Ellis Bacon - Mapping Le Tour - The unofficial history of all 100 Tour de France races

Geographically, the 1904 Tour followed the same route as the first edition the previous year, again starting in Paris and taking in the major cities of Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Nantes, before finishing once more in the Parc des Princes, Paris.

However, the race was marred by interventions from a by-now feverish public, while following the race it was discovered that the first four in the overall classification, including defending champion Maurice Garin, had cheated, and were disqualified from the race, handing victory to 19-year-old Henri Cornet, who remains the race’s youngest-ever winner.

On the race’s second, hilliest stage, between Lyon and Marseille, local Lyon lad Antoine Fauré led the race over the Col de la Rébublique while behind him the race favourites, including Garin and his brother, César, were set upon by masked men, believed to be Fauré’s supporters.

That year was also the first recorded instance of tacks being thrown onto the road by partisan crowds – something that would happen intermittently throughout the Tour’s history, including as recently as the 2012 Tour when the race passed over the Mur de Péguère on stage 14.

It took some time for the organisers of the 1904 Tour to wade through all the accusations and rumours at the end of the race, but in November they came to the decision to ban the two Garin brothers – who had finished first and third – with the older Maurice having apparently illegally been given food by one of the race organisers themselves, as well as allegedly having covered part of the route by train.

Runner-up Lucien Pothier was handed a lifetime ban by French governing body the Union Vélocipédique Française (although he was later permitted to start the Tour again, in 1907), while fourth-placed Hippolyte Aucouturier, again one of the race favourites, having failed to finish the first stage of the 1903 race due to illness, was one of those believed to have cheated by gripping a cork in his mouth that was attached to a string tied to the back of a car.

Spectators use tacks and pebbles to sabotage the stage between Nantes and Paris

1905

3rd Edition

	Start: Paris, France, on 9 JulyFinish: Paris, France, on 30 July
	Total distance: 3021 km (1877 miles)Longest stage: 348 km (216 miles)
	Highest point:Col Bayard: 1246 m (4088 ft)Mountain stages: 2
	Starters: 60Finishers: 24
	Winning time: 35 pointsAverage speed: 27.481 kph (17.075 mph)
	1. Louis Trousselier (Fra) 35 points2. Hippolyte Aucouturier (Fra) 61 points3. Jean-Baptiste Dortignacq (Fra) 64 points

Despite the race having tackled the Col de la République in its previous two editions, the third Tour de France entered new territory in 1905 by introducing its first serious, leg-crunching, lung-busting climb in the shape of the Ballon d’Alsace. It was also made up of shorter stages, albeit with an increase in their number – up to eleven from six.

After his despair at the previous year’s mass cheating, race director Henri Desgrange almost cancelled the 1905 Tour as early as its first stage, during which tacks were again thrown onto the road. All the riders punctured apart from 1904 runner-up Jean-Baptiste Dortignacq, though eventual overall race winner, Louis Trousselier, was nevertheless able to recover and win stage 1 from Paris to Nancy.

For stage 2, between Nancy and Besançon, it was out with the Col de la République and in with the Ballon d’Alsace, in the Vosges mountains. Wrongly, the Ballon d’Alsace is considered the Tour’s first major climb, but it was recognised as such by the race organisers more for its steepness than its height: at 1178 m (3865 ft), it is just 17 m (56 ft) higher than the Col de la République. Indeed, the Col Bayard, climbed later, on stage 4 of the 1905 Tour, stands at 1246 m (4088 ft).

With an average grade of 6.9 per cent, climbed from the north from the town of St-Maurice-sur-Moselle, Desgrange predicted that none of his race’s participants would be able to ride over the Ballon d’Alsace. René Pottier, however, had other ideas, stomping on the pedals to become the first rider to the top of the climb, although he was overtaken later in the stage by Hippolyte Aucouturier.

Overall race winner Trousselier – victorious thanks to five stage wins and Desgrange’s newly introduced points, rather than time, system of determining the winner – was a deserving Tour champion, but gambled his winnings away in a single, celebratory evening after the finish in Paris.

Frenchman Louis Trousselier was the first rider to win the Tour de France on points

1906

4th Edition

	Start: Paris, France, on 4 JulyFinish: Paris, France, on 29 July
	Total distance: 4546 km (2825 miles)Longest stage: 480 km (298 miles)
	Highest point:Col Bayard: 1246 m (4088 ft)Mountain stages: 2
	Starters: 76Finishers: 14
	Winning time: 31 pointsAverage speed: 24.463 kph (15.201 mph)
	1. René Pottier (Fra) 31 points2. Georges Passerieu (Fra) 39 points3. Louis Trousselier (Fra) 59 points

The 1906 edition of the Tour was a true tour of France, increased to thirteen stages from eleven, and reaching further afield than ever before: up to Lille in the north, Nice in the southeast, Bayonne in the furthest southwest corner, close to the Spanish border, and Brest, in Brittany, to the northwest.