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He’s best known as Lawrence of Arabia – but in 1908 the Welsh legend could equally have laid claim to the title Lawrence of the Tour de France.

Because Tremadog-born TE Lawrence was more likely to be found on the saddle of a bike than a camel that summer as he followed a tortuous 2,000-mile route in the wake of the 6th running of the race.

The unsung story of how the then 19-year-old hammered his eccentric way around France on a pushbike has been highlighted by journalist and sports historian Brendan Gallagher.

Brendan believes the desert hero immortalised in David Lean’s 1962 epic may be worthy of a spot in cycling’s hall of fame as a result of his heroic efforts.

Lawrence was introduced to cycling by his father, the eccentric Anglo Irish Baronet Sir Thomas Chapman. Sir Thomas had left his first wife, with whom he had four daughters, to run off with his housekeeper who produced five sons the second of which was TE Lawrence, known by the family as Ted.

Sir Thomas was an early cycling enthusiast and given to escaping his sometimes chaotic household by taking long jaunts into the countryside, both at their home in North Wales and then around Oxford where they settled.

Ted was occasionally allowed to accompany him and soon got the bug and headed off on long rides of his own.

And so it was that on July 16, just four days after the Tour had set out from Paris, Lawrence got off the ferry at Le Havre to embark on his own epic challenge.

His own personal “Tour de France” hadn’t started well after taking the wrong road towards Portsmouth, leaving him having to catch a train to make it to the port on time.

But after that he revelled in the life of the long distance cyclist - on the road almost every day except for Sunday when he usually observed the Sabbath and holed up in some congenial historic spot and wrote long letter home to his mother.

Most nights would be spent writing up his notes and completing sketches from the daytime site visit before a dawn rise the next morning.

Brendan said: “Lawrence was on a standard touring pushbike of the era bought for him by his father and was weighed down by all the paraphernalia needed to survive the forthcoming six or seven weeks in a modicum of comfort. In his panniers he also had numerous notebooks, drawing materials and textbooks because the main aim of his Tour de France was to map and record many of the lesser known castles and monasteries in France as part of his thesis which counted towards his History degree at Oxford.”

He added: “What unfolded was as remarkable physically as it was erudite academically. In seven weeks on appalling, often remote dirt tracks which could be transformed into a quagmire after a simple half hour storm, Lawrence cycled a minimum of 3,275km and probably much more besides because that is my calculation using the ‘shortest route’ Google maps option.

“The reality will have been considerably longer. Many of the ‘roads’ today would be considered mere mountain bike tracks or paths.”

Among his key achievements, he conquered the Puy de Dome 44 years before the Tour first ventured up the famous extinct volcano. And he did it all on a meagre budget of seven Francs a day, surviving mostly on milk, water and fruit either bought from roadside sellers or scrumped from roadside orchards.

Brendan added: “He zig-zagged his way crazily up the western side of France in a completely illogical manner dependant totally on his need to visit a new castle of particularly romantic ruin.”

After his gruelling ride around France the rugged adventurer would eventually go on to find fame for his wartime exploits in the Middle East. He would travel 1,300 miles by camel on manoeuvres in the Sinai Peninsula in the summer of 1917, while his famous attack on Akaba involved a 600-mile march-ride across uncharted desert in slightly less than a month.

But he retained a love of two wheelers throughout his life, becoming a keen motorcyclist after World War I. Sadly, he died in 1935 after suffering fatal injuries in a motorbike crash in Dorset.

Brendan said: “You do wonder is somewhere in Britain’s cycling hall of fame the name of TE Lawrence shouldn’t be included. By any criteria this was an outstanding effort and seems to have got lost in the mists of time and in comparison with his other historic achievements.”

Brendan is cycling correspondent for the Tour of Britain (tourofbritain.co.uk) which will pass within 25 of Lawrence’s hometown of Tremadog when it passes through North Wales on September 8 before heading from Newtown to The Tumble the following day

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Extracts from Lawrence’s letters home:

Letter to Mother July 23 1908 (Cussy Les Forges)

I’m riding very strongly and feel very fit on my diet of bread, milk and fruit. Peaches best 3 for 1d; Apricots 5 or 6 for 1d. I begin on two pints of milk and bread and supplement with fruit to taste till evening when more solid stuff is consumed. One eats a lot when riding for a week on end at any pace.

My day begins early (‘tis fearfully hot at midday); there is usually a chateau to work at from 12-2 and then hotel at 7 or 8...The roads have been almost uniformly bad but the hills all rideable. My back tyre is in a bad way...filled all the holes full of cement and rode this afternoon on it with some success.

Letter to mother August 9 Cordes near Albi

From Carcassonne I rode to Toulouse, through torrents of rain coming down not as mere stair rods but in scaffold poles. All the roads were an inch deep in rain a few minutes, the vines and other crops are a total loss.

...My water drinking by the way is the subject of general amazement, far beyond what I thought possible. The hotel people after I have asked for it bring everything else they have in its place first. I heard the servants last night talking to the people next door, telling them there was an Englishman there with a strange hat who drank water and likes it better than wine. People here never seem to have thought of water as a drink, they regard it much as we would regard oil or hairwash, useful certainly but for cookery or for cleaning, nothing else. Certainly the Tarn is a district to be revisited but only on foot.

Letter to mother Chalus (Haute-Vienne) 20th birthday

...that night was mosquito haunted till in the end I wrapped a towel round my head and so got a little sleep. The country is that of the Agen plumbs, for our prunes, and they are very good and not worth selling in the shops. Also of delicious green plumbs I could get more than I could eat for 1d. Who said they were unwholesome? I ate 126 in a day and rode 90-miles; next day I breakfasted, lunched and dined off them, in fact I didn’t stop eating all day. No ill effects.