This winter season, I’ve been working my way through three books: Roads Were Not Built For Cars by Carlton Reid (this book has taught me among many other things: the difference between a cobblestone and a sett—and I will fight you if you get the terms mixed up!); Life in the Slipstream: The Legend of Bobby Walthour Sr. by Andrew M. Homan (a book about a time when bike racing was more like the film Rollerball—with more death); and The Cycling City by Evan Friss which deals with the time at the turn of the 19th century when bikes were taken seriously as a means of transportation. All three of these books are excellent and I recommend you buy as many copies of each as you can. All three books also deal with the time when bikes were a driving force in society, when cycling was a vital social and economic force; and I am tempted when reading about bikes at the turn of the century to wonder why cycling in America got pushed to the fringes, why the crowds stopped coming, in short, why was there no Tour de America?

The answer—as far as I can tell—is money. There, issue resolved. If you’re lazy there’s no need to read any further. Still with me? Great, you are not a lazy person, take a moment to feel good about yourself.

I’ve developed a few theories about the specifics concerning the absence of a Tour de America, but the essential reason is the most American reason of all—money. But the role of money is not necessarily the role you’d assume, namely the lack of money. Certainly, there are areas where money is lacking in the story of cycling in America, but that’s not the whole story.

But let’s begin at the beginning, shall we? For a race to be financially viable, four aspects need to be addressed: races need racers (and if they are popular racers, that’s all the better); races need an audience; races need a course; and races need sponsors (or someone who benefits from the races). Many people think that there’s a Tour de France because French people simply like bikes a whole lot—and that may be true to a certain extent—but the French by no means were the only ones with a bike crush at the turn of the century. In the 1890s, American was in the throes of a bike boom, it seemed like everyone was buying and riding the new technological marvel known as the “safety bicycle” or “ordinary” (wow, did they have a penchant for hyperbole at the turn of the century or what?), the term safety bicycle came about because the bicycle’s wheels were both the same size, unlike the high-wheelers, which elevated a rider into the perfect position for a face-shattering catastrophe when the bike encountered holes, ruts or really fat earthworms in its path.

America had the bike fever, and the prescription was watching bike races. Which they did. A lot. Spectators turned out in droves to watch bike races, but here’s the catch—they watched bike races on closed courses—where promoters could sell tickets (see? money). And these courses were everywhere. They races on velodromes, they raced on horse tracks, they raced wherever they could mark out an oval and throw up some stands. There were velodromes in almost every major city in America, and racers could travel the circuit and make a very comfortable living. In 1904, the year after the Tour de France began, Bobby Walthour made an estimated $60,000 in 1904 money, which is like 90 kabillion in 2016 dollars. Babe Ruth didn’t make more than that until 1927—over 20 years and 90 kabillion hot dogs later. Major Taylor, the legendary African American champion, was pulling in about $30,000 a year, even though he piously refused to race on Sundays and things back then were super racist, I mean, like, super cartoonishly racist. And Americans fared well internationally. Of the first 17 professional sprint champions, four were Americans, five were Frenchmen, there was one Belgian, one German and one Dane (of course, those numbers don’t add up to 17, because some guys won multiple sprint championships, Thorvald Ellegaard was a BEAST), and to be honest, the world sprint championship wasn’t the biggest deal in the world back then, because racers could make more money elsewhere. Walthour regularly got $1,000 just to start a race. He could make $500 a day at the Madison Square Garden six-day race just to show up and not die. Amateur racing was strong also, Americans won every cycling medal in every cycling event at the 1904 St Louis Olympics.

So in 1903 when Henri Desgrange decided to create the equivalent of a six-day race around France (the first TdF was also six stages long, six ludicrously long stages), the top racers of the day looked at the 3,000 francs offered to the overall winner (which was about $578 in 1903 money) and quickly figured out that they could make that much money in a weekend in Newark (which was a world cycling hub! Newark!). In addition, the initial Tour ran from July 1 to July 18th (they took days off between stages back then), which was prime bike-racing and money-making time. Only a fool or an amateur would consider giving up the most lucrative month of the season to trudge around France.

But Desgrange wasn’t necessarily interested in getting the most famous riders of the day, of the 60 starters of the first Tour, 39 had no commercial support. Desgrange was interested in boosting circulation of L’Auto by appealing to cycling fans. The first Tour was a publicity stunt in a war between sporting newspapers, the established Le Vélo and the upstart L’Auto-Vélo (later renamed L’Auto and then L’Équipe because Goddamit France get it together!). L’Auto couldn’t afford the best racers, but they had novelty on their side (“Read about racers riding themselves to paste around the roads of France!”). And it worked. L’Auto’s circulation sextupled due to coverage of the Tour, and as a bonus, Le Vélo went belly up in 1904. The Tour had a bright future ahead.

So why didn’t America follow suit? Why didn’t some enterprising newspaper try to kill off their competition with a Tour de America? Well, it was probably because France had two things going for it: roads and geography. In 1903, America didn’t have the road system that we have now, and that’s an understatement. Many cities were improving their roads (due in no small part to the pressure from cyclists, who didn’t enjoy riding around town on their faces), but the roads surrounding most cities ranged from “dusty” to “mud-filled quagmires that ate whole horses alive”, and this was due to the fact that property owners were responsible for road maintenance. The US didn’t have a federal road department until 1915, so in rural areas, road maintenance was up to farmers, which was fine if you lived near “Zeke the neat freak” but no so great if you lived near “Lazy Ezekiel”. In contrast, France had a 2,000 year head start on roads due to a little something called the Roman Empire. The Romans built roads everywhere across France, and many of these routes were updated and built upon. France started paving Paris in 11 freakin 84, and they had roads regulations dating back to that time. France had one of the best road networks in the world. America, on the other hand, let its road languish because people could just take the railroad, why would they want to go anywhere that the railroad didn’t go to?

France also had geography on it’s side. France is smaller than Texas, so the concept of a six-day race around France, although it sounds like a prison sentence, is much more feasible than a six-day race around the United States, which would be impossible without witchcraft and racers dropping dead from exhaustion. Which was a concern in the early days of six-day racing, the first six-day races were contested by individuals (let me reiterate, one person, riding six days straight!), and the suffering was considered so brutal that none other than Teddy Goddam Roosevelt, as New York governor, decided that it was too much, and set the rider’s daily hour limit to twelve, presumably signing the bill after punching a grizzly bear, because he was Teddy GD Roosevelt.

France’s smaller size also meant that the Tour was attractive to a sponsor. L’Auto could be sold all over France. American newspapers were regional, and didn’t have sales across the country. A nationwide publicity stunt would only potentially play in a limited area geographically. Once the Tour de America got to California, the newspapers there might benefit (or ignore the race entirely to not give any boost to another paper’s event), but there was no guarantee that readers would care about a race happening thousands of mile away. The US didn’t have a nationally read newspaper like L’Auto that could benefit from a nationwide event. The US papers were already doing well covering the track racing scene in the US, why would they take the financial risk of sponsoring a race across the country?

So there you have it, there’s no Tour de America because of money. American track racers were so successful that no one would consider doing a stage race for less than what they got paid at other races. It was more profitable to hold races at places where you could sell tickets. The condition of American roads ranged widely due to the availability of railroads and the fact that roads were privately maintained. And there was no publication equivalent to L’Auto, a national publication crazy enough to chance sponsoring a new, untested type of cycling event.

And that’s my theory, it could be wrong, maybe French people do just like bikes more.