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

It was also the first time that a stage started in a different town to the finish the previous day, when Douai hosted the start of stage 2, some 40 km (25 miles) from the Lille finish of stage 1.

It was a real Tour of ‘firsts’: for the first time, too, the race ventured outside French territory, when the stage from Douai dipped into German-held Alsace-Lorraine, and the city of Metz (today inside the French border), on its way to Nancy.

When it came to the competition, René Pottier, the man who had stunned the cycling world the previous year by managing to ride up the supposedly unridable Ballon d’Alsace, did it again, making it first to the top of the same climb when it featured on stage 3, and this time holding his advantage all the way to the finish in Dijon.

Having already won stage 2, and by taking another four stage wins en route to Paris, including the tough fifth stage over the Côte de Laffrey and the Col Bayard, Pottier beat the always-consistent Georges Passerieu – a Frenchman who finished in the top ten in every stage, including winning two stages – on points, 31 to 39. It was the rider with the fewest points who won, stage winners being awarded one point, two points being awarded for second place, etc., and was a system race organiser Henri Desgrange was to retain until the 1913 Tour, which reverted to being contested on time.

Pottier, it seemed, had an illustrious career ahead of him, having proved himself at the Tour as the sport’s best climber.

René Pottier was unbeatable in the mountains

1907

5th Edition

	Start: Paris, France, on 8 JulyFinish: Paris, France, on 4 August
	Total distance: 4488 km (2789 miles)Longest stage: 415 km (258 miles)
	Highest point:Col de Porte: 1326 m (4350 ft)Mountain stages: 4
	Starters: 93Finishers: 33
	Winning time: 47 pointsAverage speed: 28.470 kph (17.690 mph)
	1. Lucien Petit-Breton (Fra) 47 points2. Gustave Garrigou (Fra) 66 points3. Émile Georget (Fra) 74 points

The 1907 Tour started on a sombre note as the 1906 champion, gifted 27-year-old climber René Pottier, had committed suicide in January.

The fifth edition’s opening stage followed the route of the famous cobbled Classic, Paris-Roubaix, which had run since 1896, and although 1906 Tour runner-up – and now race favourite – Georges Passerieu had won the 1907 edition of the one-day race, it was 1905 Tour champ Louis Trousselier who took the victory in Roubaix in July.

The race followed a very similar route around the edge of France to that of 1906, again taking in the city of Metz, then still in Germany, and adding a second foreign sojourn by briefly drifting onto Swiss soil on stage 4 from Belfort to Lyon. The total number of stages ramped up to fourteen, and the race included its highest mountain pass yet by adding the 1326–m (4350–ft) Col de Porte, in the Chartreuse mountains of southeast France, to the route of stage 5 from Lyon to Grenoble.

There was a South American flavour added to the mix, too, in that Lucien Petit-Breton – a Frenchman born in Brittany who had moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina, as a child with his family, only returning to France in 1902 to enlist in the French army – was a very real contender for overall victory, having finished fifth overall at the 1905 Tour and fourth in 1906. Winning the very first edition of the Italian one-day Classic, Milan-San Remo, earlier in the 1907 season hadn’t done his prospects much harm, either.

Petit-Breton – real name Lucien Mazan – had adopted the pseudonym while bike racing in Argentina, a moniker presumably given to him by Buenos Aires locals, to hide the fact that he raced from is disapproving father.

After taking control of the race on stage 10 to Bordeaux, the little Breton held on to the lead the rest of the way to the finish in Paris.

Overall winner Lucien Petit-Breton leads the stage between Toulouse and Bayonne

The Tour takes on the Ballon d’Alsace, in the Vosges mountains of eastern France, in 1908. The Ballon, the first ever genuine mountain climb in the Tour, first featured in the 1905 race, five years before the first appearance of the Pyrenees, and six years before the Alps.

1908

6th Edition

“It’s time to hand over the mantle. Next year’s Tour is for Faber.”

1908 Tour champion Lucien Petit-Breton following his second consecutive overall victory, suggesting that Luxembourg’s François Faber, his Peugeot team-mate, is the rightful heir to the Tour crown

	Start: Paris, France, on 13 JulyFinish: Paris, France, on 9 August
	Total distance: 4488 km (2789 miles)Longest stage: 415 km (258 miles)
	Highest point:Col de Porte: 1326 m (4350 ft)Mountain stages: 4
	Starters: 114Finishers: 36
	Winning time: 36 pointsAverage speed: 28.740 kph (17.858 mph)
	1. Lucien Petit-Breton (Fra) 36 points2. François Faber (Lux) 68 points3. Georges Passerieu (Fra) 75 points

Lucien Petit-Breton arrived at the 1908 edition of the Tour in rude form, having already won that year’s Paris-Brussels – a one-day race still in existence, now held in September, but then held in April.