The 1974 Tour de France was the 61st Tour de France, taking place June 27 to July 21, 1974. It consisted of 22 stages over 4098 km, ridden at an average speed of 35.241 km/h. Eddy Merckx was attempting to win his fifth Tour de France in as many races, while Luis Ocaña and Joop Zoetemelk were notable absentees from the 1974 Tour.
In 1974 the tour made its first visit to England, with a circuit stage on the Plympton By-pass, near Plymouth.
Read more about 1974 Tour De France: Participants, Race Details, Stages, Results, Aftermath, Doping Cases
Famous quotes containing the words tour and/or france:
“Left Washington, September 6, on a tour through Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Virginia.... Absent nineteen days. Received every where heartily. The country is again one and united! I am very happy to be able to feel that the course taken has turned out so well.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“The anarchy, assassination, and sacrilege by which the Kingdom of France has been disgraced, desolated, and polluted for some years past cannot but have excited the strongest emotions of horror in every virtuous Briton. But within these days our hearts have been pierced by the recital of proceedings in that country more brutal than any recorded in the annals of the world.”
—James Boswell (1740–1795)