1908 first start in Paris
The 6th edition of the Tour de France starts for the first time at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The mayor of Paris has finally given his blessing. For the first time there is a winner who already won once the Tour de France, Lucien Petit Breton who also won the 1907 edition.
The terrible program of the Tour de France 1908
1909 the first foreigner to win the Tour de France
In 1909, the first time a Belgian wins a stage, namely Cyrille Van Hauwaert. It concerns the first stage with arrival in Roubaix where Van Hauwaert won the hell classic Paris Roubaix the year before.
A nice anecdote is that Cyrille Van Hauwaert already started making bicycles during his career. Every now and then you can find a Van Hauwaert bicycle at a vintage bicycle market.
1909 was also the first year that a non-Frenchman won the Tour de France. It was François Faber from Luxembourg who had finished 2nd the year before.
Cyrille Van Hauwaert
1910 the Pyrenees for the first time
Again 2 innovations in the Tour. The first is that the riders have to challenge the terrible Pyrenees for the first time. A real venture if you know that the bikes didn't have derailleurs.
de latere winnaar Octave Lapize
They only had a larger sprocket wheel at the rear wheel for the climbs. At the foot of the mountain, the riders got off and turned their wheels. There was a sprocket on both sides of the rear wheel: one big for the mountains and one small for the normal flat stages.
For the first time the Tourmalet, the Aspin, the Aubisque and the Peyresourde where on the program. The fact that these climbs where extremely tough proves the fact that the later winner Octave Lapize called out for murderer the Tour Boss Desgrange.
Only 40 riders out of 110 at the start will reach the finish. A broom wagon was also introduced for the first time because of the large time difference between the mountains.
1912 the first Belgian victory
Odiel Defraeye is the very first Belgian to win the Tour de France. In the 3rd stage he took the leader's jersey and would never give it up. The Tour of 1912 was very successful for the Belgians with no less than 7 compatriots in the top 10. It was the beginning of a successful period for Belgian cycling that would last until 1922 with many final victories.
The victory and the Flemish euphoria at arrival in Belgium inspired journalist Karel Van Wijnendaele to organise for the first time in 1913 the Ronde van Vlaanderen. A myth was born.
1914 the first time Philippe Thys
In 1913 the Belgian Philippe Thys won the first of his 3 tour de France. It was mainly a Tour de France of many accidents. Contenders like Eugène Christophe and Marcel Buysse were hit back by bad luck.
The most amazing story is the one of Eugène Christophe who broke his front and rear fork just before the top of the Tourmalet. He had to walk 14 km to the blacksmith where he finally had to repair his bike. The help of the blacksmith was against the regulations so he did the repair all by himself. It took him hours and immediately his chance to win the Tour de France vanished.
Philippe Thys who won 3 times the Tour de France
In the 1913 Tour de France, a non-European also started for the first time: the barely 18-year-old Tunisian Ali Neffati. He was not very successful.
