The event was first run on 23 May 1891, and the Derby of the Road as it was sometimes called, was notable in that riders were paced – allowed to slipstream – behind tandem or conventional cycles.

The organisers of the inaugural event, Bordeaux Vélo Club and Véloce Sport envisaged that riders might take a few days, but the first edition was won in a continuous ride by George Pilkington Mills.

The historian Victor M. Head wrote: "At 10.30 Angoulème was reached and the Englishmen stopped to gulp down bowls of hot soup.

When they restarted, Mills began to make all the running, drawing steadily away from his companions until, arriving at Ruffec, Charente, he was half an hour in the lead.

He rested for five minutes, ate raw meat "and a specially prepared stimulant",[6] and set off an hour ahead of the other British riders.

He wrote: Although the judges, the officials, and the large crowd had been waiting impatiently for three hours before the winner's weary, mud-caked figure was seen coming along the boulevard de la Porte Maillot, his reception was "wildly enthusiastic", as one writer put it [according to whom?

The time of 26h 36m 25s was truly remarkable when one considers the appalling road conditions, poor weather, and the delays, and all the other hardships encountered [according to whom?].

"At the time, there was a rather persistent rumour in the peloton that anyone who rode Bordeaux-Paris was exhausted and therefore absolutely unable to play any significant role in the Tour de France.

It required special training and clashed with riders' plans to compete in the Vuelta a España or Giro d'Italia stage races.