Véloce Sport was a leading French cycling periodical that was founded in Bordeaux

Bordeaux

Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...

 in 1885. It was the organiser and publicist of the first running of the Bordeaux–Paris cycle race in 1891.

Bourdeaux-Paris

In 1890 Veloce-Sport and the Velo Club Bordelais announced that a cycle race from would start in Bordeaux on May 23, 1891, and finish in Paris after covering 572 kilometres. It was to be the first inter-city race to feature the safety bicycle

Safety bicycle

A safety bicycle is a type of bicycle that became very popular beginning in the late 1880s as an alternative to the penny-farthing or ordinary and is now the most common type of bicycle. Early bicycles of this style were known as safety bicycles because they were noted for, and marketed as, being...

. A crowd of 7,000 Parisians gathered at the finish at Port Maillot, near the Vélodrome Buffalo

Vélodrome Buffalo

The Vélodrome Buffalo and Stade Buffalo were cycling tracks in Paris. The first existed from 1893 until World War I, the second from 1922 until 1957....

.

The organisers envisaged riders might take several days and laid on meals and beds for riders along the way, but George Pilkington Mills

George Pilkington Mills

George Pilkington Mills was the dominant English racing cyclist of his generation, and winner of the inaugural Bordeaux–Paris cycle race. He frequently cycled from Land's End to John o' Groats, holding the world record time on six occasions between 1886 and 1895. He was a member of the Anfield and...

rode through the night and finished first in finished in 26 hours on a diet that included a lot of strawberries. British riders took the first four places.