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Title details for The First Tour de France by Peter Cossins - Available

The First Tour de France

Sixty Cyclists and Nineteen Days of Daring on the Road to Paris

by Peter Cossins
Joseph Kloska
Audiobook
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From its inception, the 1903 Tour de France was a colorful affair. Full of adventure, mishaps and audacious attempts at cheating, it was a race to be remembered.
Cyclists of the time weren't enthusiastic about participating in this "heroic" race on roads more suited to hooves than wheels, with bikes weighing up to thirty-five pounds, on a single fixed gear, for three full weeks. Assembling enough riders for the race meant paying unemployed amateurs from the suburbs of Paris, including a butcher, a chimney sweep and a circus acrobat. From Maurice "The White Bulldog" Garin, an Italian-born Frenchman whose parents were said to have swapped him for a round of cheese in order to smuggle him into France as a fourteen-year-old, to Hippolyte Aucouturier, who looked like a villain from a Buster Keaton movie with his jersey of horizontal stripes and handlebar moustache, the cyclists were a remarkable bunch.
Starting in the Parisian suburb of Montgeron, the route took the intrepid cyclists through Lyon, over the hills to Marseille, then on to Toulouse, Bordeaux, and Nantes, ending with great fanfare at the Parc des Princes in Paris. There was no indication that this ramshackle cycling pack would draw crowds to throng France's rutted roads and cheer the first Tour heroes. But they did; and all thanks to a marketing ruse, cycling would never be the same again.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    June 6, 2017

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781478975205
      • File size: 240438 KB
      • Duration: 08:20:54

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Library Journal

      Starred review from July 1, 2017

      Longtime cycling journalist Cossins (Alpe D'Huez) adeptly sifts fiction from fact using contemporary news sources from the early 20th century to provide a historically accurate account of how a multistage bike race, held over the span of weeks and involving equal parts spectacle and marketing genius, evolved into the most famous race of all time: the Tour de France. Cossins's work is distinct in that it focuses on the events that led up to and took place over the course of the first Tour de France in 1903. This first race represented more than merely a contest of superhuman proportions; it also mirrored a time of great technological progress, illustrating how the power of communication via mass produced print media can help inform and influence readers (not to mention increase circulation sales and advertising revenues), and assisted in the process of overall nation building. The author's detailed yet not overwhelming technical style will make readers clamor for more; especially as the 104th edition of the Tour de France approaches. VERDICT Highly recommended for all sports fans.--John N. Jax, Univ. of Wisconsin Lib., La Crosse

      Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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