What Is Tour De France?

Tour de France is the world's most popular bicycle race. It's also the toughest contest among all bicycle races. The race is held in the month of July and stayed for a period of three weeks. Tour de France covers a distance of almost 3600 kilometers of flat as well as mountainous country. With brief visits to Spain, Germany, Italy and Belgium Tour de France is mainly rooted in the France.

Tour de France is the world's best colorful bicycle race. Twenty professional bicycle teams could participate in the race and each team is consisted with nine riders or members. Each stage of the race is calculated by time and the winner of the race is the lowest aggregate timer of all the stages.

Henri Desgrange, a French journalist and bicyclist was the founder of this famous bicycle race of all time. Finally Tour de France was started in the year of 1903. From that time the race was never stopped except during the world wars it was stopped. Now-a-days it is the world's best rated bicycle race and is so popular in each cycle loving nations that it got many sponsors as well as friendly media.

You might also like to know that the Tour is starting in Britain this year.  The prologue (a short time trial that puts the riders in an initial ranking for the main race) is in the centre of London on 7 July, and the first stage runs through the Kent countryside on 8 July.  Expect a lot of London to be gridlocked for much of that weekend.

Tour de France is an extremely popular but equally challenging professional bicycle race held each July. More than 150 competitors contest in the race. The course covers about 3,200 km of European roads and the race continues for about 25 to 30 days. The course however changes every year. Although the route of the race lies mostly in France it also passes through Belgium, Spain, Germany, and Switzerland. The final stretch of the course is a famous avenue in Paris and has never been changed.
The Tour de France follows a course that is divided into sections, or stages. Every day, there is a new stage which demands a particular cycling skill, such as climbing hills, sprinting, or performance in time-trial races. Cyclists are timed for each stage and at the conclusion of the race, the cyclist with the lowest total time is declared the winner.
The first Tour de France was held in 1903. It included six stages and covered a distance of 2,400 km. There have three fatal accidents in the race so far. The latest occurred in 1995 when Italian cyclist Fabio Casartelli died in a crash.
Among the great winners are French cyclists Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault, Belgian cyclist Eddy Merckx, Spanish cyclist Miguel Induráin, and American cyclist Lance Armstrong, each of whom won five Tours.