Bikers' Britain: Great Motorbike Rides (AA) - The Tours

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Lance Armstrong finished on the podium eight times, and Jan Ullrich seven times, however they both had results voided and now officially have zero and six podiums respectively. During the Middle Ages, Tours consisted of two juxtaposed and competing centres. The "City" in the east, successor of the late Roman 'castrum', was composed of the cathedral and palace of the archbishops as well as the castle of Tours. The castle of Tours acted as a seat of the authority of the Counts of Tours (later Counts of Anjou) and the King of France. In the west, the "new city" structured around the Abbey of Saint Martin was freed from the control of the city during the 10th century (an enclosure was built towards 918) and became "Châteauneuf". This space, organized between Saint Martin and the Loire, became the economic centre of Tours. Between these two centres were Varennes, vineyards and fields, little occupied except for the Abbaye Saint-Julien established on the banks of the Loire. The two centres were linked during the 14th century.

The book sold six million copies by the time of the first Tour de France, [153] the biggest selling book of 19th-century France (other than the Bible). [155] It stimulated a national interest in France, making it "visible and alive", as its preface said. There had already been a car race called the Tour de France but it was the publicity behind the cycling race, and Desgrange's drive to educate and improve the population, [156] that inspired the French to know more of their country. [157] prize money has increased each year, although from 1976 to 1987 the first prize was an apartment offered by a race sponsor. The first prize in 1988 was a car, a studio-apartment, a work of art, and 500,000 francs in cash. Prizes only in cash returned in 1990. [108] Broadcasting in France was largely a state monopoly until 1982, when the socialist president François Mitterrand allowed private broadcasters and privatised the leading television channel. Competition between channels raised the broadcasting fees paid to the organisers from 1.5 per cent of the race budget in 1960 to more than a third by the end of the century. [144] Broadcasting time also increased as channels competed to secure the rights. The two largest channels to stay in public ownership, Antenne 2 and FR3, combined to offer more coverage than its private rival, TF1. The two stations, renamed France 2 and France 3, still hold the domestic rights and provide pictures for broadcasters around the world. The mountains classification is the second-oldest jersey awarding classification in the Tour de France. The mountains classification was added to the Tour de France in the 1933 edition and was first won by Vicente Trueba. [90] [92] Prizes for the classification were first awarded in 1934. [92] During stages of the race containing climbs, points are awarded to the first riders to reach the top of each categorized climb, with points available for up to the first 10 riders, depending on the classification of the climb. Climbs are classified according to the steepness and length of that particular hill, with more points available for harder climbs. The classification was preceded by the meilleur grimpeur (English: best climber) which was awarded by the organising newspaper l'Auto to a cyclist who completed each race.

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Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference A 12-year-old from Ginasservis, known as Phillippe, was hit by a car in the Tour de France publicity caravan. [209] In 1920, the city hosted the Congress of Tours, which saw the creation of the French Communist Party. Tours became a metropolis in the Roman province of Lugdunum towards 380–388 AD, dominating Maine, Brittany, and the Loire Valley. One important figure in the city was Saint Martin of Tours, a bishop who shared his coat with a naked beggar in Amiens. The importance of Martin in the medieval Christian West made Tours, and its position on the route of pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, a major centre during the Middle Ages. The combination of unprecedented rigorous doping controls and almost no positive tests helped restore fans' confidence in the 2009 Tour de France. This led directly to an increase in global popularity of the event. The most watched stage of 2009 was stage 20, from Montélimar to Mont Ventoux in Provence, with a global total audience of 44million, making it the 12th most watched sporting event in the world in 2009. [151] Culture [ edit ] Part of the crowd during most days of the Tour is Didi Senft who, in a red devil costume, has been the Tour devil since 1993.

Tours sits on the lower reaches of the Loire, between Orléans and the Atlantic coast. Formerly named Caesarodunum by its founder, Roman Emperor Augustus, it possesses one of the largest amphitheaters of the Roman Empire, the Tours Amphitheatre. Known for the Battle of Tours in 732 AD, it is a National Sanctuary with connections to the Merovingians and the Carolingians, with the Capetians making the kingdom's currency the Livre tournois. Saint Martin and Gregory of Tours were from Tours. Tours was once part of Touraine, a former province of France. Tours was the first city of the silk industry. It was wanted by Louis XI, royal capital under the Valois Kings with its Loire castles and city of art with the School of Tours. The prefecture was partially destroyed during the French Wars of Religion in the late 16th century and again during the Second World War in June 1940. Répertoire national des élus: les maires" (in French). data.gouv.fr, Plateforme ouverte des données publiques françaises. 13 September 2022. In the garden of the ancient Palais des Archevêques (now Musée des Beaux-Arts) is a huge cedar tree said to have been planted by Napoleon. [11] The garden also has a stuffed elephant named Fritz. He escaped from the Barnum and Bailey circus during their stay in Tours in 1902. He went mad and had to be shot down, but the city paid to honor him, and he was taxidermied as a result.Tours ( / t ʊər/ TOOR, French: [tuʁ] ⓘ) is one of the largest cities in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the prefecture of the department of Indre-et-Loire. The commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabitants as of 2018 while the population of the whole metropolitan area was 516,973. [3]