@Blackpooltower is obviously spending all his n+1 money on new cycling books, or he works in the little seen cycling-specific bookshop. Either way, he is nice enough to catch us all up on what is vvorthy. The lead image alone is enough, it’s fantastic. It’s worthy of its own article or, even better, a movie.
It is not too late for hints dropped for the cyclist-who-has-everything’s (impossible) holiday gifts. I want them all, hint, hint. And chapeau @Blackpooltower for thinking of us illiterate handlebar-tape chewing beasts.
Your in Cycling, Gianni
The autobiography is a medium particularly well suited to the needs of the racing cyclist. What other platform affords such scope to settle scores, explain away failures, relive glories and bitch about bad luck at length and without danger of interruption?
In fact I’ve often wondered if one of the reasons sporting ghost-writers get paid so well is that, like beekeepers with stings, there’s a threshold to the amount of self-justification one person can hear before they simply go mental. It’s actually psychic danger money these guys are earning.
Cycling memoirs are a mixed bag at best, but we may as well get used to them: much as a wine enthusiast has to tolerate being given ever more superfluous corkscrews each Christmas, so a cycling fan will receive the latest biog of their country’s top pro, like it or not.
What follows is a personal selection of the three best cycling books of the year. But first, a roundup of some of the rest:
The Climb by Chris Froome is worthy but unmemorable, except for the early years in Kenya, which are startlingly pythony (and no, I don’t mean Pythonesque; he was really, really into pythons). At Speed is Mark Cavendish’s latest. He’s driven, he’s demanding, he’s a bit of a nightmare to live with … you know it already.
If the superstars’ books feature a lot of abandonments, crashes and moments of not-winning, the domestiques’ contain little else. So when you embark on the story of someone who has taken the cycling equivalent of the vows of the Black Watch and have all but renounced winning, for life … it can be a bit of a trudge, but a bracing and instructive one, if written well (see Domestique, Le Metier and Dog in a Hat).
Christophe Bassons didn’t set out to be a domestique, but his bloody-minded and almost masochistic stand against doping made anything else impossible, as he relates in A Clean Break. If you’ve never understood why it’s hard for a rider to resist doping, check out Bassons’ life on the road and the schoolyard bullying he endured day after day. It’s a worthy document of a heroic career, but you do find yourself muttering “Oh why can’t you just … win something, Christophe?”
And if you really want to wallow in failure, Lanterne Rouge is a well-researched and witty view from the (very) back of the pack.
V-Books of the Year
Rule #10 Award: Legends of the Tour by Jan Cleijne
Who knew cycling and bandes dessines were a match made in heaven? Jan Cleijne, clearly. You only need to see one panel of this superb graphic work to understand why: Eddy Merckx and The Man With the Hammer. This book thrillingly celebrates the myths of cycling in (super-)heroic comic book style. I handed this to my ten year old son, saying “You want to know why I like cycling? …”
As a concentrated lesson in cycling never getting easier, just faster, and in Looking Fantastic through every era, this is hard to top.
Rule #9 Award: Gironimo! by Tim Moore
“My genitals have now come back to life – and in some style, if I may say so.”
Don’t be put off by the “quirky” cover, which seems to place this book in the contrivance-heavy genre of “oddball travel memoir”. This is an exceptional and highly V-relevant book.
Even a straight history of the 1914 Giro – diabolical in its length and its conditions – would be worth reading. This book goes quite a bit further: Tim Moore builds a period bike – wooden rims, cork pads and all – then rides the fucker round the whole route, treating us to amusing tales of his own misfortunes and a parallel commentary of the ’14 race. Moore is insightful, inspiring and very funny, whether dispensing hard-won road wisdom (“The touring cyclist’s core skill: being asleep when it’s raining”) or offering up his own misfortunes for our entertainment (“I dismounted like a dalek at a rodeo”). A classic.
Rule #71 Award: Faster by Michael Hutchinson
Michael Hutchinson, or Doctor Hutch, will be known to many for his journalism and also The Hour – the outstanding set text for all followers of the resurgent hour record competition.
Faster is a gloriously nerdy survey of all the things cyclists do to get faster. Hutchinson examines them all in turn with the twin objectives of a) evaluating their effectiveness and b) taking the piss out of them when appropriate. And it is always appropriate.
In his overwhelming obsession with the minutiae of cycling and matching refusal to take it too seriously, Doctor Hutch is one of us. Just quite a bit faster (blame his lungs, whose output numbers are apparently “in horse territory”).
When he’s not laughing at pros with their beet-pink urine and their hatstand physiques, he can be very profound on the central truths of the sport.
“Parts of an athlete’s life are hard, yes. But having the chance to devote yourself to something that’s both so extraordinary and so unnecessary means it’s also rather wonderful.”
Honourable mentions go to The Ride Journal and The Cycling Anthology, which have joined Rouleur as exceptional sources of contemporary cycling writing. The former is a non-profit and invites submissions from anyone. The latter is based in the established sports writing community but no less passionate for it, and always surprises and delights. Oh and I can’t not mention Ned Boulting’s 101 Damnations, for sheer charm.
Stop press: Bike Mechanic by Guy Andrews has just been delivered. It might be the best bike book ever.
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Reckless: The Life and Times of Luis Ocana by Alasdair Fotheringham is well worth a read. Not only one of the few people to give Merckx a proper test but a complex and interesting character as well. As unconventional as Anquetil.
Good selection, and I will add Legends of the Tour to my list. Sounds like one for hard copy not Kindle.
Faster would be my cycling book of the year, because Hutch writes so well and really brings to life a very nerdy and obscure segment of cycling in a way which anyone who has trained or tried to be competitive, at any level, will appreciate.
Gironimo has some good anecdotes and it is worth a read but don't expect it to be so eye-wateringly funny as French Revolutions. Sometimes though I find his cluelessness a little frustrating and it wears thin. Like reading about someone trekking to the south pole and not realising it was going to be really cold; there is humour in the situation but it contends with the desire to just slap them.
I would give Lanterne Rouge a bit more praise. Although there are certainly some hapless and unfortunate instances it isn't just about wallowing in failure. It is often a celebration of determination and bravery. And as you say it is very well researched - not just stories gather from press archives but interviews and meetings with quite a few of the people involved which brings it to life very well.
@Deakus
I have read that one @deakus. As you say, some of it made for uncomfortable reading and I find it hard to find empathy with someone as narcissistic as Anquetil. But as a rider, he was exceptional. There was a recent post on velominati of him riding out of the doors of his chateau which kind of completed the loop.
Thanks for the reviews, will look into them all.
If I may make a modest contribution:
Etape: The untold stories of the defining stages of the Tour de France's defining stages (Richard Moore)
Bike! A tribute to the worlds greatest racing bicycles (Richard Moore and Daniel Benson)
@PT Agree about Etape; fascinating stories in there. And thank you.
@ChrisO You're right - I didn't quite give Lanterne Rouge its due. It's a very well written and insightful book. And yes, good call about Legends - definitely need the physical thing!
@ChrisO
My reaction to Michael Hutchinson's The Hour was like yours to Gironimo, I wanted to say, if this was easy anyone would do it, FFS.
But I might still have to read this. It sounds like some of the British mountaineering epics where these things are planned in a pub only because it sounds like a good (drunk) idea and even the next morning they continue to go forward.
It's somehow reassuring that the man with the hammer wears cycling shorts and maybe shaves his legs. He must be an ex-pro, who stalks the earth to teach cyclists those life lessons that can only be learned one way.
@Gianni
No way in hell, not with an upper body like that. The Man With The Hammer is a professional rockbreaker and definitely Hard, but he's not a cyclist. He's the enemy.
Sean Yates is probably the pro cyclist least likely to lose a bar fight, and he is a tiny twig of a man compared to The Hammer.
@SamFromTex
Much has been written about the man, but little as to his identity as a cyclist. I always assumed he was one of us, in a sense, for what other reason works he be out lurking on the road?