Gerhard Schönbacher

Gerhard Schönbacher (born 25 January 1954) is a former professional cyclist. Schönbacher was a professional cyclist for nine seasons, and rode the UCI World Championships seven times, Tesnière had already finished last in the 1978 Tour de France, so he was aware of the publicity associated with being the lanterne rouge. In the 21st stage, Tesnière therefore rode extra slow. The winner of the time trial, Bernard Hinault, took 1 hour, 8 minutes and 53 seconds to cover the 48.8 km, Schönbacher used 1 hour, 21 minutes and 52 seconds, while Tesniere rode it in 1 hour, 23 minutes and 32 seconds; both were slower than all other cyclists. Tesnière's time was more than 20% slower than Hinault's, which meant that he had missed the time cut, and was taken out of the race. When Schönbacher was near the finish, he stopped and kissed the road, before he crossed the finishline.

1980 Tour de France The Tour de France organisers did not like the attention that last-placed finishers got, so for the 1980 Tour de France they added the rule that after some stages the last-placed cyclist in the general classification would be removed from the race. Still, Schönbacher managed to finish last.

Later career Schönbacher found a new team, Puch, and rode the 1981 Tour de France, finishing 112th out of 121 cyclists. During the race, when it became clear he would not finish in last place, he jokingly said that had not expected that there would be a worse cyclist than him. In 1985, Schönbacher was hit by a car in Australia, and had to end his professional career.

Schönbacher was a team leader of the Varta team from 1990 to 1994.

After Schönbacher went 220 km/h, standing on skis on top of a car, this record was included in the Guinness Book of Records.