Red polkadot, green, white and the fabled yellow - these are the colours to be seen in if you're riding the Tour de France. But if you've ever wondered why, this is the book for you. We reckon that The Yellow Jersey Companion to the Tour de France might just tell you everything you've ever wanted to know about the world's greatest sporting event. We won't just give you the name of every winner; every mountain and the first to top them; the age of each overall winner; a complete list of all the stage finishes, since the race began - we'll tell you all the unknown stories too. You'll read about the rider forced to crawl along the finish line in search of his glass eye; the exhausted man who hitched a ride on the back of a donkey; the Tour star denied his yellow jersey hours after he'd won it and the journeyman competitor who never got to wear his because someone drove away with it. On our alphabetical ride through the Tour's one hundred year history we'll share with you the inside stories of the great stars - Jacques Anquetil, Fausto Coppi, Bernard Hinault, Miguel Indurain, Eddy Merckx, Greg LeMond, and Lance Armstrong to name a few; we'll reveal to you who really was the first maillot jeune, we'll outline the arcane and so often cruel rules that have helped make this race into the sporting world's most gruelling spectacle and we'll even tell you where the bar is where they thought it all up in the first place - as long as you promise not tell anyone else-