Chris Sidwells

First off when it comes to the Tour de France and bike racing in general; as of 9 days ago I knew nothing. A colleague at work, who is borderline obsessed with cycling and road races and at the moment of course the Tour itself, kept suggesting that I cast aside my doubts and at least watch a couple of the highlight shows on ITV4. I did and I am now hooked and yet still I knew nothing. Being the studious geek that I am I decided the best way to remedy that was to get me some learning and I show more searched my local library for a book that would give me a good general introduction to the Tour and in “A Race for Madmen” I think I may have found it!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it did exactly what I wanted and more besides. It is written with such an accessible style and with what appears to be a balanced view and a desire to be fair to all. Of course as this is the only book I have read on the subject, so it could be completely off the mark but it certainly didn’t feel like it. This book rattles along at a pace that James Patterson would be proud of and there are mere paragraphs in here that contain stories that could have, and indeed probably have, filled a book of their own. The characters here are larger than life, the descriptions of the racing exciting and there is enough information about the Tour's equipment, tactics, eccentricities and its highs and lows to make me feel confident in talking about the Tour with others who have known and loved it for a lot longer than the 9 days I have!

In conclusion then; this is just a brilliant book, I got full on "just one more chapter"itis and kept reading late into the night. There were moments when I was caught in the drama of the race, moments when I was laughing out loud and, as with the passage describing Tom Simpson’s death on the slopes of Mount Ventoux in 1967, moments when I had to choke back the tears. show less

Om du äger en modern cykel (standard, racer, mtb eller bmx) och vill sköta om den på bästa sätt finns det ingen bättre bok än den här. Boken går systematiskt igenom en cykels delar och visar med bra text och utmärkta bilder hur man servar, lagar, byter etc allt som kan tänkas gå sönder eller behöva justeras.

Är du intresserad av att hålla på med veterancyklar, fixies och andra specialområden finns det andra bättre källor att gå till.

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