It was a gruelling tour, with the longest stage, 470 km long, taking almost 18 hours for the fastest riders to complete.

[2] Newcomer Paul Duboc won four stages and was close to winning the Tour, but he fell sick midway through the race while he was in second place in the general classification.

Cyclists who had abandoned the race were removed from the rankings of the previous stages, and the classification was recalculated.

[2] Petit-Breton was a late replacement for Cyrille van Hauwaert, who was not feeling healthy enough to ride the Tour.

[5] In the same stage, Faber had passed a checkpoint without signing, and as a penalty he had to stop for two and a half minutes.

[2] The sixth stage, with only small mountains, was won by Faber, after a 260 km solitary breakaway,[6] but because Garrigou came in second, he was still in the lead.

In the ninth stage, Faber lost contact with Garrigou in the general classification by finishing in twentieth place.

Duboc won again, and had shown that he was a good climber, and was considered a favourite for the tenth stage which also included mountains, and a serious threat for Garrigou in the general classification;[5] after this stage, Garrigou was leading with 27 points, while Duboc had 37 points.

[10] In that ninth stage, Maurice Brocco who knew that he would not win the Tour, had sold his services to another cyclist.

[6] Also in the tenth stage, Duboc collapsed just before Bayonne, probably due to food poisoning,[11] attributed to a spiked drink.

According to the rules, no help was allowed, so other cyclists rode by him while he was lying on the road, vomiting.

[2] Nowadays, it is thought that François Lafourcade, a cyclist who performed well in the mountains of the 1910 Tour had something to do with it, but in 1911, the first suspect was his main competitor Garrigou.