The first Tour de France : sixty cyclists and nineteen days of daring on the road to Paris / Peter Cossins.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cossins, Peter, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Tour de France (Bicycle race) (1903 : France).

Tour de France (Bicycle race).

Bicycle racing--History.

Bicycle racing.

History.

Bicycle racing--France--History.

SPORTS & RECREATION / Cycling.

SPORTS & RECREATION / History.

Local Subjects:

SPORTS & RECREATION / Cycling.

SPORTS & RECREATION / History.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

ix, 358 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Nation Books, [2017]

Summary:

The first Tour de France was a far cry from the polished international sporting event we see on television today. Organized by the financially free falling L'Auto magazine, the desperate editors thought that organizing a grand cycling tour was the only thing that could save their publication. But in 1903, cyclists weren't enthusiastic about what was pitched to them as a heroic race through roads more suited to hooves than wheels, with bikes weighing up to forty-four pounds, on a single fixed gear, for three full weeks. Assembling enough riders for the race meant bribing unemployed laborers from the suburbs of Paris, including a butcher, a blacksmith, a chimney sweep, and a wrestler. Through these characters' backstories, Cossins paints a nuanced portrait of France in the early 1900's. The race itself is packed with mishaps and adventure--in part due to the fact that water was scarce at the time, so the men drank wine and beer throughout, often keeling over from their bicycles in a drunken stupor. There was no indication that a ramshackle cycling pack would draw crowds to throng France's rutted roads and cheer the first Tour heroes. But they did, and cycling would never be the same again.--Provided by publisher.

Contents:

The greatest cycling race in the entire world

The phantom race takes shape

A great event beyond our imaginations

Let us fight with the same weapons

These riders will never reach the finish

A beautiful but terrible battle

An honest and closely checked contest

I've beaten Garin!

Are the organisers beginners or just incapable?

Everyone who finished this stage is a marvellous rider

Your bicycle is your salvation

Road cycling has been democratised

Colossal, gigantic and monstrous

Sickened by the behaviour of my rivals

An outpouring of local chauvinism

Vive Garin! vive le Tour!

The most abominable hard race ever imagined

A tour that had everything

Appendix : What became of the 1903 Tour's star names.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 341-342) and index.

ISBN:

9781568589848

1568589840

OCLC:

960294581