La Grande Boucle, the Big Loop, is the biggest bike race in the world, and for three weeks every July it is one of the biggest sporting events of any kind. The newspaper L'Auto dreamed it up in 1903 as a circulation stunt, and it grew into a national institution of twenty-one stages and a yellow jersey that the rest of the sport arranges its calendar around. Four men have won it five times: Anquetil, Merckx, Hinault and Indurain. No one has yet found a sixth. The modern race belongs to the rivalry between Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard, who have traded the maillot jaune and dismantled the old climbing records on Alpe d'Huez and the Tourmalet. Win here and your name outlives you, and everything else on the calendar becomes, in the end, preparation for July.