What’s the world’s most difficult sporting challenge? The marathon? The triathlon? The Dakar motorcycle rally? They’re all tough, but none of them comes close to the world’s most famous cycling race: the Tour de France.
One hundred times longer than a marathon, and the equivalent of cycling up and down Mt Everest more than 800 times, the Tour de France lasts three weeks and covers approximately 3,500 kilometres (including over 1,000 kilometres of mountain cycling!). It really is the toughest race in the world... but it’s also one of the strangest. And since it began in 1903, there have been a number of extraordinary stories.