1. Only men compete in the Tour de France.
2. Approximately 123,900 calories are burned by each rider in the Tour de France.
3. Approximately 42000 water bottles will be used by the racers!
4. Someone figured out that enough sweat is created from racers competing in the 22 day race, to flush a toilet 39 times!
5. Riders from France have won the most races!(36 as of 2015)
6. The Tour de France is also known as "La Grande Boucle".
Vocabulary word: Peloton, the term for the "pack" of riders.
History of Bicycles...Did You Know?
1. As of 2017, Copenhagen, Denmark, is the bike friendly capital of the world. Amsterdam, Netherlands, came in second, with Utrecht, Netherlands, third. Some sources say Utrecht is more bike friendly than Amsterdam.
2. Some sources say the invention of the first “bicycle” is credited to Comte Medi De Sivrac, of France. His bike didn’t have any pedals! The year was 1792 and it was called a hobby horse(or celerifere). To move you needed your feet!
3. Other sources credit Baron Karl von Drais, of Germany, with the Draisine, meaning “running machine”.The 1917 human-propelled vehicle didn’t have any pedals.
4. A bike similar to today’s bike was created by Kirkpatrick Macmillan, from Scotland. The year was 1839. His bicycle had pedals!
5. The word “bicycle” comes from the French word “bicyclette”. The term became popular in 1868. Previous to this, bicycles were called “velocipedes” meaning “fast foot”.
6. The Penny-Farthing was a British bicycle that had a large front wheel and a much smaller wheel in the back. The name represented two British coins, the Farthing and the British Penny.
7. Early bicycles (velocipede) were known as bone shakers by their riders. With wooden wheels inside an iron rim and an iron frame, it was a very bumpy ride!
8. In 1887, Thomas Stevens became the first person to ride a Penny Farthing around the world!
9. In 1867, father and son, Pierre and Ernest Michaux, invented the modern bicycle.
10. Did you know that suffragette, Susan B.Anthony, made a comment on the bicycle? She said that the mode of transportation “has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.” She called the bicycle the “freedom machine.”
11. In 1896, Margaret Valentine Le Long rode a bicycle from Chicago to San Francisco!
12. Did you know that before Orville and Wilbur Wright became famous for their flying machine, they owned a bicycle repair shop? It was in their shop, in 1903, that they made their first airplane! It was called the Wright Flyer!
1. Write a diary pretending to be one of the cyclists in the Tour de France. What do you see? Feel? Hear?
3. Draw/color a picture of a bicycle. Write a fact learned about the Tour de France on your drawing.