The product of two rival sports newspapers in the country, Le Vélo (first & largest) and L'Auto (set-up by journalists and business-people including Comte Jules-Albert de Dion, Adolphe Clément and Édouard Michelin in 1899). In short L'Auto wasn't selling as planned and the result of several emergency meetings lead to the first idea of running a 6-day race, which had never been done. The first race was run between the 1-19 July, with an entry fee of 10 Francs. All riders were offered a daily allowance if they averaged  20 km/h during all stages, this was equivalent to what a rider would have earn per day in a factory. first prize was12,000 France (6 times more than an annual salary) and daily winners prize being 3,000 Francs. 80 people entered.

The Alps are old... how old?? Located in the Appenzell Alps are the Wildkirchli caves and these show traces of Neanderthal habitation. It has been proven that during the last glacial maxium, the Alps were entirely covered in ice and believed that humans reached the ranges around 30,000 years ago.
"Ötzi the Iceman," who lived around 3200 BC located in the Ötztaler Alps, proves that there was human existence in the Bronze Age.