This Years Tour De France

Le Tour de France was raced for the first time in 1903. One hundred plus years after its inauguration, it is the world's largest bicycle race. Each year, for 23 days in July, hundreds of cyclists pedal their way across France. Typically, the race covers more than 3,500 kilometers or 2,200 miles.

The race itself consists of 21 separately scored stages. At the end of the race, whoever has the lowest combined time over the 21 separate stages is declared the winner. During the race, the leader wears the Maillot Jaune, the yellow jersey. The stages run from one town to another. The route covers a circuit that goes across most of the regions of France. Sometimes the course even goes into parts of neighboring countries like Switzerland and Spain.

With the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a Espaa, le Tour de France is one of the three biggest, most prestigious stage races. It is also the longest race of the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) calendar. Unlike the other two big races which are known well in Europe, the Tour de France has long been a household sporting name around the globe. It's so well known that even those not interested in cycling know of it. Even the UCI World Cycling Championship is familiar only to cycling enthusiasts.

In most cycling races, competitors enter as part of a team. The same holds true for the Tour de France. The Tour de France's field is made up of 20 to 22 teams each with nine riders. Traditionally, entry is by invitation only. The invitations are handed out only to the best of the professional teams. Recently, the organizers of the race have utilized UCI points to determine which teams gain automatic entry into the tour. They typically have reserved 2-4 slots to large teams or French teams not able to race based on their individual team results.

The teams are all known by the name of their sponsors. Everyone has a distinctive jersey. For example, Lance Armstrong was on the USPS team and then the Discovery Channel team when he won his tours. During the race, each team has access to a shared team car. These team cars are like pit crews in car racing except they're mobile.

The 2008 Tour de France is set to begin on July 5th in Brest in Brittany. The race, as is tradition, will end on the Champs lyses in Paris on July 27th. This year's race course has 10 flat stages, 5 mountain stages, 4 medium mountain stages, and 2 individual time-trial stages.