Veteran - LVRC

Reviews
French Revolutions – cycling the Tour
de France: Tim Moore. Yellow Jersey
Press 2001. 277 pages paperback,
£12.00. ISBN 0-224-06095-3
Tim Moore. Sporting status: not a
couch potato. Previous experience of
cycling: commuting on a Bickerton; six
months on a girly bike from a stolenproperty
auction; four-day MTB trip
across Iceland with his brother-in-law;
ten-year seasonal ob-session with the
Tour de France. None of which
explains a rush of blood at 36 which
results in a ride round (most of) the
route of the 2000 Tour, suffering pain
and humiliation, but discovering the
hero inside himself and being very
funny on the way.
There’s plenty of inventive fun:
Captain Scott bewildered by his view
of South Poland; the contrast between
looking the part and looking a prat –
not just an anagram; the excitement
when a hotel proprietor identifies him
as Roger Moore’s son; the ‘deeply
poxy’ French breakfasts; his resort to
‘manual obscenity’ when his French
isn’t up to the verbal kind; ‘coq au van’
as a name for a roadkill; and Bernard
Hinault’s fearsome demeanour suggesting
that ‘he’d been told that some
bloke up the road was prancing about
in a wedding dress singing, ‘Bernard,
Bernard, je m’apelle Bernard.’
In the interests of comedy there’s a
good deal of literary licence. Charly
Gaul was by no means the first cyclist
to pee on the move. Percy Stannard
usually spelled his name with a double
L. Merckx’s cannibal year was 1969,
not 70.
But here are also moments of
revelation, little epiphanies: ‘In
conquering the savage beauty around
me I have become its creator.’ Heroic
legends: Eugéne Christophe, Tom
Simpson. Laments: the death of the
French small town as the young flee to
the cities. And learning experiences:
Moore is amazed to find that his
intestinal agonies are down to not
washing his water bottles. And did you
know that 18 th May is St Eric’s Day?
See. You can learn things from books.
What I find remarkable is that, with his
limited preparation, Moore does so
well, finally achieving 280 kilometres
in a (very long) day.
Moore is a better writer than the
much more famous Bill Bryson, and
his book is immensely enjoyable.
Enjoy.
Ray Minovi
Tour de France – the history, the
legend, the riders: Graeme Fife.
Mainstream Publishing, 2000. 255
pages paperback, £9.99. ISBN 1-
84018-284-9
Based on the writer’s ‘25-year addiction
to this unique event’ (half of my
own), this is, says Fife, ‘an attempt to
get inside the Tour’s mystique’ rather
than a history. History is there, but in
snapshots, or video clips, much of it
well known, some of it less wellretailed,
much necessarily left out. The
rest recounts Fife’s own climbs of the
major Alpine cols: L’Alpe d’Huez,
Télégraphe, Glandon, Galibier, Izoard,
Vars, while his thoughts stray to the
great riders who preceded him. The
accounts of what and who he’s
thinking about are much better than
the story of his own struggles, which
are often done in a sort of writing-bynumbers,
tricked out with literary
quotations unnaturally transplanted.
Fife is too good a writer to need these
pretentious supporting devices.
My heroes aren’t always the same as
Fife’s. I recognise talent in any performer,
but my admiration for
Virenque’s attacking style is limited; I
reserve my respect for those who can
hack it without being fuelled by
steroids and EPO. Fife almost despises
Indurain (‘Lovely man; no brain’ he
patronises) for husbanding his resources
and playing to his strengths;
but Anquetil, who did exactly the
same, plus being a druggie and a
cheat, gets his wholehearted admiration.
Incidentally, the latter emerges as
the most talented shit cycling has ever
seen – perhaps the instinctive recognition
of this is why the fans never took
him to their hearts as they did Vietto
and Poulidor.
It’s an attractive book. There’s an
insert of eight photos and a useful
index. Georges Ronsse (not Rousse)
was world champion. Big sprockets
give you a smaller gear, not a larger
one. Incidentally the story of Bartali
searching the route for Coppi’s discarded
bottle so he could find out
what the campionissmo was on isn’t
apocryphal – Bartali himself tells it.
A few errors, but a thoroughly
enjoyable book to add to your shelf of
addictions.
Ray Minovi
The Long Distance Cyclist’s Handbook:
Simon Doughty. A & C Black,
2001. 216 pages paperback, £14.99.
ISBN 0-7136-5819-3
You may think that covering miles at
below winter training pace merely for
its own sake is a bit like train-spotting.
But there are upsides: you do get to
enjoy a lot of scenery during the
daytime parts; there’s the undeniable
sense of achievement; it keeps you fit;
and there’s none of that aggressive,
beating other people – you’re competing
against yourself, the terrain, and
the weather.
For superannuated racing cyclists
Audax is probably the most attractive
alternative – stripped bike, higher
speeds, any distance you want, really.
Simon Doughty takes you through
equipment, bike set-up, clothing, food
and water, health and hygiene, safe
cycling, maintenance, travelling
abroad, and navigation – don’t blindly
follow others who ‘seem to know
where they’re going’. I wouldn’t much
enjoy some of the bikes photographed,
particularly the one on page 55 attached
to a trailer the size of an Eddie
Stobart truck, with a leather saddle
pointing down at 15 degrees – not my
idea of pleasure or safety. But then,
leather was what we made do with
while we waited for superior manmade
products to come along.
There’s training, from first principles
to periodisation, tapering and peaking.
Finally we look at training for specific
events, from 200 km randonnées to
the Race Across America, an event so
demanding that more people have
flown in outer space than have completed
it. No way, Miguel, as Del Boy
would say.
If you can learn anything from a
book, then this one gives you absolutely
everything you need, and it’s
always clear, lucid, no frills. Not really
for would-be racing cyclists, (though
they’d learn something), but the longdistance
aspirant will find it not only
immensely useful, but unique – I don’t
know of another book that covers the
subject.
Ray Minovi
Page 16 Veteran Leaguer: Winter 2002