A Brief History of Time - TDF Lite

With pleasure bordering on mirth, and with genuinely feigned erudition, I present this phantasmic revelation of the REAL historic origins of the Tour de France.

For, you see, the Tour did not start in 1903 as reported in usually reliable sources such as Wikipedia. It actually began in the year 50 BC.

It seems that when Julius Caesar conquered Gaul (today’s France), a small village of hardy peasant/warriors refused to yield. Their resistance to Roman rule was a constant embarrassment to Caesar and his garrisons. Thus, according to renowned and best-selling French historians Goscinny and de Uderzo, a Roman inspector general named Lucius Fleurdelotus imposed a blockade around the village, intending to starve them out.

The villagers responded with a challenge of their own. They bet the Roman inspector general that their greatest heros, Asterix and Obélix, could leave the blockade at will, and make a tour throughout Gaul, gathering the gastronomic specialties from each region. Upon their return they would invite the inspector to a grand banquet featuring all of the collected culinary marvels. If they succeeded, the inspector general would lift the siege, return to Rome, and report to Caesar his failure to conquer the Gaulish village.

This Tour de Gaul was the REAL first Tour de France.

It just goes to show that Wikipedia doesn’t know everything!

Asterix lays out the route for the first Tour de France.

This was before the invention of the bicycle. so they traveled by other means - horses for this stage . . .

. . . Roman chariot for another stage . . .

. . . And could this be the first Postal-sponsored team?

At the end of the Tour, the victors presented their prizes.  And that's the REAL origin of the Tour de France!