The Fairy Medicine Chest Vade Mecum

Your very own faerie fashioned, hallucinogenic pharmacopœia. This beaut little touring cyclist's drug box comes from a century where fairys were found at the bottom of the garden and Bilbo Baggins hadn’t even been thought of.  Appropriate for advertising in cycling journals for 1889. How things have changed, back then all you had to do was pop an advert in your local cycle mag and hey presto the sales just came rolling in. These days, it's all doom and gloom when someone puts their hand up and says, hey man I took that stuff, it was for racing purposes only, I swear.

Painfully obvious to anyone who's been around bikes for a while, about the same time the Fairy Medicine Chest appeared ready for mail orders in England, racing cyclists' already had their own versions. Check into the drug fuelled lives of Tour de France riders from the very first decade of the twentieth century, it's plain to see that the pro version of the Fairy Medicine chest has been around for as long as men have been racing bicycles.

Thanks to Lance now the whole world knows what was already old hat way back when touring cyclists did it tough on the roads of England, lucky they had their Fairy Medicine chests along for the ride. Check out the contents

No pains or thought have been spared to make it complete. Not only is it complete but replete with EVERY drug …. it has the best tonics, the best aperients and diaphoretics, ... and the ONLY safe narcotic. You could even apply to The Inventor “who will, if desired, add SPECIAL REMEDIES for special cases ... for racing cyclists'...

Cyclists' : helping themselves to the contents of The Fairy Medicine Chest, SINCE 1889.

1950's Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali

Question: Do cyclists take la bomba (amphetamine)?

Answer: Yes, and those who claim otherwise, it's not worth talking to them about cycling.

Question: And you, did you take la bomba?

Answer: Yes. Whenever it was necessary.

Question: And when was it necessary?

Answer: Almost all the time![35][36]

1965 FELICE GIMONDI said of the Tour de France "It was way too hot. At that time there were no anti-doping controls, so we were free to take what we wanted. The anti-doping controls started the next year, in 1966 Anquetil led a rider's protest against them that year."