Five crazy tales from the Tour de France

Belgium's Eddie Merckx during the 1971 Tour de France.

The Tour de France is one of the greatest endurance races in sport and it begins this weekend at the Grand Départ in Utrecht in the Netherlands.

Jack Bauer and Greg Henderson are the only two Kiwis competing in the historic race and the Herald looks at five crazy moment's from the Tour's history.

1. Eugene Christophe - the unlucky mechanic
Few riders in history can claim to be as unlucky as Eugene Christophe. He first competed in 1906 and he was denied victory on points in 1912. The following year brought about a change in the Tour's result classification and it was reverted to time instead.

In 1913 he was breaking away up the notorious Tourmalet mountain road in the Pyrenees when he was knocked down by a careless driver.

Christophe could only watch as a Belgian rider rode away into the lead and his front fork had snapped in two.

A drawing by Paul Ordner of Eugène Christophe.

Refusing to give up, Christophe walked eight and a half miles before finding a forge in Sainte-Marie-de-Campan to fix his bike.

As a skilled mechanic and blacksmith, he managed to forge a new fork from steel with the assistance of a seven year old boy who supplied air to the fire.

Outside assistance is forbidden in the race and Christophe received a 10 minute penalty but it mattered little because he finished nearly four hours behind the stage leader.

Christophe was the first man to wear the famous yellow jersey in 1919 but a cobbled street wrecked his chances of winning as his fork broke again in bad conditions.

He was chasing victory again in 1922 but he was again denied when his fork broke again in the Alps.

2. Tommy Simpson dies from exhaustion
The Tour's first race was in 1903 but no fatalities occurred until 1935. Spaniard Francisco Cepeda crashed and fractured his skull on a descent down the Galibier in the Alps. He died from his injuries three days later to become the Tour's first victim.

In 1967 British rider Tommy Simpson was climbing the Mount Venoux ascent on an extremely hot afternoon before he collapsed two miles from the summit.

Simpson won the Road Race World Championships in 1965 and he went on to win BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

He was helped back on to his bike by the team's chief mechanic but he fell again. Doctors attempted to resuscitate him but he later died in hospital.

3. Eddy Merckx punched by French fan
Belgian Eddy Merckx - considered one of the greatest cyclists of all time - was chasing his sixth Tour de France title in 1975 and as the overall leader, he was closing in on another stage victory.

Suddenly a spectator popped out from the crowd and punched him in the stomach during an ascent. Merckx still managed to regather himself and win the stage but the attack cost him valuable time.

He went on to finish second overall and claimed the assault cost him the chance to become the first man to win the Tour six times.

4. The 1998 sit down protests
Willy Voet was part of the French team Festina when he was stopped en-route to a cross-channel ferry before the start of the Tour in Dublin. French customs found vials of erythropoietin (EPO) - a human growth hormone.

He was arrested and revealed his team's doping practices, which set the precedent for the rest of the Tour - dubbed the Tour of Shame.

Team hotel rooms were raided and riders were arrested - including the whole Festina team.

Riders believed this was a breach of their rights and during stage 9, they got off their bikes and sat down on the road for two hours.

Racing continued but so did the protests and by the time Italian Marco Pantani won the title in Paris, less than half of the Tour's riders remained.

5. Lance Armstrong's speech in 2005
The disgraced American won seven Tour de France titles between 1999 and 2005 after beating cancer. He was stripped of his titles in 2012 after a doping scandal that was called "the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping programme that sport has ever seen."

Armstrong was constantly scrutinised for doping and after winning his seventh title in 2005, he said: "I'll say to the people who don't believe in cycling, the cynics and the sceptics. I'm sorry for you. I'm sorry that you can't dream big. I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles.

"But this is one hell of a race. This is a great sporting event and you should stand around and believe it. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people.

"I'll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets - this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it. Vive Le Tour."

Armstrong has been dropped by numerous sponsors, stepped down as Chairman of the Livestrong charity and banned from cycling for life.

He's faced lawsuits for making millions of dollars "under false pretences" and earlier this year, he lost $10million in the US in a fraud lawsuit.