2005 Tour de France: History lessons

The Tour de France wouldn't have happened if not for the rivalry of two French newspapers, L'Velo, the original and L'Auto, the upstart.

In 1902, Henri Desgrange, the L'Auto editor and Geo Lefevre met for a business lunch to discuss about a new format for a bike race they called Tour de France Cyliste. They were not really meeting for a new bike race but for a gimmick to increase sales of the flagging newspaper.

The first tour started in 2003. It had 6 stages and was 2,428 kilometers in length. The first race was rescheduled on May 31 but only 15 participants showed up. To attract riders, a 5 franc was dangled to the first 50 registrants and a 5,000 franc purse

July 1 and 60 participants later, the race was off. Since cycling in those days was considered a sport of high repute, a few riders rode using aliases while 21 of the 60 were pros.

On July 19, 21 of the 60 finished the race. 20,000 spectators came to watch the first winner of the Tour, Frenchman Maurice Garin, a chimney cleaner when not riding his bike. Garin won 6,125 francs, bought a gas station and work there until he died.

The Tour was a smashing success that 130,000 copies of L'Auto was printed for the final stage, an increase of 100,000! L'Velo then went bankrupt and L'Velo changed to its modern name, L'Equipe, a name that is still in use today.

The word "tour" is a French word which literally means "turn" in English. Here are some mind-blowing numbers I took from www.bicycling.com.

Biggest winning margin (since 1947): 28 min 27 sec (Fausto Coppi -Stan Ockers in 1952) Smallest winning margin: 8 sec (Greg LeMond -Laurent Fignon in 1989)

Fastest prologue: 55.152 kph-Chris Boardman in 1994 over 7.2km

Fastest individual time trial: 54.545 kph-Greg LeMond in 1989 over 24.5km1 David Zabriskie, US got the new record of 54.67 kph over 19km this year.

Fastest team time trial: 54.930 kph by Gewiss in 1995. Discovery Channel Team got the new record this year 57.324 kph) in 67 km.

Fastest average over a flat stage: 50.355 kp/h-Mario Cipollini in 1999 198: riders at the start of the 2005 tour 381 euros: prize money for riders finishing race after 120th position 1,200: number of hotel rooms reserved for teams and their staff, press, and Tour personnel 2,400: hours of TV coverage 3607 km: the total distance 7620 euros: prize money for the winner of a stage 8400: food bags distributed at feeding stations throughout race 20,000 euros: in prize money to most combative rider in race 25,055: number of security personnel. 42,000: water bottles used by teams in race 353,430 km: approx. distance of all previous 90 Tours de France 400,000 euros: prize money for race winner 2,877,705 euros: total prize money for the entire race.