THE PROLOGUE
Maurice Garin won his first professional race in 1893. The 22-year-
Maurice Garin, winner of the first Tour de France in 1903, taking a lap of honour in the Parc des Princes, Paris, at the finish of the 50th Tour de France, on 26th July 1953
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old Frenchman had worked as a chimney sweep seven years earlier before opening a bike shop with his brothers François and César. But he loved to race. So he worked. And raced. That first victory came in a 24-hour race in Paris and highlighted the impact a good bike has on performance – Garin had sold his first bike before the race and replaced it with a much lighter model. It still weighed more than 16kg, but after riding 701km in 24 hours, he crossed the line 49 minutes ahead of his nearest rival. Garin not only had the distance to contend with – there was the cold, too. The race took place in February, which explains the Frenchman’s race nutrition plan that included eight cooked eggs, 45 lamb cutlets, an uncertain number of oysters, and all washed down with 7 litres of tea and 19 litres of hot chocolate. Ten years of racing later, Garin’s equipment and nutrition choice was equally as rudimentary, but that didn’t stop him winning the inaugural Tour de France in 1903. He ticked off the six-stage race – stage distances ranging from 268km to 471km – in 94 hours, 33 minutes and 14 seconds, beating countryman Lucien Pothier by nearly three hours. He did so with a minimal support staff – Garin’s friend Delattre ‘preparing sustenance’, though he did have a soigneur to ease aching muscles. In 2015, Chris Froome won his second Tour de France aboard his carbon-fibre Pinarello Dogma F8, which hit the scales at 6.8kg – nearly 10kg lighter. While Garin raced alone, Froome received valuable support from his eight Team Sky teammates, sending him to Paris at the end of the 21st stage in 84 hours, 46 minutes and 14 seconds, just one minute and 12 seconds clear of runner-up Nairo Quintana. As well as the riders, Team Sky sent a support team so large that other teams complained that their fleet of vehicles was hogging the hotel car parks. Within the equipment truck, kitchen truck and support cars sat a group of men and women who provided nutritional data and mechanical and sports-science support, all in the name of peak performance.
THE PRO LOGU
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