Half Man, Half Bike

Half Man, Half Bike PDF Author: William Fotheringham
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1613747268
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
First published in Great Britain in 2012 as Merckx, half man, half bike by Yellow Jersey Press"--T.p. verso.

Half Man, Half Bike

Half Man, Half Bike PDF Author: William Fotheringham
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1613747268
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
First published in Great Britain in 2012 as Merckx, half man, half bike by Yellow Jersey Press"--T.p. verso.

Merckx

Merckx PDF Author: William Fotheringham
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0224091956
Category : Cyclists
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
Eddy Merckx is to cycling what Muhammad Ali is to boxing or Pele to football: quite simply, the best there has ever been. Throughout his professional career Merckx amassed an astonishing 445 victories. This title presents his story.

Eddy Merckx: The Cannibal

Eddy Merckx: The Cannibal PDF Author: Daniel Friebe
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1448146682
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
'The whole point of a race is to find a winner... I chose to race, so I chose to win.' For 14 years between 1965 and 1978, cyclist Edouard Louis Joseph Merckx simply devoured his rivals, their hopes and their careers. His legacy resides as much in the careers he ruined as the 445 victories - including five Tour de France wins and all the monument races - he amassed in his own right. So dominant had Merckx become by 1973 that he was ordered to stay away from the Tour for the good of the event. Stage 17 of the 1969 Tour de France perfectly illustrates his untouchable brilliance. Already wearing the yellow jersey on the col du Tourmalet, the Tour's most famous peak, Merckx powered clear and rode the last 140 kilometres to the finish-line in jaw-dropping solitude, eight minutes ahead of his nearest competitor. Merckx's era has been called cycling's Golden Age.It was full of memorable characters who, at any other time, would all have gone on to become legends. Yet Merckx's phenomenal career overshadowed them all. How did he achieve such incredible success? And how did his rivals really feel about him? Merckx failed drug tests three times in his career - were they really stitch ups as he claimed? And what of the crash at a track meet in Blois, France that killed Merckx's pacer Fernand Wambst, which Merckx claimed deeply affected him psychologically and physically? Or the attack by a spectator in 1975? Despite his unique achievements, we know little about the Cannibal beyond his victories. This will be the first comprehensive biography of Merckx in English, and will finally expose the truth behind this legendary man.

Merckx: Half Man, Half Bike

Merckx: Half Man, Half Bike PDF Author: William Fotheringham
Publisher: Yellow Jersey Press
ISBN: 9780224074513
Category : Cyclists
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Eddy Merckx is to cycing what Muhammad Ali is to boxing or Pele to football: quite simply, the best there has ever been. Throughout his professional career Merckx amassed an astonishing 445 victories. Lance Armstrong, by comparison, managed fewer than 100. This book tells Merckx's story."

Put Me Back on My Bike

Put Me Back on My Bike PDF Author: William Fotheringham
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1446435873
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Discover the story of Britain’s ultimate cyclist and his ill-fated race during the 1967 Tour de France, from the bestselling author of Half Man Half Bike Tom Simpson was an Olympic medallist, world champion and the first Briton to wear the fabled yellow jersey of the Tour de France. He died a tragic early death during the 1967 Tour. A man of contradictions, Simpson was one of the first cyclists to admit to using banned drugs, and was accused of fixing races, yet the dapper 'Major Tom' inspired awe and affection for the obsessive will to win which was ultimately to cost him his life. Put Me Back on My Bike revisits the places and people associated with Simpson to produce the definitive story of Britain's greatest ever cyclist. The fully revised and updated edition of William Fotheringham's classic biography features a new foreword and postscript further exploring the truth behind the legend. ‘The best cycling biography ever written' Velo ‘A beautiful explanation of why Simpson's legend still exerts such a powerful hold’ Sunday Times

The Monuments

The Monuments PDF Author: Peter Cossins
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408846829
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 469

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Book Description
'Peter Cossins is an engaging writer whose conversational style makes this an effortless yet interesting read. The cosy tone delivers a great deal with a good balance of history and anecdotes. If you wish to explore cycling beyond the Grand Tours this is the book.' - Carlton Kirby An awe-inspiring history of the five most legendary 'classic' races in world cycling. The Tour de France may provide the most obvious fame and glory, but it is cycling's one-day tests that the professional riders really prize. Toughest, longest and dirtiest of all are the so-called 'Monuments', the five legendary races that are the sport's equivalent of golf's majors or the grand slams in tennis. Milan–Sanremo, the Tour of Flanders, Paris–Roubaix, Liège–Bastogne–Liège and the Tour of Lombardy date back more than a century, and each of them is an anomaly in modern-day sport, the cycling equivalent of the Monaco Grand Prix. Time has changed them to a degree, but they remain as brutally testing as they ever have been. They provide the sport's outstanding one-day performers – the likes of Philippe Gilbert, Fabian Cancellara, Mark Cavendish, Tom Boonen, Peter Sagan and Thor Hushovd – with a chance to measure themselves against each other and their predecessors in the most challenging tests in world cycling. From the bone-shattering bowler-hat cobbles of the Paris–Roubaix (rumoured to be Bradley Wiggins' next challenge) to the insanely steep hellingen in the Tour of Flanders, each race is as unique as the riders who push themselves through extreme exhaustion to win them and enter their epic history. Over the course of a century, only Rik Van Looy, Eddy Merckx and Roger De Vlaeminck have won all five races. Yet victory in a single edition of a Monument guarantees a rider lasting fame. For some, that one victory has even more cachet than success in a grand tour. Each of the Monuments has a fascinating history, featuring tales of the finest and largest characters in the sport. In The Monuments, Peter Cossins tells the tumultuous history of these extraordinary races and the riders they have immortalised.

Domestique

Domestique PDF Author: Charly Wegelius
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1448148375
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
**Winner - Sweetspot Cycling Book of the Year** For 11 years I was a professional cyclist, competing in the hardest and greatest races on Earth. I was in demand from the world’s best teams, a well-paid elite athlete. But I never won a race. I was the hired help. When my mum dropped me off in a small French town aged 17, I was full of determination to be a professional cyclist, but I was completely green. I went from mowing the team manager’s lawn to winning every amateur race I entered. Then I turned pro and realised I hated the responsibility and pressure of chasing victory. And that’s when I became a domestique. I learned to take that hurt and give it everything I had to give, all for someone else’s win. When the order came in to ride I pushed out with the hardest rhythm I could, dragging the group faster and faster, until my whole body screamed with pain. There were times I rode myself to a standstill, clutching the barrier metres from the line, as the lead group shot past. But that’s what made me a so good at my job. As my career took off, I started looking at the fans lining the route, cheering us like heroes. The passion for cycling oozed off them, but they couldn’t know what it was really like. They didn’t see the terrible hotels, the crazy egos or all the shit that goes with great expectations. Well, this is how it is...

Road to Valour

Road to Valour PDF Author: Aili McConnon
Publisher: Phoenix
ISBN: 9780753828144
Category : Cyclists
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
An Italian SCHINDLER'S LIST, this is the inspirational story of Gino Bartali, who made the greatest comeback in Tour de France history and secretly aided the Italian Resistance during the Second World War. ROAD TO VALOUR is the inspiring, against-the-odds story of Gino Bartali, the cyclist who made the greatest comeback in Tour de France history and still holds the record for the longest gap between victories. Yet it was his actions during the Second World War, when he secretly aided the Resistance, rather than his remarkable exploits on a bike, that truly cemented his place in the hearts and minds of the Italian people. Based on nearly ten years of research, and including fascinating new interviews, this is the only book written that fully explores the scope of Bartali's wartime work. A breathtaking account of one man's unsung heroism and his resilience in the face of adversity, this is an epic tale of courage, comeback and redemption, and the untold story of one of the greatest athletes of the twentieth century.

The Secret Race

The Secret Race PDF Author: Tyler Hamilton
Publisher: Bantam
ISBN: 0345530438
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
“The holy grail for disillusioned cycling fans . . . The book’s power is in the collective details, all strung together in a story that is told with such clear-eyed conviction that you never doubt its veracity. . . . The Secret Race isn’t just a game changer for the Lance Armstrong myth. It’s the game ender.”—Outside NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD The Secret Race is the book that rocked the world of professional cycling—and exposed, at long last, the doping culture surrounding the sport and its most iconic rider, Lance Armstrong. Former Olympic gold medalist Tyler Hamilton was once one of the world’s top-ranked cyclists—and a member of Lance Armstrong’s inner circle. Over the course of two years, New York Times bestselling author Daniel Coyle conducted more than two hundred hours of interviews with Hamilton and spoke with numerous teammates, rivals, and friends. The result is an explosive page-turner of a book that takes us deep inside a shadowy, fascinating, and surreal world of unscrupulous doctors, anything-goes team directors, and athletes so relentlessly driven to win that they would do almost anything to gain an edge. For the first time, Hamilton recounts his own battle with depression and tells the story of his complicated relationship with Lance Armstrong. This edition features a new Afterword, in which the authors reflect on the developments within the sport, and involving Armstrong, over the past year. The Secret Race is a courageous, groundbreaking act of witness from a man who is as determined to reveal the hard truth about his sport as he once was to win the Tour de France. With a new Afterword by the authors. “Loaded with bombshells and revelations.”—VeloNews “[An] often harrowing story . . . the broadest, most accessible look at cycling’s drug problems to date.”—The New York Times “ ‘If I cheated, how did I get away with it?’ That question, posed to SI by Lance Armstrong five years ago, has never been answered more definitively than it is in Tyler Hamilton’s new book.”—Sports Illustrated “Explosive.”—The Daily Telegraph (London)

God is Dead

God is Dead PDF Author: Andy McGrath
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1473563372
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
•SHORTLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2022• •A SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE TIMES AND THE GUARDIAN• The remarkable untold story of the mercurial cycling prodigy Frank Vandenbroucke, written by William Hill award-winning author Andy McGrath. They called him God. For his grace on a bicycle, for his divine talent, for his heavenly looks. Frank Vandenbroucke had it all, and in the late Nineties he raced with dazzling speed and lived even faster. The Belgian won several of cycling's most illustrious races, including Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Paris-Nice and Ghent-Wevelgem. He was a mix of poise and panache who enthralled a generation of cycling fans. Off the bike, he only had one enemy - himself. Vandenbroucke dabbled in nocturnal party sessions mixing sleeping pills and alcohol and regularly fell out with team managers. By 1999 his team had suspended him and this proved to be the start of a long, eventful fall from grace. Depression, a drug ban, addiction, car crashes, divorce and countless court appearances subsumed his life. He threatened his wife with a gun. He tried to commit suicide twice. And when police found performance-enhancing drugs at his house, Vandenbroucke said they were for his dog. It seemed he had finally learned from his mistakes. Then, on 12 October 2009, aged just 34, Vandenbroucke was found dead in a hotel room in Senegal. Guided by exclusive contributions from his family, friends and team-mates, William Hill award-winning author Andy McGrath lays bare Vandenbroucke's chaotic, complicated life and times. God is Dead is the remarkable biography of this mercurial cycling prodigy.