The Complete Book of the Tour de France

The Tour de France is the greatest public sporting spectacle on earth. For 100 years competitors have battled over thousands of miles of French countryside in pursuit of the coveted yellow jersey.The history of the Tour has been told through many prisms, by the heroes, and about the villains, the epic battles up Mont Ventoux, or the scandals that brought the sport to its knees. But here, for the first time, The Complete Book of the Tour de France brings together every vital statistic, every key moment, every stage and edition winner, every jersey ever won.Contained within these pages of this encyclopaedic book is anything anyone could ever need or want to know about the Tour de France. It provides a complete statistical record since the founding of the race in 1913 a?? from jerseys won to stage distances, teams and the riders, some of whose names have not been uttered for nearly a century.But this is much more than a dry compendium of names and numbers. It also contains a summary account of each edition of the Tour de France enriched with an extraordinary wealth of Tour de France lore and anecdote, that bring every edition of the Tour to life, so much so that reading it you might feel that you had taken part in the race yourself.