The Birth of the Tour de France, 110 Years Ago - History in the Headlines The Birth of the Tour de France, 110 Years Ago June 28, 2013 By Christopher Klein 2012 Tour de France The Birth of the Tour de France, 110 Years Ago Author The Birth of the Tour de France, 110 Years Ago URL Google Launched as a newspaper publicity stunt in 1903, the Tour de France instantly proved itself an epic test of endurance, with competitors in the first race pedaling through the night on grueling stages that lasted upwards of 24 hours. Cheating was also endemic from the very start. As the Tour de France embarks on its 100th edition—world wars canceled 11 races—take a look back at the birth of the world’s most famous cycling race. On July 1, 1903, 60 men mounted their bicycles outside the Café au Reveil Matin in the Parisian suburb of Montgeron. The five-dozen riders were mostly French, with just a sprinkle of Belgians, Swiss, Germans and Italians.

A third were professionals sponsored by bicycle manufacturers, the others simply devotees of the sport. All 60 wheelmen, however, were united by the challenge of embarking on an unprecedented test of endurance—not to mention the 20,000 francs in prize money—in the inaugural Tour de France. At 3:16 p.m., the cyclists turned the pedals of their bicycles and raced into the unknown. Nothing like the Tour de France had ever been attempted before. Journalist Geo Lefevre had dreamt up the fanciful race as a stunt to boost the circulation of his struggling daily sports newspaper, L’Auto. Henri Desgrange, the director-editor of L’Auto and a former champion cyclist himself, loved the idea of turning France into one giant velodrome. They developed a 1,500-mile clockwise loop of the country running from Paris to Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Nantes before returning to the French capital. There were no Alpine climbs and only six stages—as opposed to the 21 stages in the 2013 Tour— but the distances covered in each of them were monstrous, an average of 250 miles.

(No single stage in the 2013 Tour tops 150 miles.) Between one and three rest days were scheduled between stages for recovery. The inaugural Tour de France, July 1903. The first stage of the epic race was particularly dastardly. The route from Paris to Lyon stretched nearly 300 miles. No doubt several of the riders who wheeled away from Paris worried not about winning the race—but surviving it. Unlike today’s riders, the cyclists in 1903 rode over unpaved roads without helmets. They rode as individuals, not team members. Riders could receive no help. They could not glide in the slipstream of fellow riders or vehicles of any kind. They rode without support cars. Cyclists were responsible for making their own repairs. They even rode with spare tires and tubes wrapped around their torsos in case they developed flats. And unlike modern-day riders, the cyclists in the 1903 Tour de France, forced to cover enormous swathes of land, spent much of the race riding through the night with moonlight the only guide and stars the only spectators.

During the early morning hours of the first stage, race officials came across many competitors “riding like sleepwalkers.” Hour after hour through the night, riders abandoned the race. One of the favorites, Hippolyte Aucouturier, quit after developing stomach cramps, perhaps from the swigs of red wine he took as an early 1900s version of a performance enhancer. Twenty-three riders abandoned the first stage of the race, but the one man who barreled through the night faster than anyone else was another pre-race favorite, 32-year-old professional Maurice Garin. The mustachioed French national worked as a chimney sweep as a teenager before becoming one of France’s leading cyclists. Caked in mud, the diminutive Garin crossed the finish line in Lyon a little more than 17 hours after the start outside Paris. In spite of the race’s length, he won by only one minute. “The Little Chimney Sweep” built his lead as the race progressed. By the fifth stage, Garin had a two-hour advantage. When his nearest competitor suffered two flat tires and fell asleep while resting on the side of the road, Garin captured the stage and the Tour was all but won.

The sixth and final stage, the race’s longest, began in Nantes at 9 p.m. on July 18, so that spectators could watch the riders arrive in Paris late the following afternoon. Garin strapped on a green armband to signify his position as race leader. (The famed yellow jersey worn by the race leader was not introduced until 1919.) A crowd of 20,000 in the Parc des Princes velodrome cheered as Garin won the stage and the first Tour de France. He bested butcher trainee Lucien Pothier by nearly three hours in what remains the greatest winning margin in the Tour’s history. Garin had spent more than 95 hours in the saddle and averaged 15 miles per hour. In all, 21 of the 60 riders completed the Tour, with the last-place rider more than 64 hours behind Garin. For Desgrange, the race was an unqualified success. Newspaper circulation soared six-fold during the race. However, a chronic problem that would perpetually plague the Tour de France was already present in the inaugural race—cheating.

The rule breaking started in the very first stage when Jean Fischer illegally used a car to pace him. Another rider was disqualified in a subsequent stage for riding in a car’s slipstream. That paled in comparison, however, to the nefarious activity the following year in the 1904 Tour de France. As Garin and a fellow rider pedaled through St. Etienne, fans of hometown rider Antoine Faure formed a human blockade and beat the men until Lefevre arrived and fired a pistol to break up the melee. Later in the race, fans protesting the disqualification of a local rider placed tacks and broken glass on the course. Riders acted little better. They hitched rides in cars during the dark and illegally took help from outsiders. Garin himself was accused of illegally obtaining food during a portion of one stage. The race was so plagued by scandal that four months later Desgrange disqualified Garin and the three other top finishers. It, of course, wouldn’t be the last time a Tour winner was stripped of his title. Tags The first race 1903. TOUR DE FRANCE - YouTube The first race 1903. TOUR DE FRANCE Want to watch this again later?

Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. The interactive transcript could not be loaded. Loading... Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Published on Jul 17, 2012 The tour de France is over 100 years old, and believe you me, the great tour has evolved since its beginnings. This is what the first tour looked like. In January 1903, Henri Desgrange, editor in chief of the newspaper "auto",a sports newspaper specialized in bike racing, announced the creation of the "greatest cycling event ever organized" that would take place between the 1st of june all the way through to the 5th of july. Unfortunately, the conditions were far too strenuous and the prizes too meagre and so on the eve of the start only 15 participants were signed up. This beign a little short of the "greatest cycling event ever organized", Henri Desgrange, decided to postpone the date of the start and to considerably increase the prize money.

In the end, 60 cyclists shot off the starting line on july 1st in Montgeron in the southern districts of Paris in front of the now famous "reveil matin". The start was held in a suburb rather than paris, seeing as the police prefect for the seine, Louis Lepine had forbidden races in the capital city. While the race is far shorter today and contains no mountain stages, the conditions of the first tour were far more difficult. Participants had to finish a tour of 2 428 km in only 6 stages linking the main cities of france : paris, lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux and nantes. The Frenchman Maurice garin covered the distance between paris and lyon , over 467 km, in only 17 hours, 45 minutes and 44 seconds. The stages were so long and so difficult that racers were given a 3-days rest in between stages; Out of the 60 racers that began the race, only 21 of them finished it.

On july 18th Muarice garin, having already won 2 stages, won the 6th and final stage of the race that linked nantes to paris, with a 3 hour lead against the racer in second place. The final sprint took place in Afray, a Parisian suburb and Maurice Garin beat out fernand Augereau and julien "Samson" lootens by a mere second. Maurice Garin finally won the Tour with 2 hours 49 minutes and 21 seconds ahead of the second place, Lucien Pothier. Nowadays, he still holds the record for largest gap between the first and second place; Arsene Millocheau would finish the race nearly 65 hours after the Maurice Garin. At the end of the race, the cyclists would go to the parc de princes for a ceremonial lap and to receive their prize. While the race was organized by a newspaper, the « auto », the journalist sent in order to cover the event Geo Lefebvre who incidentally was the one who came up with the idea for the race, only briefly covered the start and finish of the race, traveling between the cities where the stages occured.

He even missed out on the arrival of Maurice garin, the winner of the first stage, in Lyon; This did not prevent the "auto" from bumping up its prints to over 40 000 copies The tour de france was actually a great success among the public and it is estimated that roughly 100 000 spectators were present during the arrival of the racers in the country side and around 20 000 spectators in Paris. Straight off its succes, the tour de France would be held again the following year and the winner would be once again Maurice garin. It wasn't until the third edition fo the tour that henri desgrange would shorten the stages so that the race would be less difficult. The history of the tour de france is vast and rich in detail, if you would like to find out more, click on the links down below for more videos. Find this and many other videos at Tour de France - the greatest cycling contest on earth Tour de France - the greatest cycling contest on earth You are here: France information Tour de France The early days of the Tour de France. On the 1st July 1903, 60 cyclists set off from Paris.

After more than 2400 kilometres of cycling, at an average speed of 25.7 kmh, they returned to Paris on the 19th July, in a competition won by Maurice Garin of France. The Tour de France had been born. See further down this page for the fascinating story of the first ever Tour de France. The race was threatened in 1904-1914 by an extraordinary amount of cheating, with spectators eagerly trying to ensure that certain contestants failed to finish, and several contestants taking buses and trains instead of cycling (!) but the race struggled on through these difficult years - mountains were introduced to the circuit in 1905. Apart from the war years of 1915-1918 and 1940-1946 the Tour de France has taken place every year since. By 2000, the number of participants had increased to 200, the distance covered to 3,660 kilometres, and the average speed to 39.6 kmh. There are now 20 stages instead of the six (longer) stages that made up the very first race.

But that is in no way to detract from those early racers, when both roads and equipment were much inferior to those found today. The Tour de France is now watched all around the world, with an audience that includes many non-cyclists, and is perhaps the greatest 'mainstream' endurance event there is. During the race there are four 'shirts' awarded to the leaders. The 'maillot jaune' goes to the overall leader at that point in the race; the 'maillot vert' to the winner of that days stage; the 'maillot a pois' (they look more like cherries than peas...) to the best climber; and the 'maillot blanc' to the best youth competitor. The overall winner of the Tour de France is the competitor who takes the lowest overall time. So it is possible to win the competition without ever actually winning a stage in the race. Some entrants are faster on the flatter parts of the course, some are better in the mountains, but it is performing well and consistently in all stages that is ultimately important. See Tour de France winners .

It is important to realise also that many of the entrants have no chance of winning, because the cyclists each form part of a team, and many of the team members are there to support the 'team leader'. So in recent years, for example, while Lance Armstrong was the team leader for Discovery Channel, other members of the same team were responsible for cycling in front of him (to reduce wind resistance on him), or going to the supply cars to get water and food for him. So the team leaders are chosen before the Tour de France starts, and they are much more likely to win than other members of the same team. There is as much tactical planning and psychology involved as physical fitness, which adds to the excitement. Almost like a game of chess sometimes, the mental battles between the competitors, along with the tactical decisions - when to push ahead, when to hang back etc are vitally important. An example of a tactical decision - riders in the peloton (the main pack of cyclists) are very protected from wind, and this can save up to 50% of the energy required to cycle. So making a break to move ahead of the group means using far more energy.

As a result the main pack usually catches up with these break away groups, that have over-tired themselves. The cyclists are in constant radio communication with their support vehicles to help them with these decisions. Indeed, far from being a chance to enjoy the French countryside, competitors in the Tour de France have crowds of enthusiasts along much of the route, their support vehicles talking in their headsets, television motorbikes around them and television helicopters overhead. Not to mention the other competitors...so it is far from being a peaceful race. Above all it is the mountain stages in the Tour de France that are most popular with viewers. To see the superhuman effort required of the cyclists, day after day, to ride up some of the most gruelling roads in Europe is somehow completely gripping. The last few minutes of each days race are usually equally exciting on the flatter stages of the race, as riders make last minute sprints to try and take the lead for that stage. Two of the most famous mountain passes are Alpe d'Huez in the Alps and Col du Tourmalet in the Pyrenees.

So I recommend you take a look at the Tour de France - even better come to France and watch a couple of stages as part of your holiday - and see why so many of us all around the world think it is the highlight of the years sporting calendar. List of previous Tour de France winners Year Australia 1903 - the first Tour de France On the 20th November 1902 the journalist Geo Lefevre, from the newspaper L'Auto, sat down in a cafe with his editor, Henri Desgrange - he had an idea to boost circulation of the newspaper. The idea was the Tour de France. The details quickly came together and by January 1903 the race had been announced in the newspaper. Sixty riders started the first Tour de France, on 1st July 1903. The conditions were hard, with the stages frequently taking place on roads that were in a very poor state. Outside help was not permitted and cyclists had to maintain and repair their own bikes when problems arose. M Lefevre acted as judge and timekeeper for the race. Teams did not exist - just individuals who entered the race for themselves, having first paid a small entrance fee.

There was no sponsorship, and certainly no publicity caravan preceding the arrival of the riders on the course! The bikes of course were very basic and heavy when compared with those ridden by modern competitors. Just 21 riders were to finish, after six long and gruelling stages totalling 2,428 kilometres. Individual stages were from 270 to 470 kilometres each, substantially more than in current Tour de France competitions. Competitors frequently had to contine cycling late into the night. Competitors were allowed to enter a stage even if they had withdrawn from an earlier stage, although they were no longer eligible to win the overall prize. Hence Hippolyte Aucouturier won the 2nd and 3rd stages despite not completing the 1st stage. The route followed was: Paris - Lyon - Marseille - Toulouse - Bordeaux - Nantes - Paris. Mountain stages were not to be added to the Tour de France until 1905. The average speed achieved in this first contest was almost 26kmh - an extraordinary feat given the condition of the roads, the basic bikes used, and the rule prohibiting spare bike parts or assistance in making repairs when problems arose.

Despite a fine effort by several other riders the lead was with Maurice Garin from the first stage - he went on to win the 1903 tour with a lead of almost three hours over Lucien Pothier, who was placed second. Garin won 6,075 gold francs for his efforts. (Maurice Garin also came first in the 1904 Tour, but was later disqualified from collecting the prize, along with those who came 2nd, 3rd and 4th.) For the newspaper (later to become L'Equipe) the Tour de France 1903 was an enormous success, boosting their circulation very substantially and putting their rival, Le Velo, out of business. The First Tour de France (1903) | The Public Domain Review ..or BROWSE BY TAG The First Tour de France (1903) The 2013 Tour de France marks the 100th of the event’s history, which began in 1903 (the competition was put on hold during the two world wars).

Strangely, this inaugural event of 1903 had it’s origins in one of France’s greatest political scandals – the Dreyfuss Affair. In 1894 a young French artillery officer of Jewish descent, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, was convicted of high treason but then, years later, was proven to be innocent in the light of new evidence, evidence which the military attempted to suppress. The ensuing debate over Dreyfuss’ innocence, and the wider issues of anti-semitism in which it was embedded, divided the nation. One such division occurred within France’s most popular cycling magazine L’Velo, causing it to split into two when an anti-Dreyfuss contingent broke away to form L’Auto-Velo. L’Velo‘s owner won a court case forcing L’Auto-Velo to change their name, which they did, to L’Auto, a move which saw their sales subsequently plummet. In an effort to boost their waning popularity, and win back their cycling fans, L’Auto set up the Tour de France in 1903.

It was a hugely successful campaign which caused their sales to increase 6-fold during and after the race and, eventually, pushed L’Velo into bankruptcy. The 1903 competition was run only in six fairly flat stages, unlike the mountainous 21 stage event it would grow to become, however, each of these 1903 stages were extraordinarily long, with an average distance of over 400 km (250 mi), more than double the distance of today’s. 60 cyclists, all professionals or semi-professionals, started the race, of whom 49 were French, 4 Belgian, 4 Swiss, 2 German, and one was Italian, Maurice Garin, the pre-race favourite who eventually went on to win the event. Garin would go onto also win the next year’s race only to then be disqualified along with eight other riders for cheating including the illegal use of cars and trains. Related Content People In this section of the site we bring you curated collections of images, books, audio and film, shining a light on curiosities and wonders from a wide range of online archives.

With a leaning toward the surprising, the strange, and the beautiful, we hope to provide an ever-growing cabinet of curiosities for the digital age, a kind of hyperlinked Wunderkammer – an archive of materials which truly celebrates the breadth and variety of our shared cultural commons and the minds that have made it. Some of our most popular posts include visions of the future from late 19th century France , a dictionary of Victorian slang and a film showing the very talented “hand-farting” farmer of Michigan . With each post including links back to the original source we encourage you to explore these wonderful online sources for yourself. Check out our Sources page to see where we find the content. BROWSE BY MEDIUM A brief history of the Tour de France winners' ... Sponsored by The bikes of the Tour de France have come a long way since Maurice Garin won the first edition back in 1903. Chris Froome triumphed in the 2015 race aboard a Pinarello Dogma F8 – itself an upgrade on Team Sky’s previous Grand Tour winning Pinarello, the Dogma 65.1 Think 2 ridden to victory by both Froome and Bradley Wiggins.

Chris Froome rides onto the Champs-Elysees on his yellow Pinarello Dogma F8 in 2015 (Pic: Sirotti) And there are plenty more machines on show in 2016 , with manufacturers using cycling’s biggest race to showcase their latest and greatest bikes. But how did we arrive at this point? We’ve taken a closer look at the evolution of the Tour de France winners’ bikes. Related Articles Boardman SLR Endurance Disc 9.4 road bike - review Early days Maurice Garin won the first ever Tour de France, in 1903, riding a steel La Francaise bike which weighed in the region of 18kg. Black, with a tricolore headtube, it had new-fangled toe clips but the wheel rims were made of wood. The bike – as all were at the time – was a fixed-gear single-speed machine. Multiple-geared freewheels arrived a few years later allowed for gear changes, but required the rider to get off the bike and reposition the chain and wheel in order to do so.

Maurice Garin won the first Tour de France on this steel La Francaise bike (Pic: Wiki Commons) La Francaise had cornered the market at the turn of the century, with the top five riders at the inaugural Tour de France all riding one of their machines. Garin had also won the Paris-Brest-Paris in 1901 on a La Francaise Diamant. More-recognisable drop handlebars were introduced as the First World War approached, while it was not uncommon for riders to attach saddlebags and pumps to their bikes given at the time it was against Tour rules to receive external mechanical help – a far cry from today. Enter the derailleur It took until 1937 – a decade after the technology first came available – for Tour de France organisers to finally allow rod-actuated derailleur gears to be used. Frenchman Roger Lapebie, who won that year’s edition, used an Osgear Super Champion rear derailleur with a single chainwheel on his Mercier bike. Lapebie’s win was the first at the Tour de France for Mercier, while his bike was also equipped with Hutchinson tyres – still a familiar brand today.

Embed from Getty Images Former Swiss pro Oscar Egg – a two-time Tour de France stage winner and former Hour Record holder – was the man behind Super Champion, whose components were also used by Sylvere Maes in his 1939 Tour victory. In between, Gino Bartali won the 1938 edition on a bike equipped with Vittoria Margherita components. Initial designs by both companies required back-pedalling to change gears, but the tech had advanced beyond this by the time it was permitted in the Tour. Incidentally, aluminium wheel rims had also become the standard in the pro peloton by 1937. Mavic’s 750g ‘Duralumin’ rims had actually been tested – and raced to victory – in 1934 by Antonin Magne. As they were against Tour rules, Magne painted his rims to look wooden in order to avoid detection. Related Articles Boardman SLR Endurance Disc 9.4 road bike - review The parallel years The post-war years saw big changes in frame geometry, with road surfaces gradually improving allowing for a more aggressive setup.

That said, the frames themselves remained largely the same – steel-lugged frames, steel cranks and side-pull brakes. Embed from Getty Images Gearing also improved further with Simplex introducing their Tour de France rear and Competition front derailleurs. Jean Robic used Simplex components in 1947, as did Fausto Coppi in 1949 and Ferdi Kubler the following year. Significantly, Campagnolo also entered the stage with the Cambio Corsa rear derailleur deployed by Gino Bartali at the 1948 Tour. Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali were among the first winners to use cable-actuated derailleurs Ppic: Sirotti) Campagnolo’s innovation shone through at an early stage, with the Gran Sport cable-operated front and rear derailleurs paired with double handlebar end levers used in 1951 and 1952. Cable-operated derailleurs sounded the death knell for manual gear changes, with Jacques Anquetil’s 1957 win, with Simplex components, the last instance of a rider winning the Tour using ‘clangers’.

Steel rules the roost Steel remained the frame material of choice throughout the next few decades with Jacques Anquetil riding a Helyett frame during his four consecutive victories in the early 1960s. Eddy Merckx’s 1969-winning bike, meanwhile – the first of his five wins – was based around Reynolds steel tubes and came with Campag’s Nuovo Record derailleurs. Jacques Anquetil – who was also the last rider to win the Tour de France using the ‘clanger’ derailleur, rode a steel Helyett (Pic: Sirotti) Gearing had developed even further too, with the ‘slanting parallelogram’ design we know today first patented by Suntour in 1964. Weight had also started to come down, though Joop Zoetemelk’s 1980-winning Raleigh Team Professional weighed in excess of 10kg.

Eddy Merckx, pictured at the Giro, rode a custom Reynolds steel bike in 1969 (Pic: Sirotti) Experiments with carbon tubes bonded to aluminium lugs also enjoyed some success in the late 1980s – most notably when Greg Lemond won the 1989 Tour on a TVT carbon bike. Interestingly, Lemond’s victory was also the only one using Mavic components in an era dominated by Campagnolo. Stephen Roche, with toe clips, ascends the Galibier on his way to victory in 1987 (Pic: Sirotti) Clipless pedals were becoming the norm by the late 1980s, meanwhile, with LOOK having invented the system in 1984. Stephen Roche was the last rider to win the Tour de France while wearing toe clips in 1987. Roche’s bike was a Battaglin, crafted from Columbus tubing. Aluminium experiments Steel’s days were numbered – at least as far as the Tour de France was concerned – when manufacturers started to experiment with other frame materials.

Miguel Indurain was the last man to win the Tour de France on a steel bike – an Oria-tubed, TIG-welded Pinarello (rumoured to actually have been made by Dario Pegoretti) weighing in at around 9kg for his size 59cm frame in 1994. Miguel Indurain was the last man to win the Tour de France on a steel bike – the Pinarello-badged machine pictured here (pic: Sirotti) Indurain won his fifth and final Tour on an aluminium Pinarello Keral Lite the following year, with Bjarne Riis riding the same model in 1996. Riis’ 1996 bike – which used round tube profiles – was equipped with Campagnolo’s Record groupset, a 3T aluminium handlebar and Selle Italia Flite saddle.

Spot the difference: Indurain wins in 1995 on the same aluminium Pinarello Keral Lite Bjarne RIis was to win with the following year (Pic: Sirotti) Aluminium’s reign was short-lived however – Marco Pantani was the last man to win aboard an aluminium bike in 1998. Il Pirata’s Bianchi used the compact geometry (rather than a horizontal toptube) which has become common in the modern peloton, though unusual at the time, and the weight was said to be down to just shy of 7kg. The bike was painted in an eye-catching celeste and yellow, and was equipped with Campagnolo’s Record drivetrain and Electron tubular wheels. Marco Pantani’s Bianchi – the last time a Tour de France winner used an aluminium bike (Pic: Sirotti) Related Articles Boardman SLR Endurance Disc 9.4 road bike - review Carbon becomes king There are some (unverified) suggestions Pantani’s bike was not even made from aluminium, but boron instead. But what is for certain is carbon became king the following year and has been almost ever since.

Lance Armstrong’s Trek 5500 was the first full-carbon frame to be piloted to Tour de France victory – albeit a ‘win’ now scratched from the records. Lance Armstrong was the first man to ‘win’ the Tour de France on a full-carbon bike (Pic: Sirotti) Shimano supplied the groupset for the first time and, by 2000, the quill stem had also been replaced by a tapered steerer as the modern bike took shape. In 2003, Shimano Dura-Ace went to ten-speed and the Japanese firm’s latest gruppo was used for the first time on a machine said to be the lightest ever used in the Tour – Armstrong kept weight down further by using a downtube shifter on mountain stages. Magnesium’s one-hit wonder Pinarello have been the most successful bike brand when it comes to Tour de France victories in the last three decades, with 12 race-winning bikes bearing the Italian firm’s badge.

From Indurain’s steel machine, through to the aluminium used by the Spaniard and then Bjarne Riis and Jan Ullrich, and on to the carbon bikes of Wiggins and Froome, the Italians have proved their versatility across the board, too. Oscar Pereiro’s magnesium Pinarello Dogma from the 2006 Tour de France (Pic: Sirotti) And Oscar Pereiro’s retrospective 2006 win came on the firm’s magnesium Dogma. Adopting the curvy seatstay profile later used on the carbon Pinarello Dogma 65.1 Think 2 – Team Sky’s race-winning bike in 2012 and 2013 – the frame was crafted from an AK61 magnesium alloy, but with a Pinarello Onda carbon fibre fork and rear triangle. Campagnolo Record 10 groupset and Bora Ultra wheels completed the setup. It was the first – and only – Tour-winning magnesium bike as Pinarello ditched it in favour of carbon fibre soon afterwards.

Super-light, super-aero The UCI introduced the 6.8kg minimum weight limit for racing machines in 2000 and all bikes since then have not been allowed to dip below that mark. Sir Bradley Wiggins won the 2012 Tour de France on the Pinarello Dogma 65.1 Think 2 – the same bike Chris Froome rode the following year (Pic: Sirotti) With bike manufacturers comfortably able to hit the weight limit – and the lightest frames around just 700g – an advantage has instead been sought elsewhere. While there’s certainly no shortage of super-light frames in the peloton, the focus has fallen on aerodynamics – take Froome’s latest winning bike, the Pinarello Dogma F8 , or the Canyon Ultimate CF SLX on which Nairo Quintana finished runner-up on in 2015 – both look to combine their incredibly low weight with a subtle aero advantage. Canyon are also among the many brands to offer a fully-fledged aero bike, with the Aeroad ridden by Katusha sprinter Alexander Kristoff.

While not as important to pro riders as weight or aerodynamics, comfort has also become a consideration, particularly in the cobbled Classics (and Tour de France stages which are run over the cobbles) – aiming to deliver the rider to the finish in as fresh a condition as possible. Look at the latest iteration of the Trek Madone – a machine which originated as Armstrong’s lightweight all-rounder, but which has morphed into a super-aero machine which still weighs a claimed 950g for the frame, keeping it suitably light, and includes a version of Trek’s comfort-boosting IsoSpeed decoupler. What’s next for the Tour de France bike? The UCI is rumoured to be considering scrapping the 6.8kg weight limit, while disc brakes are of course taking their first – tentative – pedal strokes in the peloton. How long until a disc-equipped bike wins the Tour de France? We wouldn’t want to place a bet on that. 1903 Tour de France start 1903 Tour de France Origins of Le Tour de France 4 days after they lost the court case forcing the name change, Henri Desgrange announced his plans for Le Tour de France in L’Auto.

The original itinerary was for the race to start on 31st May and finish on 5th July. with an entry fee of 20 francs. One week before the race was due to start, only 15 riders had signed up. Desgrange fearing disaster rescheduled the race to start on 1st July and finish on 19th July, He increased the total prize money to 20,000 francs, reduced the entry fee to 10 francs and guaranteed to pay five francs a day to the first 50 cyclists in the classification. By 1st July 79 riders had entered the race, of whom 60 showed up at the start line. Géo Lefévre became the director, judge and time-keeper; Henri Desgrange was the directeur-général, he did not follow the race, choosing to stay in Paris where he could distance himself from the race if it flopped. The 60 riders departed from the Cafe au Réveil-Matin in Montgeron on the south side of Paris at 3:16 PM on 1st July 1903. 21 were sponsored professional riders.

Desgrange stationed race officials along the route to make sure that the riders rode the entire route. 1903 Tour de France Start Café au Reveil Matin From the beginning Desgrange wanted the race to be a test of an individual’s endurance and strength. In 1903, it was normal for a professional cyclist to hire pacers, who would lead them during the race in much the same way pro teams do now. Desgrange forbade this. Many of the riders including eventual winner Maurice Garin, doubted that it would work. In contrast to modern stage races, a cyclist who gave up during a stage was allowed to start again the next stage, although he would no longer be in contention for the general classification. Hippolyte Aucouturier, abandoned during the first stage. He was allowed to race the next day and won the second and third stages. Charles Laeser, winner of the fourth stage, had not completed the third stage. Of the 60 riders, 49 were French, 4 Belgian, 4 Swiss, 2 German, and one Italian. The Race The french riders Maurice Garin and Hippolyte Aucouturier were the favourites for overall victory.

Garin dominated the first stage and won in Lyon having raced through the evening of the 1st July and throughout the night to arrive in Lyon about 09:00 on 2nd July. The second rider Paige was 1 minute behind Garin. Garin was now the first GC leader and was given a green armband to wear. The yellow jersey was not introduced until 1919. During the night, Garin’s main rival, Aucouturier, had stomach cramps which were believed to have been caused by drinking red wine and abandoned the stage. Maurice Garin, winner of the 1903 Tour de France. Jean Fischer become the first rider to be caught cheating. He had used a car as pacer, which was illegal. There is no record of what if any penalty was imposed on him. In the second stage, Aucouturier had recovered from his stomach cramps won the sprint. In the third stage, the cyclists who were competing for the general classification started one hour earlier than the other cyclists. At the end of that stage, a group of four cyclists had broken away, and Eugène Brange won the sprint.

Aucouturier finished 27 minutes later, but this meant that he had run the course 33 minutes faster, so he was declared the winner of the stage. Garin retained the lead. In the fourth stage, Aucouturier had a clear lead and seemed set to win a third successive stage, but was caught using the slipstream of a car, and was thrown off the race. The Swiss rider Charles Laeser took the victory, becoming the first non-French winner. The 1903 Tour de France crossed no major mountains, but several small climbs were included. The first was the col des Echarmeaux 712 m , on the first stage from Paris to Lyon. The stage from Lyon to Marseille included the col de la République, 1161 metres altitude near St-Etienne. As in the third stage, the cyclists departed in two groups, and Laeser was in the second group because he was no longer contending for the general classification. Laeser finished more than 50 minutes after a group of six cyclists, but he had travelled the distance 4 minutes faster than them, so he was declared the winner.

Garin now had a lead of almost 2 hours over the second placed rider, Emile Georget. In the fifth stage, Georget abandoned the race after 2 punctures an an unscheduled sleep by the side of the road. Garin won the stage and was nearly 3 hours in the lead going into the final stage into Paris. The last stage was the longest, at 471 km, from Nantes to the Velodrome in Paris, where 20,000 paying spectators saw Garin’s third stage win, as he sealed overall victory by 2 hours 59 minutes 31 seconds: this remains the greatest margin of victory in the Tour de France. The average speed for the 1903 Tour was 25.6 km/h. With the prize money that he won in 1903, which totalled 6,075 francs, Garin later bought a gas station, where he worked for the rest of his life. The Tour had been a huge success and Desgrange quickly set about planning for 1904. The racers were national heroes restoring pride to France after the bad years of the Dreyfus affair.

1903 Tour de France Route loading map - please wait... 1903 Tour de France Sign up for our Email Newsletter 1903 Tour de France July 1 to July 19 Results, stages with running GC, startlist, photos and history 2,428 km raced at an average speed of 25.68 km/hr. 60 starters and 21 classified finishers Henri Desgrange , editor of L'Auto (ancestor to today's l'Equipe), was desperate to find a way to win a circulation war with competing sports newspaper Le Vélo. The Tour de France was suggested to Desgrange as a sales promotion. It was to be like a Six-Day race, only on the road. The race was an instant hit. L'Auto's circulation soared and Desgrange went down in history as the father of the greatest sporting event in the world. Note that in the first edition the stages are staggeringly long. The races would have to start in the dark in order to finish stages that could take over 17 hours to complete. A few of notes about the early Tours. Distances are approximate.

Riders could abandon a stage and still start the next stage and compete for stage prizes but they were out of the race for the General Classification. 1903 Tour de France final complete General Classification Rider's nationality is listed if his sponsor is not known 1 1903 Tour stage results and running General Classification Stage 1: Wednesday, July 1, Paris - Lyon, 467 km 1. Maurice Garin: 17hr 45min 13sec 2. Emile Pagie @ 55sec 3. Leon Georget @ 34min 59sec 4. Fernand Augereau @ 1hr 2min 50sec 5. Jean Fischer @ 1hr 4min 55sec 6. Marcel Kerff @ 1hr 42min 55sec 7. Alois Catteau @ 1hr 48min57sec 8. Ernest Piven @ 1hr 49min 49sec 9. Leon Habets @ 2hr 8min 16sec 10.

François Beaugendre @ 2hr 8min 27sec GC after Stage 1: GC times and places same as stage 1 results Stage 2: Sunday, July 5, Lyon - Marseille, 374 km Major Ascent: Col de la Républic 1. Hyppolyte Aucouturier : 14hr 28min 53sec 2. Leon Georget s.t. 3. Eugene Brange @ 26min 6sec 4. Maurice Garin @ 26min 7sec 5. Rodolphe Muller s.t. 7. Marcel Kerff @ 39min 37sec 8. Fernand Augereau @ 57min 17sec 9. Georges Pasquier @ 1hr 32min 10sec 10. François Beaugendre s.t. 2. Leon Georget @ 8min 52sec 3. Fernand Augereau @ 1hr 34min Stage 3: Wednesday, July 8, Marseille - Toulouse, 423 km 1.

Hippolyte Aucouturier: 17hr 55min 4sec 2. Eugene Brange @ 32min 22sec 3. Julien Lootens "Samson" s.t. 4. Maurice Garin s.t. 7. Jean Fischer @ 1hr 35min 18sec 8. Rodolphe Muller @ 1hr 35min 19sec 9. Alois Catteau s.t. 2. Leon Georget @ 1hr 58min 53sec 3. Lucien Pothier @ 2hr 58min 1sec Stage 4: Sunday, July 12, Toulouse - Bordeaux, 268 km 1. Charles Laeser: 8hr 46min 2. Julien Lootens "Samson" @ 4min 3sec 3. Rodolphe Muller s.t. 8. Eugene Brange @ 7min 41sec 9. Alois Catteau s.t. 2.

Leon Georget @ 1hr 58min 53sec 3. Fernand Augereau @ 2hr 58min 1sec Stage 5: Monday, July 13, Bordeaux - Nantes, 425 km 1. Maurice Garin: 16hr 26min 31sec 2. Georges Pasquier s.t. 4. Fernand Augereau @ 10min 35sec 5. Ambroise Garin @ 33min 34sec 6. Rodolphe Muller @ 36min 33sec 7. Jean Fischer @ 1hr 4min 3sec 8. Marcel Kerff s.t. 9. Jean Dargassies @ 1hr 21min 9sec 10. Ferdinand Payan @ 1hr 33min 24sec GC after Stage 5: 2. Lucien Pothier @ 2hr 58min 1sec 3.

Fernand Augereau @ 4hr 29min 14sec 6th and Final Stage: Saturday, July 18, Nantes - Paris, 471 km 1. Maurice Garin: 18hr 9min 2. Fernand Augereau @ 10sec 3. Julien Lootens "Samson" s.t. 4. Jean Fischer @ 1min 20sec 5. Lucien Pothier @ 1min 30sec 6. Rodolphe Muller @ 2min 7. Alexandre Foureaux @ 2min 30sec 8. Julien Girbe @ 2min 35sec 9. François Beaugendre @ 21min Julien Lootens (Belgium) raced as "Samson". Some results use only this name. Paul Mercier (Switzerland) Edouard Wattelier (France) The Story of the 1903 Tour de France This excerpt is from "The Story of the Tour de France", Volume 1 If you enjoy it we hope you will consider purchasing the book, either print or electronic.

The Amazon link here will make either purchase easy. 1903. Just days after it lost the lawsuit, on Jan 19, 1903, L'Auto announced the first Tour de France. It was to be "the greatest cycling trial in the entire world. A race more than a month long: Paris to Lyon to Marseille to Toulouse to Bordeaux to Nantes to Paris." The first schedule was for a 5-week race with a May 31 start and a finish in Paris on July 5. The winner would be the racer with the lowest elapsed time racing after the 6 stages. This total time was and still is called the "General Classification". With a week to go before the start only 15 riders were signed up. As a sign of the adaptability and willingness to change that has always characterized the Tour, Desgrange shortened and re-scheduled the race to a July 1 start and July 18 finish. There would be 2 to 4 rest days between each of the stages except for stage 4, which would be held the day after the 268-kilometer third stage.

To attract more riders, expense money of 5 francs a day was promised to the first 50 racers who signed up and a 20,000 franc purse of prize money was dangled. Desgrange got his first peloton. 60 riders departed from the now famous Cafe au Réveil-Matin in Montgeron on the southern outskirts of Paris at 3:16 PM, July 1. Of these, 21 were sponsored or professional racers. In the pack, there were a few racers who competed under a pseudonym. Racing was a sketchy business and not always held in high repute. Julien Lootens raced the 1903 Tour as Samson. Later Lucien Mazan would compete in the Tour as Petit-Breton. Lefèvre, only 26 at the time, traveled with the race while Desgrange remained in Paris. Desgrange stationed men along the way, sometimes hidden, to make sure that the riders rode the entire route. They rode 6 stages totaling a staggering 2,428 kilometers.

Desgrange, from the very beginning, wanted his race to be a superhuman test of an individual's endurance and strength. He banned pacers from his race except for the final stage. At the time, racers employed lines of pacers to lead them, much as a protected professional rider uses his team today. At the time this was quite a change from the norm and many, including eventual winner Maurice Garin, doubted that it would work. The riders get ready to start. Note that what constitutes effective cycle clothing hadn't been settled. Desgrange's 60-man peloton riding together Maurice Garin, riding the red, white and blue tricolor bike of his sponsor, La Française, won the first stage of the first Tour, beating Émile Pagie by 55 seconds. The first stage, from Paris to Lyon, was 467 kilometers long, and it took a cruel 17 hours 45 minutes, riding both day and night, for Garin to finish. Only 37 riders were able to complete the day's racing. The 37th rider took more than 20 hours longer than Garin to get to Lyon.

Hippolyte Aucouturier, one of the favorites, had to drop out with stomach cramps. The first stage finish line in Lyon Leon Georget finishes third in the first stage, 34 minutes, 59 seconds behind stage winner Garin. Georget would drop out of the Tour in stage 5. Today, that abandonment would put an end to his Tour. Back then, a racer was allowed to race for stage wins even if he had failed to finish a previous stage, which Aucouturier did. A racer who failed to finish a stage was out of contention for the overall lead. Pagie, the victim of a crash in the second stage had to abandon the Tour. He never rode the Tour again. Maurice Garin, in his trademark white coat and flat cap racing in the '03 Tour This is the best action photo I have ever seen of Garin On the first stage, a racer was caught cheating. Jean Fischer was seen pacing behind a car. I haven't found any particular record of a sanction for this breach of the rules. If Desgrange could have known what 1904 was to bring, perhaps he would have made an example of Fischer.

Aucouturier, who was quite revived after dropping out of the first stage, won the second and third stages, from Lyon to Marseilles and Marseilles to Toulouse. Garin maintained his lead, by this time almost 2 hours over second place Léon Georget who would drop out of the race in stage 5. Garin won the penultimate stage, still in the lead. On July 19, 21 of the 60 finished. The 20,000 spectators at Paris' Parc de Princes velodrome saw Maurice Garin win the final stage and win the Tour. The final finisher came in over two days later. While the famed "Yellow Jersey" worn by the man leading the Tour would not be adopted until 1919, Garin was given a green armband to signify his lead during the 1903 Tour, and the Lanterne Rouge or Red Lantern was used to designate the rider in last place. Arsène Millocheau has the dubious fame of being the first Lanterne Rouge by coming in at 64 hours, 57 minutes, 8 seconds behind Garin in total time.

Garin, riding for the powerful La Française team, was nicknamed "the Chimney-Sweep" for his occupation before he became an accomplished professional bicycle racer. He won the first stage and held the lead throughout the Tour. His win was no accident. He was by far the finest and strongest racer in the Tour. He was already a two-time winner of Paris-Roubaix as well as a victor of Bordeaux-Paris and Paris-Brest-Paris. Garin is greeted by enthusiastic fans. Guys knew how to grow moustaches back then. 1903 Tour winner Maurice Garin having a smoke. Pictured with him are his son (on right with little bike) and his masseur. Garin's masseur won't be the last man working on a Tour team wearing the dress of a butcher. Antonin Magne, who ran the French National teams, was famous for wearing butcher's garb. Garin pocketed 6,125 francs for his exploit, enough to buy a gas station where he worked the rest of his life after retiring from racing. To this day, a gas station still stands on the spot of Garin's old station.

But as Les Woodland noted in The Unknown Tour de France, no one working there has any idea about the importance of the former owner of the site. Garin is quite forgotten. Adjusting for currency and inflation across a century is highly inaccurate, but those 6,000 francs Garin won should be something like $40,000 in U.S. dollars. Garin's winning margin of 2 hours and 49 minutes remains the largest in Tour history. The first Tour at 2,428 kilometers remains the second shortest ever. The 1904 Tour was shorter than the 1903 version by 8 kilometers. The average speed for this first Tour was 25.679 kilometers per hour. The 50th Anniversary Tour in 1953 averaged 34.593 kilometers per hour and the speed of the Centennial 2003 Tour was 40.94 kilometers per hour. There were dramatic changes in equipment, training, roads, diet, Tour rules and sometimes even doping over the next 100 years that made this increase possible.

Racers always needed to eat during long stages, but the feed zone has changed a bit since 1903. The Tour was a fantastic success. Circulation of L'Auto boomed. 130,000 copies were printed for the final stage (an increase of 100,000). Le Vélo went out of business and the Tour de France was born. Desgrange, knowing talent when he saw it, hired Giffard to write for L'Auto. Final 1903 Tour de France General Classification: 1. Maurice Garin: 94 hours 33 minutes 14 seconds 2. Lucien Pothier @ 2 hours 59 minutes 2 seconds 3. Fernand Augereau @ 4 hours 29 minutes 24 seconds 4. Rodolphe Muller @ 4 hours 39 minutes 30 seconds 5. Jean Fischer @ 4 hours 58 minutes 44 seconds Leon Georget signs in under the watchful eye of an official. To minimize cheating riders signed in a stops along each stage.

It has been noted by others that race officials used to dress much better than they do now. Encompass Graphics Ltd Tour de France: 1903 Infographic Tour de France Legend Infographic Infographic about the first ever Tour de France staged in 1903. The graphs show the breakdown of starting and finishing riders by nationality. The map provides information on the six epic stages of the race. This is supported by a small graphic showing the General Classification and the time gaps between the top 3 riders. Compared to modern Grand Tours the first tour had relatively few stages, but each was much longer than those raced today. The cyclists did not have to compete in all six stages, although this was necessary to qualify for the general classification. The pre-race favourite, Maurice Garin, won the first stage, and retained the lead throughout. He also won the last two stages, and had a margin of almost three hours over the next cyclist. The circulation of L’Auto increased more than sixfold during and after the race, so the race was considered successful enough to be rerun in 1904, by which time Le Vélo had been forced out of business.

Question: Which cyclist won the first ever Tour de France in 1903?
Answer: MAURICE GARIN