Eddy Merckx of the Molteni team won the overall general classification, defending his title to win his third Tour de France in a row.

The leading positions of the general classification became clearer after stage 2 when a sixteen-strong[a] breakaway group of mostly pre-race favourites ended with a margin of over nine minutes.

On stage 8 in the Massif Central, Merckx's closest rival Luis Ocaña (Bic) attacked and won atop Puy de Dôme to move within just over 30 seconds of the race leader, just behind second-placed Zoetemelk.

Another from the group, Ocaña, took the yellow jersey the next day as he soloed for 60 km (37 mi) to victory up to Orcières-Merlette in the Alps, ending with an overall lead of more than eight minutes.

Ultimately, Lévitian requested the team to pay extra money, on top of the 25,000 French francs (f) entry fee, to participate in the Tour.

[19] In these races, constant adjustment to his riding position caused a knee injury, and he came close to abandoning the final stage of the Midi Libre,[18] a month before the Tour.

[2][47][48] Notable absentees from the start list were Raymond Poulidor (Fagor–Mercier–Hutchinson), Felice Gimondi (Salvarani), Frans Verbeeck (Watney–Avia), Georges Pintens (Hertekamp–Magniflex), Roger Pingeon (Peugeot–BP–Michelin) and Jan Janssen (Bic).

[63] Beginning in the Black Forest and Vosges Mountains, with visits to Switzerland and West Germany, the race then headed north-west to the coast passing through the Ardennes and south-east Belgium.

After the first rest day and air transfer, racing resumed in the outskirts of Paris, taking the Tour through the Massif Central highlands and the Chartreuse Mountains towards the Alps.

[84] In addition, there individual awards given after each stage, excluding the prologue, and at the conclusion of the Tour to the most combative, elegant and amiable riders,[80] with decisions made by a jury composed of journalists.

[97] Merckx's teammate Rini Wagtmans unknowingly finished ahead of him in the sprint to take over the leading position in the general classification; with all the Molteni riders equalled on time, this countback came into effect.

A Merckx move brought back the attackers on the descent, which saw the formation of an elite sixteen-rider[a] breakaway group that included all the pre-race favourites, except for Joaquim Agostinho and Lucien Aimar.

[102] In gale-force tail winds, the leaders reached speeds of 60 km/h (37 mph) on the flat terrain, ending with a nine-and-a-half-minute advantage over the peloton at the finish in Strasbourg.

[1][103] On the wet cinder track of Stade Tivoli, Herman Van Springel led-out teammate Merckx to victory in a frantic sprint finish with Roger De Vlaeminck of Flandria–Mars.

The group of five reached the banked velodrome over a minute ahead of the peloton, and Pietro Guerra of Salvarani won the stage in a sprint with Huysmans's teammate Julien Stevens.

[66] In the first part, Leman claimed a second stage win of the race in a bunch sprint at Amiens's Hippodrome du petit Saint-Jean [fr] dirt racecourse.

[109] The fifteen riders that profited on stage 2 still led the general classification, with Merckx holding a 26-second advantage over Van Springel, and De Vlaeminck a further 11 seconds down in third place.

[110] After their rest in Le Touquet, the riders took two early planes[f] to Paris and the start of the transitional stage 7,[111] a 257.5 km (160.0 mi) route to Nevers and the subsequent two-stage traverse of the Massif Central.

[66] With the peloton in the final kilometre, there were three crashes, one of which included De Vlaeminck, who injured his wrist and lost the green jersey by end of the stage to Karstens.

[42] Stage 8 saw the Tour's first summit finish, atop the dormant volcano of Puy de Dôme at an elevation of 1,465 m (4,806 ft), a first-category climb.

[66] A burst of pace set by Ocaña's Bic team on the Cucheron ascent had reduced the field to a group of overall favourites, leaving Merckx without support.

[122] In the opening 12 km (7.5 mi) of stage 11,[123] the race began with the steep Alpine second-category climb of Côte de Laffrey, known locally as 'the ramp'.

[123] The leading group gained a two-minute margin along the consistent terrain of the historic Route Napoléon, with Ocaña dropping his fellow riders on a detour climb over the second-category Col du Noyer with 60 km (37 mi) remaining.

[146] The 16.3 km (10.1 mi) hilly and technical course which started and finished at the Circuit d'Albi motor-racing track was won by Merckx with a time of 22:57 minutes, beating second-placed Ocaña by 11 seconds.

[148] This furthered tensions in the race with accusations that, in the previous stage, seven riders of the all-Spanish Kas–Kaskol team, allied to Ocaña, were given unwarranted reprieves after finishing outside the time limit.

[145] As the lone leader Fuente summited the Menté ahead,[154][155] the weather severely worsened with a thunderstorm of torrential rain and large hailstones,[153] making for a dangerous descent, with vision on the mud flooded roads impaired to around 5 m (16 ft).

[160] His directeur sportif (team manager) Guillaume Driessens [nl] was among those to convince him to remain, reminding him that the work-shy 'wheelsuckers' Zoetemelk and Van Impe would be the next in line to win the race.

[168][161] The average speed of 20.6 km/h (12.8 mph) covered by the last finisher, Eddy Peelman of Fagor–Mercier–Hutchinson,[l] is among the very slowest of any post-World War II Tour stage, all those within the time limits.

Van Impe escaped a kilometre from the summit, where he held a lead of 1:10 minutes, but Merckx and Zoetemelk worked together into the prevailing headwind on the descent and caught him at the bottom.

Both Hoover–de Gribaldy–Wolber riders received the customary punishment: a fine of 1200 f; being set back to the last place in the stage's results and getting ten minutes penalty time in the general classification.