He thought he had had a lot of luck, in fact. Over a 18-year career he had chalked up 189 victories in other races, including the Vuelta a España, his only Grand Tour, La Flèche Wallonne, the French national champion-ship and the Paris-Nice (twice) against the great Belgian Eddy Merckx. He also won the Milan-San Remo, though true to form it almost slipped away when he got a puncture 125km from the finishand, on the final corner, was sent the wrong way by a policeman.
實際上，雷蒙認為自己有過很多次好運。在超過18年的生涯中，他已經取得了189次勝利，包括環西自行車賽冠軍，他的唯一一次三大環賽冠軍，拉弗萊舍-瓦隆賽，法國國家冠軍，還有戰勝了偉大的比利時車手艾迪·梅爾克斯，拿到尼斯賽冠軍（兩次）。雷蒙還贏得了米蘭-圣雷莫的比賽，盡管他在離終點125公里的地方車胎被刺破了。并且在最后一個拐彎處，一名警察把他送錯了方向。
Yet he held off the chasing field and won, by three seconds. He was also lucky, to his mind, to be cycling at all. The alternative was to be labouring, like his parents, on the rocky hills of Creuse, trying to make the bad soil yield enough to get bread for the table and rent in the landlord's wallet. He had left school at 14, like his three brothers, prepared to toil, but also aware that his best times were when he was racing his bike between the villages onfair-days or speeding round the hills with his brothers, for all the world like one of the grim sleek riders in Miroir-Sprint magazine.
然而，他在比賽中以3秒的優勢戰勝了對手。雷蒙感到非常幸運能成為一個自行車手。另外一個選擇就是成為農民，就像他的父母一樣，在克勒茲省的巖石山上，試圖讓貧瘠的土地長出足夠的糧食來填飽肚子，然后給房東交房租。雷蒙14歲就輟了學，像他的三個兄弟一樣，準備做苦工，但他也意識到，他最好的時光是在集市上騎著自行車在村莊間穿梭，或與兄弟們在山間疾馳，就像《米洛-斯普林特》雜志上那些冷酷圓滑的騎手一樣。
He could never be called sleek, more cuddly, and after his service militairein Algeria pretty fat, but he shook off the weight and became a professional cyclist in 1960, when he was 24. What he did not shake off, but made much of, were his peasant roots. Between races he went back to help on the farm, and his style of cycling—dogged and determined on hills, a bit too leisurely on the time trials—owed something to farm work, too.
他永遠不會被稱作圓滑的人，更多的是逗人喜愛的人，在阿爾及利亞軍隊服役后，他非常胖，但他擺脫了肥胖，在1960年成為一名職業自行車手，當時他24歲。但是他沒有擺脫而很重視的是他的農民根源。在比賽之余，他回到農場幫忙，他的騎車風格——在山上堅持不懈、意志堅定，在計時賽上有點太悠閑了——也得益于農活。
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