Product Description

The first book to cover in detail every major climb ever used in the Tour de France, including detail on the actual route (with maps and profile), length, height, list of winners and route descriptions of how to emulate the King of the Mountains and get from the bottom to the top. Every year the Tour de France is said to only really start when it reaches the first mountain stages: the drama of the race only really begins as the climbers take over in the Pyrenees, Vosges or Alps. The Tour is also the most famous classic in cycling and draws huge audiences to the TV and internet coverage (the official web site holds the world record for number of hits excluding search engines). But the route of the Tour is not just for professionals. A growing number of people now take their bikes and actually do a stage of the Tour (the Etap - for amateurs, which this year attracted 8,000 people to climb one of the hardest mountain stages in the Tour) or spend a week doing some of the more notorious climbs (Ventoux - where Tommy Simpson died in the 50s). This book is for everyone who watches the Tour and has even the slightest of an inkling that they'd like to do at least one of the climbs. Packed with information on each climb, this is the ultimate guide to the Tour climbs, which will remain important for many years to come (the Tour only uses a set number of climbs, which they return to every couple of years). Contents - Eastern Pyrenees, Central Pyrenees, Western Pyrenees, Vosges & Jura, Massif & Cevennes, Northern Alps, Central Alps and Southern Alps

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9281 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

About the Author
By Chris Sidwells

Customer Reviews

No profiles, v.poor maps, v. poor tour history
Hmmmmm!!! Yes this book does list all of the Tour climbs and gives some nice anecdotes on each ones history and some nice pictures but it should have been so, so much more.

The "maps" advertised on the back of the book are no more than simple diagrams, the history of the climb is almost non-existent and worst of all there are no climb profiles!!

Bring out a book with decent maps, profiles, a list of stages/tours they featured in, their category and who won on them (mountain top finishes) and perhaps then you'd have a book work shelling £25 out for - disappointing....

Coffee table rather than useful reference
Best things about this book are the page size (large), the typographic layout (stylish yet well-ordered) and that it is printed in full colour throughout, unlike cycling books by cash-strapped smaller publishers.

As mentioned, the text layout is well structured, with each climb having an introductory side-column of information listing the perceived relative difficulty, length, average gradients, etc, in addition to the main text that deals with the description and Tour history aspects.

However it was a fatal mistake by the publisher and/or author to not include proper maps and gradient profiles. There's a kind of whispy-looking doodle of a map for each climb, placed in the margins of the pages, but the twistiness of a route is less important to riders hauling their weight uphill than knowing more precisely how steep it is going to be at various points and where the changes of gradient pitch will occur. By omitting the potentially useful diagrams that are promised in the sales blurb (see the Product Description) the book has been relegated to the level of a mere coffee table book, rather than the useful reference tool that it could have been. It should have been both really.

I'll skip the copy-editing deficiencies, except to say that these are embarrassing evidence of insufficient time being allowed for proof-reading and corrections.

A lesser complaint is the quality of some of the photographs, which sometimes look over-exposed. In some cases the images look like they have been scanned from low budget prints. I know it can be difficult to photograph a scene in harsh bright summer sunlight on these mountains, where there are extremes of light and shade, but I wish a bit of time was spent doing some digital correction work to hide the technical defects. Generally, I think the layout of the photos nicely integrates them with the text, although the chapter opener spreads are a little bit bland compared to the other pages. Perhaps the openers could have been made more useful by also including, as another reviewer suggests, some kind of regional map marking the relative locations of the climbs included in the chapter.

There are a number of similar books to this one published in France. Most don't have such beautiful typography as Tour Climbs, but they all have more useful diagrammatic information. Of them, the book 'Grands cols - les montagnes du tour de France à velo' (by Nicolas Moreau-Delaquis) is the one closest in form to Sidwells' book, yet it also manages to include full page colour maps and gradient cross-sections as part of the package.

So, in other words, despite Tour Climbs' good points, the ultimate guide in English has yet to be produced. Hopefully, if Collins ever correct the text for a future edition they will also give us some locational maps and include an appendix section of gradient profiles - then we can all award it the 5 star reviews that a book like this ought to have.

Rather disappointing
First, I have never seen such a badly-edited book from a mainstream publisher. The copy-editor should simply be fired. There is barely a page without a spelling mistake, punctuation howler or stylistic blunder. I was resigned to this by the time I arrived at page 26 to find a cross-head instruction remaining on the page, but the mistakes just kept mounting up. Perhaps other readers will be less sensitive. The author has been let down by his editor, presumably to ensure the book is out in time for this year's Tour.

Second, the squiggles that pass for 'maps' are pointless. It would have been much better to pay the copyright fee and use maps like the one on the back of the dustjacket (which is a little misleading: don't expect more of these inside).

Third, regional maps with a numbered key to the climbs in each chapter would have helped the reader locate each climb on a regional road map.

Fourth, the heavy, coffee-table format and glossy production work are not in keeping with the practical aspects of the text. There are masses of photographs, a lot of them beautiful but a lot of them pointless. Many of these could have been discarded and a smaller, lighter book would have been the result. Touring cyclists will not be able to pack this book for the journey.

The author evidently knows his stuff, but has been let down by the publisher. A clearer focus on what this book was intended for could have made it of much more practical value.