Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5740 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

The Times
'Paul Kimmage's Rough Ride pierces the essence of the race more
than other [book]'

Synopsis
First published in 1990, "Rough Ride" is one of the greatest books ever written about the life of a professional athlete. Almost twenty years later, Yellow Jersey is publishing an updated edition of this cycling classic, with a new foreword by the author which reflects on his life both inside and outside the sport. Paul Kimmage's boyhood dreams were of cycling glory: wearing the yellow jersey, cycling the Tour de France, becoming a national hero. He knew it wouldn't come easy, but he was prepared to put in the graft: he spent his teenage years cycling an average of 400 miles per week. The dedication began to pay off. As an amateur, he represented his country and finished sixth in the World Championships. In 1986, he turned professional. That's when reality hit. He soon discovered it wasn't about glory and courage, and it wasn't about how much training you put in or how much you wanted to win. It was about gruelling defeats, complete and utter exhaustion, and it was about drugs. Not drugs that would ensure victory, but drugs that would allow you to finish the race and start another day. Paul Kimmage left the sport to write this book.

It is a powerful and frank account that breaks the law of silence surrounding the issue of drugs in sport. An eye-opening expose and a heartbreaking lament, it is a book that anyone interested in any sport should read.

Customer Reviews

Phenomenal book, full of the contradictions of life on a bike.
Loved it. The latter edition has some articles and interviews which reflect on the ethics of the peloton not having changed from 89. Many people complain about Kimmage's partisan ire and lack of impartiality, but in the initial book it is nothing of the sort. The book is essentially a diary of his personal sporting troubles, and the acceptance that the organisations of cycling force nearly all young riders to reflect that to compete for any length of time doping is a necessity. He talks about his teammates drug use, but in the main it is a general look at the pressures and reality of doping during the tour/season.

It's full of contradictions that nearly all of us have apart from the Merx's, Hinault's and Armstrong's. Kimmage doesn't avoid the accounts of multiple failures and retirements from races. It's clear that he doesn't have the single-mindedness mentality and dedication for winning but also that he had the talent to compete in stages. Without performance enhancers he would never compete on his favoured routes.

The bitterness froths on the subsequent cycling & media aggression towards him. Was he right? Yes. He wasn't attacking his fellow cyclists, bombastic idiots like McQuaid saw fit to undermine him at every turn. It's a shame that McQuaid didn't put some effort into preventing the systemic drug abuse, that led to so many lives being destroyed by EPO in the 90's.

To all the people criticising Kimmage for his lack of proffessionalism, take a moment to think if you ever could get anywhere near finishing the tour. Then think if your true love of cycling would sustain through having to waste yourself for the team, whilst knowing you were racing
against doped up rivals. Yes he becomes very bitter, mainly after the abuse he receives from the cycling administration that should be ensuring a clean peloton.

Interesting insight
I've read this book twice now.

I agree with some reviewers that there seems to be hypocrisy in Kimmage's accounts - he claims some of his friends and himself are victims of the pressure to dope just to survive however put Landis and Rasmussen up there in the same situation and they are villans.

However what must be remembered is that the villification of Landis et all by Kimmage happened a full 14 years AFTER the first part of the book.
By this time Kimmage has seen countless sabre rattling false dawns of "we'll clean this up" and each time it comes to nothing.

It needs to be remembered that Kimmage's peers that doped in the 80's are running the sport now.

I've read some of his comments in his newspaper articles and it seems has been left betrayed that the sport he loved could harbour so many
years of cheats. Even the great Jacques Anquetil said "Do you think we did all that with just water in our bottles?"

Even the new holier than thou brigade (David Millar) don't come out of this clean on his return to the Peleton he takes advise from the very doctor who 2 of his clients have been implicated in the Peurto scandal. So you can understand Kimmage's "will they ever learn" attitude.

Ironic as i write this that Spain have just won Euro 2008 and yet in the Puerto scandal of 100+ samples seized 24 are alledged to come from La Liga footballers.... Football has no EPO or blood doping controls just amphetamines and class A drugs......

A good enthralling read.

A Sad Tale that Had to Be Written
What's it like to be a wonderfully talented amateur bicycle racer who gets thrown into the meat-grinder of professional cycling? Kimmage answers the question in honest yet depressing detail.

An example: This book explains that the fatigued riders who did not place in the final stage of the Tour wouldn't be tested for dope, so they were free to take amphetamines. Reading "Rough Ride" is a lot like driving by a car crash. You really want to avert your eyes but can't. Kimmage's story of life as a cycling domestique is fascinating.

Kimmage makes it very clear that he is only telling his own personal story and not accusing any other rider in particular. But the practices he exposes clearly indict the entire profession. His revelations of the culture of doping within the peloton brought him withering criticism. He wasn't the first to get in trouble for revealing cycling's nasty underside. Bernard Thévenet almost died of liver failure from overuse of corticoids. When he confessed that doping was the cause of his health problems and that doping was a common practice within the peloton, the 2-time Tour winner suffered terrible opprobrium from the press, his sponsor and his fellow racers.

I believe Kimmage's book is the first (at least in English) to detail at length what life as a professional truly entailed. Since then former professional Erwann Menthéour has also written a memoir about doping in cycling which, to the best of my knowledge, has not been translated. Both he and Kimmage explained that the term for revealing cyclists' doping to the public is called "spitting in the soup". Menthéour's (who was caught using EPO) reply was "People are saying I am spitting in the soup, but it is necessary when it is poison." In the last year the wall of silence regarding doping has come tumbling down and several famous racers have confessed their misdeeds.

Yet Kimmage's book is the seminal tome and writing it was an act of courage.

The book is more than about doping. It details Kimmage's own failure to properly train and prepare for some seasons. He also describes the gut-busting exhaustion that the lesser riders suffer as they work at their limits for their more talented team leaders.

"Rough Ride" is a well-written book about racing in the 1980s but its lessons apply to the present. It is important reading for any cycling fan with an interest in what it takes to produce the spectacle we so enjoy watching.

- Bill McGann, author of The Story of the Tour de France