The early years were different, though. It was illegal to get any help. In one famous case, a rider got a 3 minute time penalty because he let a boy operate the bellows while he welded his own bike (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Eug%C3%A8ne_Christophe#1913_and_the_Tourmalet_incident" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Eug%C3%A8ne_Christophe#1913_...</a>)<p>And aside: alcohol works! The correlation between &quot;drinking champagne during a stage&quot; and &quot;winning the Tour de France&quot; is surprisingly high, even in recent years.