The Tour de France first started on July 1, 1903, when sixty cyclists left from in front of The Alarm Clock Café, just outside of Paris, and rode 467 kilometers to Lyon. The first race consisted of six legs, each of which was about 400 kilometers long. At that time, there were no rest days the winner was the rider who finished the race in the shortest total time. The winner of the first Tour de France, Maurice Garin, the most popular cyclist in France at that time, received 2,000 francs (about $350). It took him 94 hours and 33 minutes to ride all 2,428 kilometers of the race, three hours faster than the runner-up. Over the weeks during which the race was run, the idea of the Tour de France slowly caught on with the people of France. The race has been held every year since that time, except during the years of World Wars I and II.