A Newbies Guide to the Tour De France
Everything you need to know about the greatest Cycling race in the world!
One of the greatest, oldest and most watched sporting races in the world, Tour De France is a test of grit, stamina, strategy and last but not the least speed. As a premier event in the sporting and cycling calendar, the tour attracts international attention with riders and teams from around the world competing in 3 week long race that spans most of France and usually small bits of Switzerland and nearby countries to France.
In terms of spectators, it draws in more fans each year than the Olympics, World Cup football or any motor race. 
The History of the Tour
The tour de france had an interesting beginning. Right at the start of the 20th century, two of France's biggest sports newspapers,
Le Vélo and
L'Auto-Vélo were involved in a big and a fierce competition. The former filed a case against the latter about copyright over the word "
Vélo" and L'Auto-Vélo had to change its name to
L'Auto.
The man leading L'Auto as chief editor,
Henri Desgrange felt that he needed to organize an event that would put his newspaper again in the public eye. It was with the help of his chief cycling correspondent, 26-year-old
Géo Lefèvre, that the first tour was launched in the year 1903.
The grueling nature of the race quickly caught the public's imagination with more than 20,000 people coming in to see the winner Maurice Garin arrive in Paris. The tour was infact so successful for the newspaper that its own circulation increased 3 fold in the first year and even more subsequently. And it actually drove its chief competitor the "
Vélo" newspaper out of business.
In the early days the tour avoided the mountains. They were introduced for the first time in the year 1910 with gravel track based routes. The mountains were considered from the early days of the tour as the most challenging aspect of the tour especially in the formative years whence the early bicycles - without the lightweight alloys and multiple gears of their latter-day counterparts - had to be carried over the riders' shoulders and the races going long into the night.
L'Auto has since been re-christened as "
L'Équipe" and the race is currently organised by the
Société du Tour de France, a subsidiary of
Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), which is part of the media group that owns L'Équipe.
Read More about the History of the Tour: BBC SPORT | TOUR DE FRANCE | Tour de France history - Find here a indepth look at each decade of the tour with a brief overview of how the race originated and progressed.
HickokSports.com - History - The Tour de France - Find here a brief but quick look at the history of the race along with all the past winners.
Welcome to the history of the Tour de France - The official tour de france site explains the history behind the tour.
What is the Tour?
Along with the
Giro d'Italia (Tour of Italy) and
Vuelta a España (Tour of Spain), Tour De France is one of the three major races of the International cycling association calendar (
Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI)).
The tour is a stage based race. At the very basic, a route map is first made that covers most of France(along with any other nation over which the tour will extend into) and a day to day route is then decided and its this daily route that is known as a stage. A stage can be a flat non undulating road race or might cover a mountainous region.
A typical modern day race covers a distance of around 3,500 kilometres and spans over a 20 day period. There are two kinds of stages:
- Time trial (contre la montre) : A time trial is a race where the riders will ride individually and each individual rider will be separated by a time gap of around 2 minutes. The first stage of the tour is often a short time trial known as a prologue. The prologue is to decide who wears yellow on the opening day, and provide a spectacle for the organising city. There are usually three time trials in a tour with one scheduled right at the end of the tour which by and large is the most critical deciding factor in selecting the winner. The time trials themselves are of two types:
- Individual Time Trials - As the name suggests, in this the riders ride individually and their final time is calculated and stored.
- Team Time Trial - In this case all the riders of the team will ride together. This forms the team time trial.
- Road Race : The road race itself is a simple sprint spanning anywhere from 200 to 300KM a day, all riders of every team participate in the race together and the times are decided as per how they finish.
How do riders score points or win the tour?
Every rider, based on his abilities or team strategy is competing for one of the 4 Jerseys. (Some riders in the team, however, may be playing the support role to help the preselected main rider win one of the jersey. The main rider the team will back is usually known much before the tour starts)
You win everyday by either winning a stage or a time trial. The stage winner is the first person to cross the finish line that day or the time trial rider with the lowest time. All riders compete for the overall race title, awarded to the rider with the lowest time over all the stages. This means the overall winner doesn't have to win a single stage -- they just need to stay close to the leaders.
Almost always the overall winner is the person who is solid in the mountains and in time trial. This is because its those stages, even though few in number, that bring about the maximum differences in time between individual riders.
Apart from finish, there are many bonuses and points available within the race. For example the sprinters not only compete for stage wins, but for sprint points at intermediate sprints decided before at each stage. The first few riders to reach the sprint line are awarded sprint points. The rider with the most sprint points is awarded a green jersey to wear during the subsequent stage
The climbers also have a race-within-a-race, for the polka-dotted climber's jersey. Each climb is categorized, from Category 4 (the easiest) to
hors categorie, or beyond categorization, the hardest. The first few riders over the top of each climb are awarded climber's points.
At the end of the tour, all the points are added up and the overall winner gets to wear the winners jersey.
Although the overall winner is an individual, by tradition, the winner's prize money is split evenly among the entire team.
Read More about how points are awarded in detail: How the Points are awarded for each Jersey - Eurosport Points Table explained 
The Winning Jerseys
Each stage of the tour has a number of sub competitions going on. There are different types of jerseys assigned for winners of these competitions.
The classification for the award of jerseys is as under, in decreasing order of their importance.
- The Yellow Jersey - For the overall leader of the tour
The yellow jersey (or maillot jaune) in the Tour de France is probably the greatest prize in the world of cycling. It is yellow because that was the colour of the pages of L'Auto - the newspaper that sponsored and started the race. After each stage, the yellow jersey is awarded to the person who is top of the overall classification; he wears this on the road the next day. The winner of the Tour de France is the yellow jersey holder after the final stage. He also wears the jersey on the first stage of the next tour.
- The Green Jersey - For the most consistent finisher: Best Sprinter
The green jersey (or maillot vert) is worn by the winner of the secondary competition that is for the most consistent finisher: it generally goes to a sprint specialist. Points for this competition are awarded for the top finishers in every stage. The amount of points per stage is dependant on whether the stages are flat, hilly, mountainous or time trials. In the middle of stages there are intermediate sprints that also have points that go towards the green jersey competition.
- The Polka Dot Jersey - For the king of the mountains
The King of the Mountains is the third of the major competitions, the leader of which wears a red polka-dot on white jersey(or maillot a pois rouges). At the summits of climbs, points are awarded to first people across: how many points and how many people are awarded them is dependent on the severity of the climb. Normally one or two riders will rack up most of the points from the first flat week of the race, and will lose the jersey to proper climbers in the first day in the mountains.
- The White Jersey - For the best young rider
Awarded for the best young rider. The Young Rider competition is fairly self-explanatory: the winner is the leading rider under the age of 26 in general classification. The Young Rider wears the white jersey. The competition has been called Souvenir Fabio Casartelli after the late rider who died on the descent of the Col de Portet d'Aspet in 1995.
- White on Red Jersey - Most Attacking Rider
The white on red jersey or the Combativity Award goes to riders who attack regularly throughout the race. The cyclists who specialise on long attacks and who form the breakaway usually win this jersey as they tend to be caught up at the end of the stage by the main group, the peleton. Generally, the more aggressive cyclists will be featured most on the television coverage, so the team sponsor likes to have some among their number.
What happens if there is a tie?
Jerseys are awarded in a ceremony after each stage. When a single rider is entitled to more than one jersey, he wears the most prestigious and the second-placed rider in the other classification wears the other jersey. For example, in the first week it is common for the overall classification (yellow jersey) and points (sprint) competition (green jersey) to be led by the same rider. In this case the leading rider will wear the yellow jersey and the rider placed second in the points competition will wear the green jersey.
Read More about the Jersey's of the Tour De France: Guide by Doc on FE The Jerseys of the Tour de France: A Guide to the Different Jerseys of the Tour de France Original Guide by safin, with inputs from various sources. No reproduction without consent.
Tour De France Demystified 
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