Le Tour De France
In 1891, the French cycling newspaper Veloce
Sport promoted a 36O-mile Bordeaux~paris event. That race gained such favor with
French sports fans that numerous imitators immediately put together their own
races. Races such as Paris-Brussels, Paris-Camembert, Paris-Line, Paris-Lyon, and
other newspaperpromoted events were all Spawned by Bordeaux-paris.
It was yet another newspaper, the sports journal l’Auto
Velo, that conceived an event larger and more spectacular than any before: Le Tour de France. The newspaper’s
editor, Henri Desgrange, himself a former racer, saw that
his paper’s main rival, Veloce Sport, continually outsold
l’Auto-Velo. Realizing that his competitor’s success was
due to being the promoter of the most popular bicycle
races, Desgrange set himself to the task of one-upping
his rival. The idea of a race that would go around France
was tossed out by one of Desgrange’s assistants. Initially
dismissed as being too much, too crazy, the idea stewed
in Desgrange’s head, and by that evening, he decided to
go ahead with the outrageous scheme.
In modern stage races such as the Tour de France, riders
are members of teams consisting of nine riders. Each of
these teams has a captain, who is the rider with the best
chance of winning the event. The job of the other riders
is to ride in support of the captain.
The captain will often ride closely behind his team mates, letting them fight the wind resistance so that he can conserve his energy. The lowest-ranked riders on a team, called domestiques, are the worker ants. They’re the ones who’ll drop behind to the team support car to fetch water bottles, jackets, or whatever else the captain or higher~ranked riders may need. It’s also not unusual for a support rider to give up his bike or a wheel to a higher ranked team member when that team member has a flat or mechanical problem.
The first Tour de France, which began on July 1, 1903, had just six stages, but each was about 250 miles long! With such long stages, the riders rode around the clock, often finishing a stage well into the next day. Mercifully, Desgrange had scheduled rest periods of two to three days between the stages. Sixty riders began the 19-day, six-stage, 2,428-kilometer event, vying for a 3,000-franc share of the 20,000 francs up for grabs. Over half of the racers had dropped out by the third stage of the 19-day race. Only 21 of the original 60 starters finished te race.
