts.
“Runners, you will always have the power to put all other snakes out of harm's way”
So the combination of my imagination, my fantasy, my fears, my worries, my taste for scandal and mysteries, drew me into this sudden and dazzling scenario bringing to life for a few lines a whole section of the gray of our history which lies exactly between the greatest scandals of our past turpitudes and the most zany charlatanry of our formal wanderings. While it turns out that the old cyclist we met was not our Mabuse, it was only a man resembling him who, riding on the sidewalk, experienced a marginal gain, one that allowed him to ride on the asphalt smooth of the sidewalk, to gain speed and muscular economy by avoiding the cobblestones of the street of London.
But once you arrive at Place de l'Europe and continue towards Place de Villiers, would you go straight to the famous Brasserie? Or would he turn left towards rue du Rocher? Where the Theater is located Tristan Bernard, a great cycling enthusiast who directed the Buffalo velodrome and who followed the 1934 Tour for the press and who paid this tribute to the grace of the runners: “What also strikes us is the grace and skill of these cyclists: for example, when they pass a supply car, let go of their handlebars, remove the worn tubular that they have around their shoulders and replace it with a tubular nine that they wrap around their torso… From a distance, they look like snake charmers.”
So remember, dear runners, that if you no longer have the guts wrapped around your chest, you have lost none of your bewitching charm and that you will always have the power to put all other snakes out of harm's way, whether they come from the streets of London or simply from the shadows of the streets.
