Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #471927 in Books
• Published on: 2006-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 316 pages

Customer Reviews

A Labor of Love
For once the story of the Tour de France is told with the human touch that has made the race a part of France's social fabric for more than a century. Here the McGanns tell you the whole story of the Tour, not just the facts and figures of the race. In The Story of the Tour de France, you'll learn about the mindsets that made the great riders great and the tactics they employed to defeat their adversaries -- some of them their own teammates.
The authors are experts on the race and its rich history; reading this book is like sitting down with them and talking about the great race, you learn everything you need to know about it without be bombarded with facts that aren't important to a given race. Very easy to read, sometimes I felt like I was in a team meeting or in the pack with the riders. A true labor of love.

Very badly written
I really, really wanted to love this book. I'm fascinated by the TdF and cycling history in general. But The Story of the Tour de France Vol 1 is so badly written that I really had to work at it to finish.

Yes, the information is great. Yes, it's brilliant that the authors attempt to place the story of each Tour in the context of the history and social events of the time. Yes, it's obvious they know their stuff. But clunky wording that manages to unintentionally place author Les Woodland at the original meeting where the Tour was first mooted and awkward conflation of the Dreyfuss Affair with garbled comment on current world events are just two examples early on in this book of how messy a read it is.

Perhaps part of the problem is that it's geared largely towards an American audience, which could account for the over-explanation of the drama to an audience that may think the race only began when Lance Armstrong arrived on the scene.

Another bugbear is the overall physical quality of the book, which just feels cheaply put together and is far too floppy in the hand for its size. I wasn't expecting a coffee table book with glossy pictures, but as paperbacks go, this is rather shoddy.

I admire what the authors set out to achieve with this book, I'm just very disappointed with the execution. It feels like a self-published job. And the glowing praise it has received from other cycling writers/friends just feels a bit too chummy as well. I'm also at a loss to know why Carol McGann is credited as a co-author, but then completely ignored in the effusive praise that is all directed at Bill by his mates - okay, hardly a big deal but when the rest of the book left me wanting more, it was just another irritation in a long line.