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Tour de France fun facts

Two cyclists riding on the dusty road at the Tour de France in 1923, one of them is holding an umbrellaLearn more about the Tour de France fun facts category of PelotonTales blog.

Because Tour de France is fun. There are lots of fascinating facts defining the history of the world’s most famous cycling race.

Scroll down, and pick one or two fun facts or fascinating stories from the history of Tour de France to learn more about the past of the race since its first edition in 1903. 

Read about the winners and loosers. The unbelievable achivements and the weird ones. Records and unique moments. Facts, dates and little stories.

Pelotontales blog focusing on the cultural  historical aspects of road cycling races. Its author, Anita Pethő’s everyday routine of working with storytelling determinates the way how she is looking at the past, present and future of road cycling races.

Vintage cycling image from the 1920s, two cyclists with the socalled laterne rouge, the prize for the last placed rider of the race

If you’re interested not only in Tour de France, but other professional road racing races too, take a look at the cycling fun facts in general category, or visit the summary page of Giro d’Italia fun facts or Monument fun facts.

Click the homepage of Pelotontales blog, scroll down to find other  exciting topics, like the Faces from peloton, the Vintage cycling image of the day or the On this day in cycling history categories.

 

The first Grand Départ outside France, Louison Bobet in Amsterdam Tour de France 1954

First Tour de France starts abroad

Amsterdam hosted the  first Tour de France start abroad in 1954. List of Grand Départs outside of France 1954  Amsterdam (Netherland) 1958 Brussels (Belgium) 1965  Cologne (Germany) 1973  Scheveningen (Netherlands) 1978  Leiden (Netherlands) 1980 Frankfurt (Germany) 1982 Basel (Switzerland) 1987  West Berlin (Germany) 1992  San Sebastián (Spain) 1996  ‘s-Hertogenbosch (Netherlands) 1998  Dublin (Ireland) 2002  Luxembourg City (Luxembourg) 2004  Liège (Belgium) 2007  London (United Kingdom) 2009 Monaco (Monaco) 2010  Rotterdam (Netherlands) 2012  Liège (Belgium) 2014  Leeds (United Kingdom) 2015  Utrecht (Netherlands) 2017 Düsseldorf (Germany) 2019 Brussels (Belgium) 2022 Copenhagen (Denmark) More Tour de France fun facts [su_posts posts_per_page=”4″ tax_term=”456″ order=”desc” orderby=”rand”]

Bernard Hinault and Greg Lemond duo up to Alpe d'Huez at the Tour de France in 1986

Alpe d’Huez appearances at the Tour de France

Although its introduction to the Tour de France in 1952, made Alpe d’Huez an instant classic, the race visited the famous ascent again only 24 years later. Listo of winners on the top of Alpe d’Huez 1952 Fausto Coppi 1976 Joop Zoetemelk 1977 Hennie Kuiper 1978 Hennie Kuiper 1979 Joaquim Agostinho 1979 Joop Zoetemelk 1981 Peter Winnen 1982 Beat Breu 1983 Peter Winnen 1984 Luis Herrera 1986 Bernard Hinault 1987 Federico Echave 1988 Steven Rook 1989 Gert-Jan Theunisse 1990 Gianni Bugno 1991 Gianni Bugno 1992 Andrew Hampsten 1994 Roberto Conti 1995 Marco Pantani 1997 Marco Pantani 1999 Giuseppe Guerini 2001 Lance Armstrong 2003 Iban Mayo 2004 Lance Armstrong 2006 Fränk Schleck 2008 Carlos Sastre 2011… Read More »Alpe d’Huez appearances at the Tour de France

Firmin Lambot, the winner of the Tour de France 1919

The slowest Tour de France ever

The slowest Tour de France in history was the 13th edition between 29th June and 27 July in 1919. The race included 5560 km, divided into 15 stages. This was the second longest Tour de France in history. Due to the recent war times (World War I between 1914 and 1918) most of the riders had not enough possibilities to train. This is one of the reason why mostly the older riders with more racing routine dominated the competition. On the other hand, the international elite peloton suffered some important losses: three of the former Tour de France winners, Lucien Petit-Breton (winner of 1907 and 1908), Francois Faber (1909) and Octave Lapize (1910) died during… Read More »The slowest Tour de France ever

Legenday Tour de France mountian Alpe d'Huez first hilltop finish 1952 Fausto Coppi and Jean Robic riding together

The first hilltop finish of Tour de France

Although smaller climbs were parts of the program since the beginning, and both the Pyrenees (1910) and the Alps (1911) were intruduced to the race during the pre-WW1 period,  there were no hilltop finishes at the Tour de France till 1952. Alpe d’Huez ( in the Western Alps)  was a ski station in the first half of the 20th century. But a local artist, Jean Barbaglia had the idea, that it would be a great place for a cycling race too. He persuaded one of the hotel owners to lobby the Tour de France organizers: it migh be worth to try something new out. Up to Alpe d’Huez there was only one road, therefore a… Read More »The first hilltop finish of Tour de France

Geraint Thomas wins the Alpe d'Huez stage while wearing yellow jersey at the Tour de France in 2018

Winning at Alpe d’Huez in yellow jersey

Although since its introduction to the Tour de France in 1952, Alpe d’Huez witnessed several pivotal moments of the race, especially regarding the fate of the yellow jersey and the overal victory, it happened only in 2018 for the very first time, that a current yellow jersey wearer cyclist won the stage on the top of the famous climb. Gerain Thomas (Team Sky) surprised many people, when he won the 11th stage and jumped to the first position in the general classification in 2018. If you rewatch the stage, you can see clearly, that the GC riders and their teams were focusing rather on Chris Froome. Evidently, everyone thought, that the attack by Thomas was… Read More »Winning at Alpe d’Huez in yellow jersey