A Timeless History
L'Auto created the Tour de France in 1903 to sell newspapers, and it worked — circulation multiplied. Gears were another matter. Henri Desgrange, who ran the race, thought derailleurs were for weaklings; riders changed gear by stopping, removing the rear wheel and turning it around. He did not allow derailleurs in the Tour until 1937.
SourceEncyclopaedia Britannica — britannica.com, “Tour de France” · Bibliothèque nationale de France, Agence Rol — gallica.bnf.fr
Science In Action
Air — at racing speed most of your power goes into pushing air aside, not friction or gravity • Gear ratio — chainring teeth over sprocket teeth: wheel turns per pedal stroke • Triangles — the diamond frame again, in thinner, stiffer tubing • Balance — for a century the gyroscope got the credit; in 2011 a bicycle with no gyroscopic effect stayed up • Drafting — riding in another's wake cuts the work sharply; that shapes every race
SourceEncyclopaedia Britannica — britannica.com · Kooijman, Meijaard, Papadopoulos, Ruina & Schwab, “A bicycle can be self-stable without gyroscopic or caster effects”, Science 332:339 (2011) — science.org · Bibliothèque nationale de France, Agence Rol — gallica.bnf.fr
Arts
The Tour was designed as national theatre before it was a sport: a newspaper's circulation stunt that drew the shape of France every July and has been doing it for over a century. The yellow jersey is a piece of accidental branding that outlived the newspaper that caused it. Toulouse-Lautrec had put racing on the walls of Paris first: his 1896 poster for the Simpson chain shows a pacing team at full stretch.
SourceEncyclopaedia Britannica — britannica.com, “Tour de France” · The Art Institute of Chicago, 2015.278 — artic.edu · Bibliothèque nationale de France — gallica.bnf.fr
Applications Today
This shape won its first Tour in 1989, when Greg LeMond's aero handlebars overturned a 50-second gap in the final time trial — victory by eight seconds, still the closest ever. Since 2000 the sport's governing body has set a minimum bicycle weight of 6.8 kg. Manufacturers can build lighter and are not allowed to race it — so the engineering effort moved to aerodynamics instead, which is why modern race bikes look the way they do.
SourceUnion Cycliste Internationale, technical regulations, art. 1.3.019 — uci.org · Tour de France archives, 1989 — letour.fr · Wikimedia Commons, photograph CC0
A century of engineering, aimed almost entirely at the air in front of you.
Tour de France (1906), le tour d'honneur : 1er Pottier, 2ème Passerieu [Parc des Princes] — Agence Rol (photographic agency) — 1906 — Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Estampes et photographie, EI-13 (85) — Rol, 1689 bis — ark:/12148/btv1b69105478
