{"id":132875,"date":"2016-01-07T16:28:41","date_gmt":"2016-01-07T14:28:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/?p=132875"},"modified":"2016-01-07T16:50:36","modified_gmt":"2016-01-07T14:50:36","slug":"the-tour-de-france-as-it-was-never-seen-before","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2016\/01\/07\/the-tour-de-france-as-it-was-never-seen-before\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tour de France as It Was Never Seen Before"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><i>The Unknown Tour de France<\/i> (2009, Cycle Publishing \/ Van der Plas Publications, 152p.) by Les Woodland is an astonishing book, fully illustrated in 23 chapters rich in historical data, curiosities and legends that surround the circuit. Woodland conducts the reader from cheats and anti-doping stories, to explanations and rumours around the beginning of the legendary yellow jerseys worn by the Tour\u2019s leaders.<\/strong><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cLet\u2019s organize a race that lasts several days, longer than anything else. \u00a0Like six-days on the track but on the road. The big towns will welcome the riders\u201d. This speech, g<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">iven<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> by G\u00e9o Lef\u00e8vre dates from 1902 and coined the Tour idea. It happened <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">during<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> a meeting in Paris with Desgrange who then became the Tour founder. Years later Lef\u00e8vre admitted that he had been taken by surprise during the meeting <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">that was supposed to be about<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> new ideas to boost newspaper circulation and the Tour was the first thing that he could came up with. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And for that <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">respective<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> century the Tour would do more for the French nation than any other event the country has ever witnessed. It wasn\u2019t until L\u2019Auto \u00a0(Tour\u2019s newspaper sponsor, ancestor of the current daily L&#8217;\u00c9quipe) print<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">ed<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> the route of the Tour de France that most Frenchmen could recognize the shape of their own country. With big rewards &#8211; offering 3,000 francs for the winner while a workman at the time earned just 2.5 francs for a 10-hour day <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&#8211;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> the circumstances made it quickly popular, attracting adventurers <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">and curious people<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> trying their luck.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-132876\" src=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2016\/01\/933788.jpg\" alt=\"The Unknown Tour de France by Les Woodland is an astonishing book, fully illustrated in 23 chapters rich in historical data, curiosities and legends that surround the circuit. \" width=\"321\" height=\"475\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The circuits were dreadful, with holes and stones on the roads and many \u201cunrideable\u201d mountains. The continued improvement <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">of<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> the difficult<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">y<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> level by the organizers has created some hearsays about the circuit, as the one that <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">goes that<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> some competitors called the organizers murderers and compared the Tour to a calvary. In 1919 the Tour had the highest dropout: 84% of riders abandoned the circuit. The discontentment w<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">ent<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> high also in 1924, when the <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">P\u00e9lissier <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">brothers, favourites to win at that time, abandoned the circuit and spread the word about the <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">cyclists\u2019<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> dissatisfaction.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But then the Glory Years came in the 1950s and 1960s. After the war, Europe was looking for its own personality and there was a good rivalry between nations like Italy, France, Spain and Belgium. It was the peak of bicycle racing, a phenomenon with cycling carrying <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the respective<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> nation\u2019s dreams. Cyclists became stars with a human dimension. \u00a0Many of them were bakers, butchers, metal workers or farmers. With recent famous Tour\u2019s winners like Lance Armstrong, Woodland also makes room in the book for former heroes, presenting an intense investigati<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">v<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">e work on previous riders, sport reporters and others that were then almost completely forgotten as time goes by. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">For those who think it still isn\u2019t enough, the author offers an annex with 100 curiosities about the tournament <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">as a plus<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Did you know that there are <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">currently <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">more than 1200 TV journalists and more than 100 trucks to carry satellite dishes, mobile studios and other gear <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">on the Tour<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Unknown Tour de France (2009, Cycle Publishing \/ Van der Plas Publications, 152p.) by Les Woodland is an astonishing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":132878,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[328,334],"tags":[],"global-categories":[],"class_list":["post-132875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-outdoor-mountain","category-socialising-and-culture"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.3 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - 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