Halfway the race, Romain Maes' biggest threat, Antonin Magne, had to abandon after he was hit by a motorist.

In the eighth stage, Spanish cyclist Francisco Cepeda fell while he was descending at high speed, and died while he was being transported to the hospital.

Split up in nationalities, there were 41 French, 13 Italian, 12 Belgian, 12 German, 11 Spanish and 4 Swiss cyclists.

[2] The French team looked very strong, as it contained the three winners of the last five Tours, Antonin Magne, Georges Speicher and André Leducq, in addition to climber René Vietto and Maurice Archambaud, who had led the general classification for a long time in 1933.

In addition, they had Roger Lapébie and Charles Pélissier riding as individuals, which meant that they could take the place of a French team member dropping out.

The highest point of elevation in the race was 2,556 m (8,386 ft) at the summit tunnel of the Col du Galibier mountain pass on stage 7.

[4][5] In the first stage, Belgian Romain Maes was lucky as he passed a train crossing just before it closed, while the rest had to wait.

[3] In the second stage, Romain Maes was less lucky, as several flat tires put him nine minutes behind the peloton.

Romain Maes and Charles Pélissier were now ranked first and second, but nobody expected them to remain on top of the general classification.

[11] Because Magne was out of the race, Vasco Bergamaschi became the new number two of the general classification, more than twelve minutes behind Romain Maes.

The Belgian team controlled the race over the first three mountains, but on the fourth, the Aubisque, Italians Ambrogio Morelli and Orlando Teani escaped.

Morelli won the stage and took the time bonus, and Romain Maes needed his teammates to keep his losses small.

Jean Aerts crossed the finish line first in that stage, but he was set to second place by the jury because he had sprinted irregularly.

[3] Initially Jean Fontenay was declared winner of that stage, but he got a penalty of five minutes after the jury found out he had been helped by a car.