Tour de France

Tour de France

Snippet by © Paul Dodson 2012

For a little over a hundred years bicycle mad Frenchmen and their peddling mad contemporaries in Europe and – in more recent times – from around the world, have tackled the Tour de France or Le Tour as it's known in circles where I can't understand the lingo.

Some interesting Tour tidbits:

• In 1926 Le Tour meandered about France for a record length of 5,745 kilometres.
• Since the first Tour de France in 1903, competitors have peddled over 350,000 kilometres which is roughly equidistance from the earth to the moon.
• All the Departments of Metropolitan France have been visited as well as all the bordering countries.
• Over 500 towns and villages have hosted the Tour – that's about 2,000 stages and prologues.
• More than 10,000 riders have taken their chance on the Tour, while over 6,000 have completed the race.
• Finally, some 250 different riders have worn the Yellow Jersey.

So if you want to see France at it's best, grab a bottle and a loaf and join the throng on the side of the road as the tour whizzes past a French city near you.

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