Learn 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.
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.
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.
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Between 1930 and 1961 Tour de France was contested by national teams. Originally, it was Henri Desgrange’s idea, who didn’t like the tactical racing of the professional teams. MORE TOUR DE FRANCE FUN FACTS MORE TOUR DE FRANCE IN THE 1930S
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
Eddy Merckx leads the list of the most Tour de France stage victories with 34 wins. But Mark Cavendish is right behind him with 30. On the 13th stage of Tour de France 2021, Mark Cavendish equalled Eddy Merckx astonishing record. Riders with at least 10 victories: Eddy Merckx 34 Mark Cavendish 34 Bernard Hinault … Read more
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 … Read more