Why do the French love motorcycle racing so much? Because they invented it!

It all started in France.

The first motor race was the Paris-Rouen of 1894, which was soon followed by the Paris-Marseille-Paris, Paris-Bordeaux-Paris, Paris-Saint Malo, Paris-Aix-Les-Bains, Paris-Vienna, Paris-Madrid, Paris-Roubaix, Paris-Amsterdam-Paris and Paris-Berlin.

This was before anyone had even thought of building racetracks.

The first ‘motorcycling track championship of the world’ was staged in 1903 at a velodrome in Paris (the French had invented bicycle racing a few decades earlier).

The winner was Maurice Fournier, a Frenchman, of course, riding a mighty 1500cc V4, manufactured by Clément Cycles, in Paris, of course. And people were already getting a buzz from watching racing, Fournier “taking the tightly banked corners at speeds that fairly made the spectators shudder”.

Motorcycling’s first Coupe Internationale event, which led to the creation of the Isle of Man TT, was staged in 1904 around a 33-mile street circuit between three villages outside Paris.

The world’s first great racing motorcycle – the Ducati Desmosedici of the sport’s first era – was the De Dion Bouton, built by wealthy French aristocrat Jules-Albert de Dion in his factory on the banks of the river Seine in Paris.

The machine which gave birth to the term motorcycle was the Werner motocyclette, made by two Russian brothers who had moved to Paris to turn their dreams into reality.

The winner of the 1904 Coupe Internationale was Frenchman Léon Demester, who rode a Griffon, also built in Paris. Griffon later merged with Peugeot. A Peugeot engine powered the Norton which won a race at the inaugural 1907 TT.

A national fixation? Definitely.

But why France? Probably because while Europe’s other main industrial powers – Britain and Germany – had plenty of coal, France didn’t, so when petrol arrived in the late 19th century, the French were right onto it.

De Dion’s first vehicles were steam-powered but when the marquis was introduced to the world’s first viable petrol engine, recently created by German Nikolaus Otto, he knew what to do.

His De Dion Bouton was a trike, because a three-wheeled motorcycle made a lot more sense than a two-wheeled motorcycle at a time when roads were cobbled or muddy or rutted and covered in horse manure.

De Dion’s trike was powered by engineer Georges Bouton’s engine, the world’s first high-speed internal combustion engine, which increased engine revolutions from around 400rpm to almost 2500. Their creation was so influential that a De Dion Bouton sits in London’s Science Museum.

A De Dion even beat all the cars to win the Paris-Marseille-Paris of 1896 and five years later won the Paris-Berlin, covering the 744 miles at an astonishing average of 39mph.

It was no wonder that the first city-to-city races ignited a passion that still burns in France and around the world, because mankind had never done anything like that before.

“The long-winding road stretches out before you, reaching from the capital of one great country to the centre of another,” wrote Charles Jarrott, a Briton who raced De Dion Bouton trikes, motorcycles and cars.

“Hundreds of miles of straight road, narrow road, right-angled corners, treacherous turns, maybe mountain passes, rough surfaces, and dangerous obstacles, all enveloped in a dense pall of dust caused by those which are preceding you and which you are endeavouring to overtake.

“And now we can see and appreciate what you are worth and what your capabilities are. The unknown presents itself at every yard, and your neck depends on the soundness of your judgement. Are you better at dealing with these ever-recurring problems than the man immediately in front of you, or the man just behind you?

“If not, he gains and you lose; you drop farther back and you are passed from the rear, and as you wrestle mentally and physically with all the difficulties of the trial, the excitement of it enters your soul, and you realise that this is a sport of the gods. The glorious uncertainty of everything, capped by the intoxicating exhilaration of speed.”

The second Coupe Internationale was staged in Austria in 1905. When that event was won by an Austrian riding an Austrian motorcycle (just like the French had dominated France’s inaugural coupe the previous year), the British team (led by Anglophile French team manager, the Marquis de Mouzilly St Mars) cried foul and decided to organise their own event.

Britain had a national speed limit of 20mph, so racing on the mainland was out of the question. However, Ireland and the Isle of Man had their own legislatures that allowed racing. The island’s first motorcycle race took place in May 1905, the first TT two years later.

Mouzilly St Mars was so excited that he had a huge silver trophy made, based on the existing silver and gold car Tourist Trophy prize and featuring Mercury, the Roman god of financial gain, travellers and luck, trickery and thieves and the guide of souls to the underworld. The exact same trophy is awarded to this day to the winner of the Senior TT.