I’ve always thought of Mark Cavendish as a chopsy, in-your-face kind of guy. The sort of person who’s permanently in a bad mood. But then I heard a raI’ve always thought of Mark Cavendish as a chopsy, in-your-face kind of guy. The sort of person who’s permanently in a bad mood. But then I heard a radio interview with him, in which he talked about the significant mental and physical health problems he’d suffered from since 2017 and I started to revise my view of him. After being a star bike racer for many years he’d experienced a barren spell and it seemed unlikely that he’d manage to attain the same level of strength and form again. But then I saw that he’d been included in the Quick-Step team for the 2021 Tour de France, an achievement in itself.
This book tells the story of that race and of Mark’s quest to match or even surpass the record of 34 stage wins achieved by Belgian legend Eddie Merckx. It transpires that he’d been dropped by his former team and was considering giving up professional cycling altogether but was eventually offered a skimpy deal to ride for his Quick-Step, a team he’d raced with before. At this point he had no real prospect of being selected for the team to ride Le Tour. He hadn’t won a race of any sort for years and most people – insiders and fans of the sport – believed that his best years were well behind him.
I listened to the audio version, read by Cavendish, and it was clear that the man himself had a very different view of his own worth – he knew he could win again. After a number of races at what he considered to be at ‘C Team’ level, he secured a late call up to race the the Tour of Belgium, this due to an injury sustained by the team’s lead sprinter. After sprinting to a win in stage 5 of the race he got lucky again, this once again due to his teammate’s ongoing injury problem - he’d secured a place in the team for the biggest race of them all.
Cavendish then describes his experience in the race, walking us through each stage, and it really does feel like he’s giving an honest appraisal of the good, the bad and the ugly of what it’s like to participate in a Grand Tour event. For cycling fans much of the high level stuff will be well known but Mark gets right into the nitty gritty, it’s a compulsive account of a man, and a team, battling possibly the toughest sporting event of them all. Mixed in with the cycling we get glimpses of his relationship with his family, his teammates and others in the cycling ‘family’ and also something of his interest outside of cycling. I loved every minute of it....more
I've never actually attended the Tour de France and I can't recall the last time I climbed onto a bike, but this three week orgy of pain and controverI've never actually attended the Tour de France and I can't recall the last time I climbed onto a bike, but this three week orgy of pain and controversy is an event I've religiously followed for as long as I can remember. Its the most gruelling major sporting event I can think of and the best stages (there are 21 in all) are those that go up hill - that is, steeply up hill! The mountain ranges of the Alps and Pyrenees feature strongly but there are other climbs too, such as Mont Ventoux, a dreadful drag up a featureless incline which claimed the life of British rider Tom Simpson in 1967.
Most peoples favourite and therefore a stage that features often in Le Tour is the climb up to the ski station at Alpe d'Huez. Massive crowd cover the entire 14.5 kilometre route as the cyclists battle their way up through twenty-one hair-pin bends with gradients on the climb reaching up to thirteen percent. It's always an amazing spectacle and great honour awaits the first climber to reach the summit.
This book details all the famous (and some not so famous) climbs, with pictures, history and statistics providing a comprehensive overview. I not sure when I first bought this book, but it was a long time ago and each year since when the route is announced I pounce on it and study which climbs are included in this years race, hoping that some of my favourites will have been included. It's a fantastic item for any cycling fan to have on his or her bookshelf....more
I’ve long been a fan of professional road race cycling and have particularly enjoyed following the Grand Tours (the three multi-stage road races that I’ve long been a fan of professional road race cycling and have particularly enjoyed following the Grand Tours (the three multi-stage road races that run annually across and around France, Italy and Spain). Most notably, from the 1980’s I'd sit transfixed watching the daily television updates from Le Tour with commentators Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen gabbling in animated fashion as they covered the key events of the day. The mountain stages in particular were amazing, with crowds two or three deep lining what looked like virtually vertical climbs up and over the mountains roads of the Alps and Pyrenees. So close were the spectators to the riders that physical contact was not unusual. I was then, and remain still, convinced that these three week long races are the most physically demanding events in any sport I've followed.
If one race in particular grabbed me and made me a life long fan it was the 1989 Tour de France, won after an immense battle by only 8 seconds - this after something over two thousand miles of racing. Its two major protagonists – American Greg LeMond and Frenchman Laurent Fignon – passed the overall race lead back and forth until the final dramatic (and desperate) time trial crowned an overall winner. It was an immensely exciting but at the same time a horribly cruel way to end such an epic contest.
This book takes the final time trial as it’s start point before slipping back in time to tell the story of not only Greg’s life but also that of Laurent too. We learn that though the two grew up in very different environments their stories share many similarities. The the same age, they both became noticed as strong riders in their teenage years. Their paths were destined to cross often and at one point they were even part of the same racing team. It seems that they were never close friends – there was too much rivalry for that – but in time they did share a mutual respect for the other’s ability.
Aside from the this racing rivalry, the other key theme here is the drug culture that has long plagued this sport. It’s clear that riders had pretty much always used a variety of substances to aid them in surviving the sheer brutality of professional road racing, but from the early 1990’s the introduction of erythropoietin (EPO) brought about the spectacle of average riders lifting their ability to that of the acknowledged elite. Suddenly, it seemed, if you didn't take EPO you couldn't win. Greg always claimed (and there’s no evidence to refute this claim) that he raced clean. Laurent admitted that he had used substances, but this only in the years before EPO, when the drugs couldn't make a champion out of an also ran. The biggest scandal to hit the sport was, of course, that involving the multi-winner of the Tour de France (1999 – 2005), Lance Armstrong.
After his racing career ended Greg became an outspoken advocate, speaking out in an effort to help clean up cycling and in this respect he clashed with Armstrong who he'd fingered as a ‘doper’. This was to have a significant impact on LeMond’s life as increasingly dirty tactics were used to try to discredit or gag him. Greg’s most guarded secret, that of his childhood abuse at the hands of a family friend, was even used as a weapon in this battle.
I was familiar with some of the ground covered in this book, having previously read Fignon’s autobiography We Were Young and Carefree and also an exposé on the drug taking by Lance Armstrong’s U.S. Postal Service team by teammate Tyler Hamilton in The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs. However, there was a good deal of new information for me to digest here too. I really enjoyed the way the author drew parallels between the lives and careers of LeMond and Fignon, and though I recall previously reading that Greg had been the victim of a shooting accident, shortly after he’d seemingly reached the peak of his career, I hadn't before gleaned the detail of this event and the long road to recovery that followed. Fignon had had his years in the wilderness too, courtesy of a serious injury he'd struggled for years to overcome. The story of the 1989 race is really the tale of two vanquished riders coming back for one last contest, a duel (in my opinion) as mighty as anything in the history of sport - it's truly enthralling.
This is thoroughly researched account, mainly focused on what was, for me, the heyday of competitive road racing. It's written in an engaging and even handed way and that drew me in almost as though it were an enthralling piece of fiction. It's a book that shouldn't be missed by any fan of bike racing or, in fact, any sports fan.
My sincere thanks to the author, NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for supplying an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review....more
When I got my first proper bike, in my early teens, I felt truly liberated. Suddenly I could go anywhere, discover paths untrodden and explore the bigWhen I got my first proper bike, in my early teens, I felt truly liberated. Suddenly I could go anywhere, discover paths untrodden and explore the big wide world. Well, ok it wasn’t quite as transformational as that – but the thing is it felt like it. I got the same sense from reading the early chapters of Froome’s autobiography. He was born to a reasonably prosperous family in Kenya: the family business was successful enough to enable his two elder brothers to be schooled at Rugby school, in England. But suddenly it all went wrong, the business collapsed and his parents split. Suddenly his dad had moved to South Africa whilst Chris stayed in Kenya with his mum. Money was tight. His release was his bike. It certainly wasn’t an expensive item and he found himself finding creative ways to finance running repairs from the local ‘engineers’ who welded scraps of metal to support broken parts.
The early chapters are full of anecdotes of Froome’s passion for his bike and his industry in seeking ways to maximize his time spent on two wheels. Eventually he met and befriended a Kenyan professional rider and he began to get schooled in the craft of race riding. His determination to eventually become a professional rider was pretty much obsessional from this point on. It’s clear he had a tough upbringing but his love for his country of birth shines through and vivid pictures are painted of the beauty – and sometimes the risks – of taking long rides through its rugged landscape.
He eventually succeeds in rising to the top of the (not very tall) Kenyan cycling tree. There are amusing tales of the lack of professionalism and support provided when he attended some minor international races. And mixing with teams from more developed countries at the Commonwealth Games demonstrated to him how far behind his country was in terms of technology and coaching. Nonetheless, he managed to put together enough good results to attract the attention of a professional cycling team.
As you’d expect in a sporting bio, there’s a lot of detail from this point about various races, about riders and team officials. His opinions are voiced frankly and, it seemed to me, honestly. The key chapters I’d been looking forward to were those where he talked about his experiences of riding the Tour de France in 2012 and 2013. In July every year I religiously watch stage highlights every day and was glued to the set in 2012 when Bradley Wiggins became the first British rider to be successful in winning this brutal event. It was evident to most people watching that Froome – his able lieutenant – was stronger in some of the big mountain stages and pundits were openly opining that he was, in fact, the better rider. Could he have won instead of Wiggo, had the team set him free to fully capitalize on his strength and form? Many thought he could have and probably would have.
The accounts of the two Tour de France campaigns is fascinating stuff. Froome doesn’t hold back in describing the conflicts in the team during the first race. Not surprisingly, contract negotiations ahead of the 2013 race centered on whether he’d be fully supported in going for the General Classification prize (awarded to the overall race winner). He eventually secured an answer that turned out to be more ambiguous than he’d originally interpreted, but then fate intervened and he turned up for the race with his team fully behind him. Just in case you’re not a cycling fan or didn’t pick up the news at the time, Froome went on to win the race by a comfortable margin (a feat he repeated in 2015 – after this book was published).
This is probably one for bike racing aficionados and lovers of sport in general, but there’s enough depth here in following Froome’s determined and brave struggle to reach the top of his chosen sport to inspire anybody. It’s well put together and he has a great story to tell. Personally, I can’t wait to track his efforts this year in ‘Le Tour’ – I’ll settle down with a cup of tea and map of the course and cheer him ‘til my lungs hurt....more
This book really does explain how (and how much) doping went on at the time Lance Armstrong was taking the cycling world by storm in winning the Tour This book really does explain how (and how much) doping went on at the time Lance Armstrong was taking the cycling world by storm in winning the Tour de France seven times. It's told in a pretty matter if fact way by one of his team and shows, very clearly, the difficult choices facing top professional cyclists at this time: take the drugs or you won't be picked for the teams. It also makes it clear that, as the cyclists reacted differently to the products and some gained more than others due to certain 'natural state' measures, the fact that virtually all top cyclists were using EPO and other substances did not render it a level playing field.
The most fascinating aspects for me were the accounts of how the drugs were administered - in the midst of some pretty basic and flawed testing processes - and the understanding of how this 'secret' was kept under wraps for so long. It also did drive home just how false the results were during this period. A really interesting tale particularly if, like me, you're addicted to the annual July event that draws in more watchers than any other sporting event in the world!...more
If you followed Le Tour on television then you'll have no need to read this. You'll learn nothing new. On the other hand, if you missed chunks of it oIf you followed Le Tour on television then you'll have no need to read this. You'll learn nothing new. On the other hand, if you missed chunks of it or indeed all of it then this is a great way of catching up on, perhaps, the greatest British sporting triumph of the past 50 years....more
I always thought Cavendish was a moody, surly guy who was unappreciative of the success that had come his way. After reading this very frank account II always thought Cavendish was a moody, surly guy who was unappreciative of the success that had come his way. After reading this very frank account I haven't completely changed my mind but I think the unappreciative bit's a trifle harsh. he clearly attributes much of his success to the brilliant team he has around him and it's obvious he's worked extremely hard to achieve what he has. Is he surly and moody? Yes, I still think he has that side to him. But I think I understand him better and realise that much of the impression I have is based on post race interviews where a microphone has been thrust in front of him minutes after a frenetic sprint finish. Mark Cavendish is quite possibly the best road race sprinter ever and this is a compelling read for anybody interested in bike racing. I thoroughly recommend it....more
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