In times of recession businesses watch what they spend, and that affects professional sport. Even high profile events like the Tour de France.
Imagine riding the Tour de France funded only by unemployment benefits and whatever prize money you can win? An unlikely circumstance? It is now but it has happened, and not so long ago.
It was 1980, Europe had been struggling for a few years and by the start of the new decade some countries were in recession. Several cycling team sponsorship deals ended, and that affected races.
The 1980 Tour de France only had 13 teams, 130 riders - the smallest field for quite some time. Members of one of those teams were racing on benefits.
Unemployment rights
In the 1970s and ’80s French pro cyclists who didn’t have their team contract renewed and couldn’t find another, were treated like anyone who was made redundant. For one year following the end of their job the state paid them unemployment benefit.
It gave them and their families support while they found another job. However, many unemployed French pros used the year to race full-time with the amateurs. With regular payments equivalent to their former team salary, greater strength, and certainly more experience than their amateur rivals, those unemployed pros won a lot.
Some did well enough to return to the pro ranks, but others took the whole year to race before getting a job. They did that because they often made more money in the year than they had as a pro.

One franc per kilometre
Winners and top domestiques were paid well, but rank and file pros who made up the bulk of most races, even the Tour de France, weren’t. There was an article in a 1980 edition of the French magazine Miroir du Cyclisme titled ‘One Franc per Kilometre’.
It revolved around a very frank interview with an employed mid-pack pro. The magazine referred to him as Jean-Claude, and kept his true identity secret. He was earning about £225 a month.
He got a share of any money his team mates won, but they weren’t winning much. His income depended on doing a good Tour de France and getting criterium contracts at around £100 to £120 per race, and he didn’t get many.
When he added up his total earnings for the year, and divided it by the kilometres he raced and trained, Jean Claude discovered he’d earned one franc per kilometre.
Amis du Tour
Tough conditions, but thousands were ready to take Jean Claude’s place. They wanted to ride the Tour and say that they had once been a pro bike racer. The Tour de France was key to staying a pro too.
Ride the Tour and you could get criterium contacts, and keep living the dream, which is why the Amis du Tour team was formed in 1980. A group of unemployed French pros banded together, approached their various industry contacts for kit and bikes. The government was paying their wages, and registered as a team. They called it Amis du Tour.
The Tour was key to their ambitions, but getting in wasn’t easy.
A team of unemployed pros would be no match for the rest, but just before the race a number of Italian teams pulled out.

They’d been hammered by Bernard Hinault in that year’s Giro d’Italia, and their sponsors decided that since they had been comprehensively beaten in Italy they were on for another kicking in France. Better to save the expense.
At the last minute the Tour organisers decided to take the best riders of Amis du Tour, and join them with Boston. That was a relatively weak team from Belgian team that had also applied to ride.
They didn’t fare very well. Four riders finished, with an Amis du Tour rider, Patrice Thévenard the best of them in 55th position. At least Thévenard got a place in a pro team, and he rode the Tour de France once more in 1984.
Zero tolerance
But the story of unemployed teams didn’t end with Amis du Tour, although there was never another in the Tour de France. In 1988 a group of unemployed Dutch pros formed a team called Zero Boys. They rented jersey space to sponsors on a race by race basis.
They didn’t do very well, but they kept one rider going who eventually made it to the big time. Neil Stephens was that rider and he went on to win the Australian road race title twice, as well as a stage of the 1997 Tour de France. That was made possible by the Zero Boys.

In the late winter of 1988 Stephens travelled to Europe from Australia on the promise of a place in a team that would pay him well, but soon after he got there the team folded. He was left in Europe in mid-March so he didn’t have much choice but to join the Zero Boys.
He didn’t earn much money, but he managed to win a race. That helped him carry on racing, but the money he’d brought to set himself up in Europe was running out when he was offered a contract with top Spanish team, Caja Rural.
He took it, thrived and went on to make his name as once of the best domestique in the business. Today Stephens is a sports director with Team Bahrain Victorious.