The year 1910 marks the first time the Tour de France, only seven years young, will include a section through the high mountain passes of the Pyrenees. The weather is awful. The routes are perilous. The rules are still a work in progress. Nutrition? Safety? These racers didn't even have derailleurs. They barely had gears. In a genuinely superhuman feat of determination and endurance they rode through literal blood, sweat, mud, snow, starvation, tears, and utter despair to make the Tour de France what it is today: a contest of colossi, a clash of titans, a tour... of giants.

• TPB
  11/29/2023