Weekly Meeting - Nich Radcliffe (Tour de France)

Nick Radcliffe - Tour de France

Nich’s presentation complete with illustrations took us from the early history of the race and it’s evolution to the race today.

In 1903 Henri Desgrange (owner of L’Auto Magazine) started the race to improve sales of his publication.  It was run over some 2428 Km in France the participants being generally from rural and farming communities.  Two years later the first mountain sections were introduced. Cheating was prevalent even then, when riders would hop on trains to get ahead and rider’s friends would try to disrupt other competitors.  Over the years the race was extended not only in length, but also in its degree of difficulty.  Today the race is over some 3500 Km, in 21 stages each of one day and the average speed of the cyclists has increased from around 25kph up to well over 50kph 

The race grew in popularity year on year and sponsors became involved, then national and sponsors teams were allowed.  Television eventually made the sport truly international with over 188 countries broadcasting the race, watched by over 3.5 billion viewers. Around 15 million spectators watch the race each year.

With the vast amounts of money now involved in the race the inevitable temptations to cheat were there.  The sport was thrown in disarray and disrepute when the major drug scandals were discovered with Lance Armstrong as the highest profile offender.  Today better monitoring of competitors has started to restore confidence in the sport

Nich’s passion for cycling was evident, made his presentation exciting, and we wish him well with his cycling future plans.

Richard Sugdon