Download or read book The Comeback written by Daniel de Visé and published by Atlantic Monthly Press. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Greg LeMond was Lance Armstrong before Lance Armstrong . . . the story of a true hero . . . This is a must read if you believe in miracles.”―John Feinstein, New York Times–bestselling author In July 1986, Greg LeMond stunned the sporting world by becoming the first American to win the Tour de France, the world’s pre-eminent bicycle race, defeating French cycling legend Bernard Hinault. Nine months later, LeMond lay in a hospital bed, his life in peril after a hunting accident, his career as a bicycle racer seemingly over. And yet, barely two years after this crisis, LeMond mounted a comeback almost without parallel in professional sports. In summer 1989, he again won the Tour—arguably the world’s most grueling athletic contest—by the almost impossibly narrow margin of 8 seconds over another French legend, Laurent Fignon. It remains the closest Tour de France in history. “[A] blend of chaos, kindness and cruelty typifies the scenes that journalist de Visé brings to life in this sympathetic-verging-on-reverential retelling of LeMond’s trailblazing career (first American to enter the tour, first to win it) . . . As an author in quest of his protagonist’s motivation, [de Visé] subjects it to extreme torque.”—The Washington Post “A great book . . . Well written and thoroughly researched . . . Engrossing and hard to put down. If you’re a Greg LeMond fan, The Comeback is a must read because it’s a detailed accounting of his career and―more importantly―his life and person off the bike. It’s also an important reminder that American cycling did not begin and end with Lance Armstrong.”—PEZ

Download or read book A Literary Tour de France written by Robert Darnton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The publishing industry in France in the years before the Revolution was a lively and sometimes rough-and-tumble affair, as publishers and printers scrambled to deal with (and if possible evade) shifting censorship laws and tax regulations, in order to cater to a reading public's appetite for books of all kinds, from the famous Encyclop die, repository of reason and knowledge, to scandal-mongering libel and pornography. Historian and librarian Robert Darnton uses his exclusive access to a trove of documents-letters and documents from authors, publishers, printers, paper millers, type founders, ink manufacturers, smugglers, wagon drivers, warehousemen, and accountants-involving a publishing house in the Swiss town of Neuchatel to bring this world to life. Like other places on the periphery of France, Switzerland was a hotbed of piracy, carefully monitoring the demand for certain kinds of books and finding ways of fulfilling it. Focusing in particular on the diary of Jean-Fran ois Favarger, a traveling sales rep for a Swiss firm whose 1778 voyage, on horseback and on foot, around France to visit bookstores and renew accounts forms the spine of this story, Darnton reveals not only how the industry worked and which titles were in greatest demand, but the human scale of its operations. A Literary Tour de France is literally that. Darnton captures the hustle, picaresque comedy, and occasional risk of Favarger's travels in the service of books, and in the process offers an engaging, immersive, and unforgettable narrative of book culture at a critical moment in France's history.

Download or read book Tour de France written by Christopher S. Thompson and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2008-03-08 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this highly original history of the world's most famous bicycle race, Christopher S. Thompson, mining previously neglected sources and writing with infectious enthusiasm for his subject, tells the compelling story of the Tour de France from its creation in 1903 to the present. Weaving the words of racers, politicians, Tour organizers, and a host of other commentators together with a wide-ranging analysis of the culture surrounding the event including posters, songs, novels, films, and media coverage Thompson links the history of the Tour to key moments and themes in French history. Examining the enduring popularity of Tour racers, Thompson explores how their public images have changed over the past century. A new preface explores the long-standing problem of doping in light of recent scandals.

Download or read book Tour de Force written by Mark Cavendish and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2022-07-12 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From illness and mental health challenges to becoming the most successful British cyclist at the age of 22, Mark Cavendish shares his inspiring account of his record-breaking rise to the top of the world's biggest cycling stage at the 2021 Tour de France. Deep down, Mark Cavendish thought he was finished. After illness, setbacks and clinical depression, the once fastest man in the world had been written off by most. And at the age of 36, even he believed his explosive cycling career would fade out with a whimper. The Manxman hadn't won a single Grand Tour stage in Italy, Spain, or France since 2016. But then came his incredible resurrection at the 2021 Tour de France. Included on the Deceuninck Quick-Step team at the very last minute, only after Sam Bennett suffered an injury, Mark set about rewriting history. He claimed back the green jersey he first wore in 2011, and his four stage victories finally saw him matching Belgian legend Eddy Merckx's all-time record of 34 Tour de France stage wins. Cycling greats are never content, and Cavendish's dogged determination and inner strength had earned him the record that few believed he could ever achieve. This is his own intimate account of that race, right from the saddle of the miracle tour. Praise for Tour de Force: "The greatest comeback in sports history." —GQ magazine "A miracle." —Eddy Merckx

Download or read book The First Tour de France written by Peter Cossins and published by Bold Type Books. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From its inception, the 1903 Tour de France was a colorful affair. Full of adventure, mishaps and audacious attempts at cheating, it was a race to be remembered. Cyclists of the time weren't enthusiastic about participating in this "heroic" race on roads more suited to hooves than wheels, with bikes weighing up to thirty-five pounds, on a single fixed gear, for three full weeks. Assembling enough riders for the race meant paying unemployed amateurs from the suburbs of Paris, including a butcher, a chimney sweep and a circus acrobat. From Maurice "The White Bulldog" Garin, an Italian-born Frenchman whose parents were said to have swapped him for a round of cheese in order to smuggle him into France as a fourteen-year-old, to Hippolyte Aucouturier, who looked like a villain from a Buster Keaton movie with his jersey of horizontal stripes and handlebar moustache, the cyclists were a remarkable bunch. Starting in the Parisian suburb of Montgeron, the route took the intrepid cyclists through Lyon, over the hills to Marseille, then on to Toulouse, Bordeaux, and Nantes, ending with great fanfare at the Parc des Princes in Paris. There was no indication that this ramshackle cycling pack would draw crowds to throng France's rutted roads and cheer the first Tour heroes. But they did; and all thanks to a marketing ruse, cycling would never be the same again.

Download or read book The American Cyclopaedia written by George Ripley and published by . This book was released on 1881 with total page 906 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Catalogue of Official A E F Photographs Taken by the Signal Corps U S A written by United States. War Plans Division. War Department and published by . This book was released on 1919 with total page 590 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Catalogue of Official A E F Photographs written by United States. War Department. General Staff and published by . This book was released on 1919 with total page 588 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Tour de France Updated with a New Preface written by Christopher S. Thompson and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-11-10 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this highly original history of the world's most famous bicycle race, Christopher S. Thompson, mining previously neglected sources and writing with infectious enthusiasm for his subject, tells the compelling story of the Tour de France from its creation in 1903 to the present. Weaving the words of racers, politicians, Tour organizers, and a host of other commentators together with a wide-ranging analysis of the culture surrounding the event—including posters, songs, novels, films, and media coverage—Thompson links the history of the Tour to key moments and themes in French history. Examining the enduring popularity of Tour racers, Thompson explores how their public images have changed over the past century. A new preface explores the long-standing problem of doping in light of recent scandals.

Download or read book The Official History of The Tour De France written by Andy McGrath and published by Welbeck. This book was released on 2021-10-19 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Official History of the Tour de France is a celebration of one of the greatest annual sporting events, and the premier competition in world cycling. Through more than 300 photographs, rarely-seen documents and items of memorabilia, this book covers more than a century of fascinating stories on the Tour and its iconic yellow jersey. This revised and updated edition includes an authoritative narrative account of each major era, up to and including the thrilling 2020 Tour - a dramatic contest completed against all the odds - and a preview of the 2021 event. There are features on superstar cyclists and memorable moments from each period of the event's rich history, and a foreword from legendary Tour de France champion Stephen Roche, all of which combines to form the definitive illustrated book on the Tour.

Download or read book Three Weeks Eight Seconds written by Nige Tassell and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “I was convinced deep inside that I could not lose. I could not see how it could happen.” —Laurent Fignon “I didn't think. I just rode.” —Greg LeMondFor a race as long as the mighty Tour (three weeks of testing the limits of human endurance), to have the ultimate victory decided by a margin of just eight seconds almost boggles the mind. But that’s exactly what happened between American legend Greg LeMond and Laurent Fignon. And LeMond did it on the final stage, as the two sprinted through down the Champs Elysees. It remains the smallest margin of victory in the Tour's 100+ year history. But as dramatic as that Sunday afternoon was, the race wasn't just about that one time-trial. The leader's yellow jersey had swapped back and forth between LeMond and Fignon in a titanic struggle for supremacy, a battle with more twists and turns than an Alpine mountain pass. At no point during the entire three weeks were the pair separated by more than 53 seconds, a razor thin margin between ultimate triumph or agonizing torment. And all this despite LeMond's body still carrying more than 30 shotgun pellets after a shooting accident. Three Weeks, Eight Seconds brings one of cycling's most astonishing stories to life, examining that extraordinary race in all its multifaceted glory.

Download or read book The American Cyclopaedia written by and published by . This book was released on 1876 with total page 1530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Lance Armstrong written by Sandra Donovan and published by Lerner Publications. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicles the life of the American cyclist and cancer survivor who won six consecutive Tour de France races.

Download or read book Le Tour written by Geoffrey Wheatcroft and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2004 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 60 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 20th century.

Download or read book Feminism and the Politics of Travel After the Enlightenment written by Yaël Rachel Schlick and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2012 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking the Enlightenment and the feminist tradition to which it gave rise as its historical and philosophical coordinates, Feminism and the Politics of Travel After the Enlightenment explores the coincidence of feminist vindications and travel in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the way travel's utopian dimension and feminism's utopian ideals have intermittently fed off each other in productive ways. Travel's gender politics is analyzed in the works of J.-J. Rousseau, Mary Wollstonecraft, Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis, Germaine de Staël, Frances Burney, Flora Tristan, Suzanne Voilquin, Gustave Flaubert George Sand, Robyn Davidson, and Sara Wheeler.

Download or read book The Tour de France written by Christopher S. Thompson and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2008-04-07 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Shows that sport has been for us moderns the ultimate tabula rasa into which we pour our hopes, fears, prejudices and self-interest."—Robert A. Nye, author of Crime, Madness, & Politics in Modern France and Masculinity and Male Codes of Honor in Modern France "Chris Thompson has written an engaging, nicely-paced account of France's world-famous cycle race: his writing is lively and full of detail and excitement. But he has done much more than simply narrate the story of the Tour. His book sets the race—its history, its participants and its meaning—firmly in its shifting national and cultural contexts. The sections dealing with professional cycling as a form of labor and with the Tour's place in France's troubled twentieth century are absolutely first-rate: insightful and original. This is the best history of the Tour that we have and are likely to have for many years, a work of scholarship that deserves to find a broad general readership."—Tony Judt, author of Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945

Download or read book Sprinting Through No Man s Land written by Adin Dobkin and published by Little A. This book was released on 2021-07 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inspiring, heart-pumping true story of soldiers turned cyclists and the historic 1919 Tour de France that helped to restore a war-torn country and its people. On June 29, 1919, one day after the Treaty of Versailles brought about the end of World War I, nearly seventy cyclists embarked on the thirteenth Tour de France. From Paris, the war-weary men rode down the western coast on a race that would trace the country's border, through seaside towns and mountains to the ghostly western front. Traversing a cratered postwar landscape, the cyclists faced near-impossible odds and the psychological scars of war. Most of the athletes had arrived straight from the front, where so many fellow countrymen had suffered or died. The cyclists' perseverance and tolerance for pain would be tested in a grueling, monthlong competition. An inspiring true story of human endurance, Sprinting Through No Man's Land explores how the cyclists united a country that had been torn apart by unprecedented desolation and tragedy. It shows how devastated countrymen and women can come together to celebrate the adventure of a lifetime and discover renewed fortitude, purpose, and national identity in the streets of their towns.