Ride A Stage Of The Tour De France

A plain-English guide to the world's most famous-and grueling-bicycle race Featuring eight-pages of full-color photos from recent Tour de France races, this easy-to-follow, entertaining guide demystifies the history, strategy, rules, techniques, equipment, and competitors in what is arguably the most grueling and intriguing multiday, multistage sporting event in the world. Cowritten by the most popular English-speaking cycling commentator on the planet, this book is great reading for both experienced and the new bicycle racing fans alike.

What they are saying about The Story of the Tour de France: After forty years of study on the subject, I can with some confidence say Bill and Carol McGann's The Story of the Tour de France is the finest such work ever produced in the English language, and perhaps in any. Most of my preferred references are in French, one runs to over 800 pages, yet the McGanns' opus revealed information new to me in almost every paragraph. Their research has been not only impeccable, but insightful. -Owen Mulholland, author of Uphill Battle and Cycling's Golden Age The Story of the Tour de France: How a Newspaper Promotion Became the Greatest Sporting Event in the World by Bill and Carol McGann is a must read. -Road Bike Action Magazine For any historian of the sport the McGanns'Tour de France history is essential reading. Details of the stages and the riders are not glossed over. For those who are new to the sport, the McGanns bring the glory days of the sport alive with the intrigue that still exists today. Epic stages that might have faded into oblivion are eloquently recounted so that future generation of cyclists will know the rich history of our beautiful sport. -Neil Browne, editor, Road Magazine Besides towering over all bicycle races, the Tour de France endures for its unique Gaulic character, like Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. The McGanns' passionate and insightful writing evokes the raucous cast of riders, promoters, and journalists thrusting through highs and lows worthy of opera. This volume stands out as a must-read book for anyone seeking to appreciate cycling's race of races. -Peter Joffre Nye, author of The Six-Day Bicycle Races: America's Jazz Age Sport and Hearts of Lions Volume 1 of The Story of the Tour de France concluded with Jacques Anquetil's record setting fifth Tour win. Volume 2 opens with the greatest Italian racer of the modern age, Felice Gimondi and his effortless victory at the young age of 22. Despite his extraordinary talent, he never won the Tour again. Starting in 1969, Eddy Merckx began his run of 5 victories. Bernard Hinault, who also managed to win 5, followed him. Unable to fulfill his destiny as a likely 5-time winner because of a hunting accident, LeMond won the Tour 3 times. LeMond's era was followed by the remarkable Spaniard Miguel Indurain, the first man to win the Tour 5 times in a row. The late 1990s were a time of extreme crisis for the Tour as the culture of doping within the professional cycling community erupted into the scandal of 1998. The Story of the Tour de France deals with this episode at length. Emerging from a near-fatal bout of cancer, Lance Armstrong went on to do what no other rider in the Tour's long history had ever been able to accomplish, win the Tour 7 times. Following Armstrong's retirement, the Tour was again seized by scandal, this time Floyd Landis' disqualification for drugs after winning the 2006 Tour. The book concludes with the story of the 2007 Tour, followed by a quest for the greatest ever Tour de France rider and an epilogue that explains the reasons for the extraordinary success of the Tour. Bill and Carol McGann have had their lives inextricably tied up with bicycles about as long as they can remember. Their first date was a bike ride. Bill, formerly a Category 1 racer, has been a contributor to several cycling magazines and is widely acknowledged as an expert on road bikes and cycling history. Since his father gave him a small 1-speed English lightweight bicycle when he was 5 years old, Bill has been in love with everything about bikes. Carol, a former college biology instructor is also an accomplished rider, having cycle-toured extensively. Together they started Torelli Imports in 1981, a firm specializing in high-performance cycle equipment.

Insider's view of the growth in Australia's cycling power in European road races.

'I pulled off my glasses and wiped my eyes. "That was perhaps the last race of my career..."' Deep down, Mark Cavendish thought he was finished. After illness, setbacks and clinical depression, the once fastest man in the world had been written off by most. And at the age of 36, even he believed his explosive cycling career would fade out with a whimper. The Manxman hadn't won a single Grand Tour stage in Italy, Spain or France since 2016. But then came his incredible resurrection at the 2021 Tour de France. Included on the Deceuninck Quick-Step team at the very last minute, only after Sam Bennett suffered an injury, Mark set about rewriting history. He claimed back the green jersey he first wore in 2011, and his four stage victories finally saw him matching Belgian legend Eddy Merckx's all-time record of 34 Tour de France stage wins. Cycling greats are never content, and Cav's dogged determination and inner strength had earned him the record that few believed he could ever achieve. This is his own intimate account of that race, right from the saddle of the miracle tour.

When Henri Desgrange began a new bicycle road race in 1903, he saw it as little more than a temporary publicity stunt to promote his newspaper. The sixty cyclists who left Paris to ride through the night to Lyons that first July had little idea they were pioneers of the most famous of all bike races, which would reach its centenary as one of the greatest sporting events on earth. Geoffrey Wheatcroft's masterly history of the Tour de France's first hundred years is not just a hugely entertaining canter through some great Tour stories; nor is it merely a homage to the riders whose names -- Coppi, Simpson, Mercx, Armstrong -- are synonymous with the event's folly and glory; focusing too on the race's role in French cultural life it provides a unique and fascinating insight into Europe's twentieth century.

A 3,162 km race. A 48-year-old man. A 100-year-old bike. Made mostly of wood. That he built himself. Tim Moore sets off to recreate the most appalling bike race of all time. The notorious 1914 Giro d'Italia was an ordeal of 400-kilometre stages, cataclysmic night storms and relentless sabotage - all on a diet of raw eggs and red wine. Of the 81 who rolled out of Milan, only eight made it back. Committed to total authenticity, Tim acquires the ruined husk of a gearless, wooden-wheeled 1914 road bike with wine corks for brakes, some maps and an alarming period outfit topped off with a pair of blue-lensed welding goggles. From the Alps to the Adriatic the pair relive the bike race in all its misery and glory, on an adventure that is by turns bold, beautiful and recklessly incompetent.

It is one of sport's toughest ordeals and the ultimate test for professional cyclists. The Tour de France sees riders pitted against all kinds of terrain and weather, in unrelenting competition with their rivals for three weeks. This entertaining and highly acclaimed book gives a compelling insight into the mystique of the race and the unique fascination it has always exercised on devoted bike fans and occasional enthusiasts alike. Graeme Fife's Tour de France tells tales of great solo rides, amazing fortitude, terrible misfortune and triumph over the odds from the race's remarkable history, which began in July 1903. Within a few years, the Tour was taking the riders across the mountains of the Alps and Pyrenees, and they had to carry out their own repairs, find their own food and drink, and ride without support - a far cry from today's sophisticated organisation. Combining meticulous research with a pacey narrative style, Fife paints a colourful and memorable picture of the men whose exploits have given the Tour an enduring universal appeal. Named as one of the top five sports books of the year by both The Independent and The Times, this new edition of Tour de France has been fully revised and updated to include all the drama of the 2005 race.