Road Bikes World Races: The Tour de France

The Tour de France is the BIG one; it’sbeat all comers in the Tour de France.The
the World cup and the Olympics all in one. It has itcourse.The race starts in a different town every
all, the high mountains, the wind swept northernyear and every other year it starts outside
planes and the heat of the south. It also has theFrance, the choice of stage towns is a
world’s media, all the top teams and riderscombination of money and sporting considerations,
and millions of cycling mad fans watching. Thethe towns will pay for a start or a finish, but they
other “Grand Tours” of Italy andneed to be near a mountain or a cobbled road or
Spain are as exciting, sometimes more so, butbe near other town who want to host the Tour.
they don’t have the thing the Tour has,The Towns pay to be the centre of interest for
that unique Tour ness, that unique Frencha day, the Tour also brings in a lot of money in
ness.How it started.It all started in 1903, when thetourism and the Towns collect much more than
French daily paper, L’Auto wanted to sellthey pay and the world will remember the name
more than its competitor, Le Vélo, who atof the Town, for at least a day.The riders.All the
that time was the only paper reporting on cyclebest riders want to win the Tour de France, but
racing. It was suggested to the papers director,they cant, from the 200 or so starters there is a
Henri Desgrange that they should organise a roadpossible five or six riders who can win, the rest
bike race all round France. The first race wasare either helping their team leaders or sprint or
2,428 kilometres split into six stages and was runmountain specialists who want to win stages or
off at 25.29 kilometres per hour and out of thepoints or mountain jerseys, this keeps the race
60 starters 21 finished and the race was leadactive and interesting from beginning to end.The
from start to finish by Maurice Garin.TheBIG Tour.The Tour is the biggest, but that has its
Heroes.Over the years there has been a lot ofproblems, some Towns are not big enough, hotels
heroes in the Tour de France, you could say alletc., the television needs more space, the
the riders are heroes, to win the race once isjournalists need more phone lines and computers,
hard, but to win it five times is phenomenal. Onlymore and more people are following the race and
five men have done this, and one of these hasthe riders can be forgotten about in all the
won it seven times. French rider Jacques Anquetilrazzmatazz, but its still the biggest sporting event
was the first to win the race five times, Eddyin the world, long may in run!Alastair Hamilton is a
Merckx, Bernard Hinault and then Spaniard Miguelsuccessful writer who offers a truly unique depth
Indurain all equalled him. Then the American, Lanceof experience in competitive cycling, he also
Armstrong started to win in 1999 andcontributes adding technical articles on road bikes
didn’t stop until he had won it a recordto some cycling online magazines. Please, visit to
seven times in a row. This is all the more amazingreach further information on bike and cycling
as he is a cancer survivor and was given a 50/50news.
chance of life; he beat the cancer and went on to