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 but 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.