Q. Who is the oldest rider to win the Tour De France?

A. Firmin Lambot (Belgium) in 1922 won at the age of 36.

Q. Who is the youngest rider to win the Tour De France?

A. Henry Cornet (France) in 1904 at the age of 20.

Q. Four riders have won 5 tours; Jaques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, Miguel Indurain. One rider has won 7 (in a row!) Who?

A. Lance Armstrong (7) 1999-2005.

Fact

Joop Zoetemelk, Netherland holds the record for the most number of tour starts: 16

Fact

Lance Armstrong holds the record for the fastest race time of 41.65kph in 2005.

Fact

Arguably the greatest cyclist of all time, Eddy Merckx, completed a record 35 stage wins including 5 overall wins.

Fact

The longest tour was in 1926 and was 5,795km long. These days the tour is much shorter (3,391km in 2004).

Fact

The longest stage was a massive 482km in 1919 & 1924 from Les Sables d"Olonne to Bayonne.

The Tour De France

Le Tour

The ultimate cycling race, the Tour De France attracts millions of spectators over the three weeks of competition. Riders compete for the overall victory, the sprint, king of the mountain, young rider and other competitions within the main race.

Climbing

One of the toughest parts of the Tour De France is when the riders take to the mountains in the Pyrenees and the French Alps. Some of these mountain climbs are awesome and they might tackle several of them in one day!

Each mountain climb is graded according to its difficulty and takes into consideration its steepness, length, road surface quality and altitude.

The steepness of the road is expressed as a percentage of the change in height for a given distance traveled horizontally.

There are five grades which are called Category's. Category 1 to Category 4 (with Category 1 being the steeper) and for those climbs considered the toughest, Hors Category, which means "outside category".

Pictured above is the profile of one of the most famous Hors Category climbs in the Tour De France, L'Alpe D'Huez. The climb is about 14 km and has an average gradient of 8% (it climbs about 1,130 metes in 14 km).

Points are awarded to the first rider to reach the top of designated climbs throughout the race and the rider with the most accumulated points at the end of the tour wins the King of the Mountain title, or Polka Dot Jersey.

Sprinting

One of the most spectacular parts of the tour is to see a wall of riders line up for the finish and reach speeds of 60kph to 70kph on the finish line. Crashes are not uncommon in the part of the race as riders become desperate to get the right position in the sprint line.

Because the rider who takes the lead has the most wind resistance to overcome, other riders try to shelter behind others until the time is right and then come out from behind the shelter to sprint for the line. There is a lot of prestige and money for winning a stage of the tour and so riders take lots of risks. Points are awarded to riders depending upon their position.

During each stage, there are designated places where the first riders across the line receive sprint points. These points, combined with points received at stage finishes, go towards determining the Sprint King, the rider with the most accumulated points at the end of the tour.

Time Trials

Usually in the tour, there are two types of time trial, the Individual Time Trial (ITT) and the Teams Time Trial (TTT).

Time trials are races against the clock. In ITT's riders start the designated course usually at intervals of 2 or 3 minutes. The rider with the lowest elapsed time after all riders have completed the course is declared the winner.

In TTT's, teams start at intervals usually of 5 minutes, with a team consisting of a maximum 9 riders. The riders will alternate their time at the front of the team so that each rider shares the greater workload at the front. The team's time is taken from the 5th rider across the line. The team with the lowest elapsed time is declared the winner.

Teams

Although riders compete for individual prizes, they rely on their teammates to help them through. They need to be able to get into the right position for sprints, climbs, cover attacks by other riders and to give them shelter behind the wind when necessary. So teams will often have designated riders for sprints, climbs and the overall category and the other team riders will sacrifice their own chances to help these riders.

The teams competition is decided by adding the time for the times of the three riders in the team with the lowest elapsed time. The winning team is the team with the lowest elapsed time.