1903 Victory for the Little Chimney Sweep: The first Tour took just six stages to complete the hexagon, resulting in a convincing win for Maurice Garin, perhaps road cycling's first great champion.
1904 "The Tour is finished...": One year later and the race was nearly finished by cheating riders and rioting spectators. Another easy win for Garin? Well, not exactly!
1905 A new formula is devised: A major rethink saw the race organised on points, with more stages, but no night riding. The new formula, saved the race, which thereafter never looked back.
1906 The first climbing star is born: Rene Pottier dominated in 1906, the year that saw the Tour's first true mountain stages, and the first excursion out of France. But Pottier's life was to be a tragically short one...
1907 Victory to "the Argentine": 1907 saw victory go to Lucien Petit-Breton, nicknamed "the Argentine", after his rival Emile Georget was demoted for an illegal bike change.
1908 Petit-Breton becomes the first double winner: If his 1907 victory had left something to chance, in 1908 Petit-Breton left no-one in doubt as to his class as he became the first man to win the Tour de France twice.
1909 Faber is the first non-French winner: With the Tour decided on a points formula, the crushing regularity of François Faber won the day - six wins in fourteen stages left no hope for his opposition.
1910 The "Assassins" send the race to the Pyrenees: After an epic struggle through snow, Henri Desgrange's emmissary reported that the Tourmalet and Aubisque would be suitable for a cycle race. A month later, all a grimy Octave Lapize could shout out at the summit of the climb was "assassins"; he won the race neverthless.
1911 Faber meets his Galibier: For 1911, Henri Desgrange sent the Tour over the 2556 metre Col du Galibier, at the time, the highest road the Tour had ever ridden. The overall winner was Gustave Garrigou, but not before a race of drama that saw his closest rival poisoned while crossing the Pyrenees...
1912 Belgian victory foreshadows problems to come: A strong Belgian contingent was easily able to contain the challenge of the weakly supported French riders as the race was still based on points rather than time. Change was just around the corner.