The first Tour de France : sixty cyclists and nineteen days of daring on the road to Paris /
The first Tour de France was a far cry from the polished international sporting event we see on television today. Organized by the financially free falling L'Auto magazine, the desperate editors thought that organizing a grand cycling tour was the only thing that could save their publication. B...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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| 020 | |a 9781568589848 |q (hardcover) | ||
| 020 | |a 1568589840 |q (hardcover) | ||
| 035 | |a (OCoLC)960294581 | ||
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| 082 | 0 | 4 | |a 796.620944 |2 23 |
| 100 | 1 | |a Cossins, Peter |e author. | |
| 245 | 1 | 4 | |a The first Tour de France : |b sixty cyclists and nineteen days of daring on the road to Paris / |c Peter Cossins. |
| 246 | 3 | 0 | |a Sixty cyclists and nineteen days of daring on the road to Paris |
| 246 | 3 | |a 60 cyclists and nineteen days of daring on the road to Paris | |
| 300 | |a ix, 358 pages : |b illustrations ; |c 22 cm | ||
| 504 | |a Includes bibliographical references (pages 341-342) and index. | ||
| 520 | |a The first Tour de France was a far cry from the polished international sporting event we see on television today. Organized by the financially free falling L'Auto magazine, the desperate editors thought that organizing a grand cycling tour was the only thing that could save their publication. But in 1903, cyclists weren't enthusiastic about what was pitched to them as a heroic race through roads more suited to hooves than wheels, with bikes weighing up to forty-four pounds, on a single fixed gear, for three full weeks. Assembling enough riders for the race meant bribing unemployed laborers from the suburbs of Paris, including a butcher, a blacksmith, a chimney sweep, and a wrestler. Through these characters' backstories, Cossins paints a nuanced portrait of France in the early 1900's. The race itself is packed with mishaps and adventure--in part due to the fact that water was scarce at the time, so the men drank wine and beer throughout, often keeling over from their bicycles in a drunken stupor. There was no indication that a ramshackle cycling pack would draw crowds to throng France's rutted roads and cheer the first Tour heroes. But they did, and cycling would never be the same again.--Provided by publisher. | ||
| 611 | 2 | 0 | |a Tour de France (Bicycle race) |d (1903 : |c France) |
| 650 | 0 | |a Bicycle racing |x History. | |
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