The Tour de France is one of the most popular sporting events in the entire world, but it has humble beginnings as a marketing stunt for a failing sports newspaper.

L’Auto was established in 1900 as a rival to France’s most popular sports paper at the time, Le Velo. L’Auto was struggling to make up ground on its rival and the editors came up with an idea for a six day stage race across France, the scale of which had never been seen before. 

If you’re thinking of getting into cycling then you will want to know all the facts when it comes to buying a road bike. I bet your first thought will be how much is a good road bike going to cost me?  We suggest that you buy the best bike you can afford – it will be long lasting and will perform well to provide hours of fun and most importantly will make you want to get out more…

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The Slate is a serious bit of kit, it isn’t cheap and doesn’t fall in to any clearly defined category...

The third Grand Tour and the last one of the season, coming in August/September after the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France, is the Vuelta a Espana – the Tour of Spain.

First held in 1935 but prevented from running for many of its early years due to the Spanish Civil War the World War Two, the race has been run every year since 1955.

In the same way as the other two Grand Tours the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France, the Vuelta was inspired by the editors of a newspaper – Informaciones – to boost circulation.

If you’re thinking of purchasing your first road bike it can be a daunting task, first off there’s the price, most shops are crammed full of carbon fibre top spec race bikes costing up to £10,000.

After this you have sportive bikes, endurance bikes, aero bikes, winter bikes, cross or gravel bikes. Unlikely as it seems they’re all basically road bikes with a slight twist.