Le Tour: A History of the Tour de France, 1903-2003

Le Tour: A History of the Tour de France, 1903-2003
ISBN-10
0743449924
ISBN-13
9780743449922
Category
History
Pages
389
Language
English
Published
2004
Publisher
Simon and Schuster
Author
Geoffrey Wheatcroft

Description

When Henri Desgrange began a new bicycle road race in 1903, he saw it as little more than a temporary publicity stunt to promote his newspaper. The sixty cyclists who left Paris to ride through the night to Lyons that first July had little idea they were pioneers of the most famous of all bike races, which would reach its centenary as one of the greatest sporting events on earth. Geoffrey Wheatcroft's masterly history of the Tour de France's first hundred years is not just a hugely entertaining canter through some great Tour stories; nor is it merely a homage to the riders whose names -- Coppi, Simpson, Mercx, Armstrong -- are synonymous with the event's folly and glory; focusing too on the race's role in French cultural life it provides a unique and fascinating insight into Europe's twentieth century.

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