What a fortunate aspect of road cycling races, especially the three-week-long grand tours, that they pass through regions rich in history. For a blogger like me, it’s a perfect opportunity to blend my passion: writing about fascinating historical events in general, while also diving into the past and present stories of road cycling competitions in particular.
As it became a tradition at PelotonTales, I choose a particular topic (or a time period) for every grand tours. In 2025,
I will return to the French revolution once again,
after in 2023 I spent significant amount of time with the eve of the revolution/road to revolution in French countryside topic. (After all, I’m just trapped in the 18th century.)
The reason of this is quite simple. There are several events from this time period (cca. the last decade of the 18th century) set in the north or north-western part of France, but Tour de France did not visited those regions during the last two editions of the race. Therefore there was no right time and place to tell about them.
But as we already know, the Grand Depart of Tour de France 2025 will take place in exactly that part of the country, and as some of the rumors tell us, the peloton will spend even more days in those regions.
So, of you’re new here and might wonder why are there seemingly random historical facts mentioned on the blog this is the reason.