Hearts of lions : the history of American bicycle racing / Peter Joffre Nye ; foreword by Eric Heiden.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nye, Peter, 1947- author.

Contributor:

Heiden, Eric, writer of foreword.

University of Nebraska Press.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Bicycle racing--United States.

Bicycle racing.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Edition:

Second edition.

Place of Publication:

Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, [2020]

Summary:

Bike racers were America's media darlings less than a century ago--dashing, eccentric, and very rich daredevils. Until the 1920s bike races drew larger crowds than all other American sports events, including Major League Baseball games. Prize-winning racer and journalist Peter Joffre Nye vividly re-creates this period of sports history, forgotten until now, in Hearts of Lions , a true story of courage, daring, and occasional lunacy. Revised, updated, and expanded, this second edition of Hearts of Lions is based on interviews with more than one thousand cyclists whose racing careers span from 1908 through the 2016 Rio Olympics, along with interviews with trainers and family members. Included are stories about Joseph Magnani, the lone American from southern Illinois who rode on the dusty roads of Europe in road racing's golden era of the 1930s and 1940s; Lance Armstrong, whose rise in the mid-1990s was eclipsed in the doping era that still casts a long shadow over the sport; Kristin Armstrong, a three-time Olympic gold medalist who set new standards for women in cycling; and Evelyn "Evie" Stevens, who chucked a Wall Street career in her mid-twenties to compete in two Olympics and win several world championship gold medals. Hearts of Lions is a colorful, exciting, classic work on the art of bicycle racing over 140 years against a backdrop of social, political, and technical changes.

Contents:

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contents

Foreword

Part 1

1. To the White House

2. The Fastest Things on Wheels

3. Gentlemen Amateurs Turn Professional

4. John M. Chapman, Czar of Cycling

5. A Bizarre Twist

6. Wonderful Nonsense in the Jazz Age

7. Sputtering to an End

Part 2

8. L'Américain

9. Jack Heid, America's Premier Cyclist

10. The Allure and Agony of European Road Racing

11. Outside Normal Limits

12. America's First Woman National Champion

13. Pedali Alpini

14. The Rainbow at the End of the Crash

Part 3

15. The Awakening

16. Breaking Away

17. The Drought Finally Ends

18. The Americans Are Coming, the Americans Are Coming

19. "The Day the Big Men Cried"

20. Liars Club

21. Queen of the Oval Hour

22. The Match Sprinters

23. A Mother, Three Olympics, Three Gold Medals

24. The Summing Up

Acknowledgments

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

"First edition published 1988"--T.p. verso.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-4962-2133-8

1-4962-2135-4

OCLC:

1145340035