In 1924 a French journalist, Albert Londres, followed le Tour de France. He was struck by the similarity of the riders to the subjects of his previous report - the convicts in France’s brutal penal colonies. Overcome by sympathy for the riders and awed by their courage he wrote ‘truly these are the convicts of the road’.

Failure is not an option in a race where only the few succeed. Little wonder the riders still talk of being trapped within the race, prisoners to the hugeness of the Tour.