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"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."
- From the preface by Owen Mulholland, author of
Uphill Battle
Besides towering over all bicycle races, the
Tour de France endures for its unique Gaulic character, like Victor
Hugo's Les Miserables. The McGann's 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
"There are LOTS of books on the Tour de
France. An increasing number of them are actually written in English.
However, of those, none educates Americans about this grand spectacle’s
rich past. The Tour de France has a history as fascinating and
sordid as Rome’s and it is high time someone undertook to
explain this to our American sensibility. Our guide for the trip
is a man with a ravenous appetite for both world history and bicycle
racing, just the sort of person to paint a Tour champion with
the dramatic grandiosity befitting Hannibal himself."
- Pat Brady, Editor, Asphalt Magazine
At the dawn of the 20th Century, French newspapers
used bicycle races as promotions to build readership. Until 1903
these were one-day events. Looking to deliver a coup de grace
in a vicious circulation war, Henri Desgrange—editor of
the Parisian sports magazine L’Auto—took the suggestion
of one of his writers to organize a race that would last several
days longer than anything else, like the 6-day races on the track,
but on the road.
That’s exactly what happened. For almost
3 weeks the riders in the first Tour de France rode over dirt
roads and cobblestones in a grand circumnavigation of France.
The race was an electrifying success. Held annually (suspended
only during the 2 World Wars), the Tour grew longer and more complex
with an ever-changing set of rules, as Desgrange kept tinkering
with the Tour, looking for the perfect formula for his race. Each
year a new cast of riders would assemble to contest what has now
become the greatest sporting event in the world.
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