The Birth of a Legend

On a humid July morning in 1903, sixty pioneers gathered outside the Café au Réveil Matin in Montgeron, a suburb south of Paris. Among them were chimney sweeps, carpenters, and mechanics—working-class men who had scraped together the ten-franc entry fee for what would become the world's most prestigious bicycle race. They couldn't have imagined that their suffering over the next nineteen days would give birth to a sporting phenomenon that would captivate the world for over a century.

The Tour de France was born not from a love of sport, but from a desperate circulation war between rival newspapers. Henri Desgrange, a former cyclist turned journalist, had been appointed editor of L'Auto, a struggling sports daily printed on distinctive yellow paper. His chief rival, Le Vélo, printed on green paper, dominated the market. Desgrange needed something spectacular to save his newspaper from bankruptcy.