Mythologies: Alphonse Steinès, the Tour de France and the Invention of the Pyrénées
The story of Alphonse Steinès night on the Tourmalet and the telegram he subsequently sent to Henri Desgrange has gone down in legend. Remarkably, there was no telegram, and much of what is said about Steinès’s night on the mountain is a fiction.
Source: podiumcafe.com