Wikipedia:Wikifun/Answers/Question 7

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That would be the distance between Paris and Lyon (cf. Aire urbaine if you don't believe me). At the 1903 Tour de France, the longest leg was between these two cities and was 467 km long—they can't have made many detours as the straight-line distance is about 400 km. Lupo 10:48, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Tour de France[edit]

Although I was pretty sure that Paris and Lyon were the two conurbations in question, I went to France to find out for sure. From there, I found a link to the fifteen largest French metropolitan areas by population, which confirmed my suspicion. I thought about the wording of the question, and decided that Tour de France would be a good place to look. That didn't get me anywhere though. I thought that if I looked at some of the other Tour de France articles I might get a hint, so I went to Category:Tour de France. From there, I read 2003 Tour de France, Prologue to Stage 9, the first I found that mentioned Lyon. In that article, I found the text "Lyon is the first of the six cities that was also visited in the first Tour de France in 1903 ...". On a hunch, I went to 1903 Tour de France, which says: "The stages themselves were surprisingly long--with the longest being run between Paris and Lyon at 467 kilometres ...". My answer is 467 km. --timc | Talk 20:29, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

467 km from 1903 Tour de France is correct. Eugene van der Pijll 01:43, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)