this table: The other important introduction were the mountains. One of Desgrange's staffers, Alphonse Steinès, took Desgrange for a trip over the Col Bayard at and the Ballon d'Alsace at , that had an average gradient of 5.2% with 10% at some places, to convince Desgrange to use these climbs in the route. Desgrange accepted it, saying that Steinès would take the blame if the mountains would be too hard to climb. In the two previous editions, the highest point was the Col de la République at . In 1905, Desgrange chose to overlook this, and focused instead on the introduction of the Ballon d'Alsace, because he saw that he had missed the opportunity for publicity previously. There were two categories of riders, the coureurs de vitesse and the coureurs sur machines poinçonnées. The riders in the first category were allowed to change bicycles, which could be an advantage in the mountains, where they could use a bicycle with lower gears. The riders in the machines poinçonnées category had to use the same bicycle in the entire race, and to verify this, their bicycles were marked. Participants Before the race started, 77 riders had signed up for the race. Seventeen of those did not start the race, so the Tour began with 60 riders, including former winner Henri Cornet and future winners René Pottier and Lucien Petit-Breton. The riders were not grouped in teams, but most of them rode with an individual sponsor. Two of the cyclists—Catteau and Lootens—were Belgian, all other cyclists were French. Leading up to the start of the Tour, Wattelier, Trousselier, Pottier and Augereau were all considered the most likely contenders to win the event. Race overview Despite the rule changes, there were still protesters among the spectators; in the first stage all riders except Jean-Baptiste Dortignacq punctured due to 125 kg of nails spread along the road. The first stage was won by Louis Trousselier. Trousselier was serving in the army, and had requested from his commander leave for the Tour de France; this was allowed for 24 hours. After he won the first stage and led the classification, his leave was extended until the end of the Tour. From 60 starting cyclists, only 15 cyclists reached the finish line within the time limit; 15 more reached the finish after the limit and the rest took the train. The Tour organiser Desgrange wanted to stop