The First Tour De France: Sixty Cyclists And Nineteen Days Of Daring On The Road To Paris
by Peter Cossins /
2017 / English / EPUB
30.9 MB Download
From its inception, the 1903 Tour de France was a colorful
affair. Full of adventure, mishaps and audacious attempts at
cheating, it was a race to be remembered.
From its inception, the 1903 Tour de France was a colorful
affair. Full of adventure, mishaps and audacious attempts at
cheating, it was a race to be remembered.
Cyclists of the time weren't enthusiastic about participating in
this "heroic" race on roads more suited to hooves than wheels,
with bikes weighing up to thirty-five pounds, on a single fixed
gear, for three full weeks. Assembling enough riders for the race
meant paying unemployed amateurs from the suburbs of Paris,
including a butcher, a chimney sweep and a circus acrobat. From
Maurice "The White Bulldog" Garin, an Italian-born Frenchman
whose parents were said to have swapped him for a round of cheese
in order to smuggle him into France as a fourteen-year-old, to
Hippolyte Aucouturier, who looked like a villain from a Buster
Keaton movie with his jersey of horizontal stripes and handlebar
moustache, the cyclists were a remarkable bunch.
Cyclists of the time weren't enthusiastic about participating in
this "heroic" race on roads more suited to hooves than wheels,
with bikes weighing up to thirty-five pounds, on a single fixed
gear, for three full weeks. Assembling enough riders for the race
meant paying unemployed amateurs from the suburbs of Paris,
including a butcher, a chimney sweep and a circus acrobat. From
Maurice "The White Bulldog" Garin, an Italian-born Frenchman
whose parents were said to have swapped him for a round of cheese
in order to smuggle him into France as a fourteen-year-old, to
Hippolyte Aucouturier, who looked like a villain from a Buster
Keaton movie with his jersey of horizontal stripes and handlebar
moustache, the cyclists were a remarkable bunch.
Starting in the Parisian suburb of Montgeron, the route took the
intrepid cyclists through Lyon, over the hills to Marseille, then
on to Toulouse, Bordeaux, and Nantes, ending with great fanfare
at the Parc des Princes in Paris. There was no indication that
this ramshackle cycling pack would draw crowds to throng France's
rutted roads and cheer the first Tour heroes. But they did; and
all thanks to a marketing ruse, cycling would never be the same
again.
Starting in the Parisian suburb of Montgeron, the route took the
intrepid cyclists through Lyon, over the hills to Marseille, then
on to Toulouse, Bordeaux, and Nantes, ending with great fanfare
at the Parc des Princes in Paris. There was no indication that
this ramshackle cycling pack would draw crowds to throng France's
rutted roads and cheer the first Tour heroes. But they did; and
all thanks to a marketing ruse, cycling would never be the same
again.