‘A modern tribute to cycling’s wildest beginning’ – Ultra-cyclist attempts to ride original Tour de France in just six days

Ultra-cyclist Jack Thompson is set to take on a whole new challenge in the coming days as he attempts to ride the entire route of the 1903 Tour de France, the first-ever edition of the race founded by Henri Desgrange of L’Auto newspaper.

Australian Thompson is known for Everesting challenges, long distance rides across Japan, and through the Australian outback. He will now attempt to ride the original Tour route 2,428 km route in just six days, riding a bike equipped to the same two gear ratios used by the first Tour riders, 48×17 and 35×17.

In 2021, Thompson rode the entire 3,500 km Tour route in just ten days with a five-person strong support crew. But the Catalonia-based rider told Cycling Weekly that he wanted to experience what it had really been like in 1903 before modern technology was around to make the whole effort a lot easier.

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“I think a lot of my other challenges have been around, whether it’s the fastest time, or the most elevation, or it’s always chasing a number, and it’s often quite hard to come up with something that’s different,” he said. “I was at an event with some friends, and someone said: ‘have you ever thought about doing the original Tour de France?’ I hadn’t actually thought about it before. I then thought about doing it with the original gearing, so then it’s not about chasing a record, or chasing a time, it’s just about going and seeing how hard it was for them when they did that back then.”

“In this day and age, when everyone is interested in all the new technology, it’s about the fact that they were doing it back 122 years ago, with just the two gears on super skinny tyres, and I think there’s something cool about going and seeing how it would have been,” he added. “The roads are much better now, and the bike I’m on is better than the steel like they are on. But it’s a bit of an adventure to go and see what it was like back in the day.”

Due to some of the initial route being difficult to plot, Thompson has roped in AI in an attempt to make it as accurate as possible. “The goal is to try and mimic the original as much as l possibly can,” he said. “All the start and finish points are exactly the same, although I guess they might not be on the exact same roads, because those roads may not exist anymore, but it should be the exact same, more or less. The goal is to go and do one stage a day and do it over six days.”

Thompson has ridden a Specialized Roubaix for his recent adventures, and will use the same bike this time around as he traverses France in an homage to the original Tour riders. “This one’s a little bit different,” he said. “The quirky stuff is with the gearing. The frame is stock, it’s a normal frame. The wheels, I’m using normal 35 millimetre tires, just because I want the extra comfort. And then I used AI to try and generate the exact same gearing ratios that they used.”

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Thompson will be completely unsupported, something which he said may test him in the latter half of the ride when he’ll take on the longest of the stages, packed with substantial elevation gain across the huge distances.

“There’s a couple of big ones in there. Day one, 470 kilometres, 2,800 metres. The final days, 530 kilometres, 2,200 metres. I reckon that’s probably going to be the hardest, just because it is such a long bloody day,” he said. “I think I had a look at the weather, it’s looking pretty warm. So Monday’s looking at 36 degrees in Lyon, which is where I’ll get to on day one. So yeah, it’ll just be about survival and seeing how I get on.”

The challenge begins on Monday 23 June in Paris, with Thompson aiming to be back in the French capital by Saturday.