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The first Tour de France : sixty cyclists and nineteen days of daring on the road to Paris / Peter Cossins.

by Cossins, Peter.

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Nation Books, c2017.

796.620944 C836f

Tour de France (Bicycle race) (1903 : France)

Tour de France (Bicycle race) -- History.

Bicycle racing -- France -- History.

Endurance sports -- France.

9781568589848 (hc., Nation Books USA ed.)

9780224100656 (hc., Yellow Jersey Press UK ed.)

Alternate title:

Butcher, blacksmith, acrobat, sweep : the tale of the first Tour de France.

ix, 358 p., [8] p. : ill. ; 22 cm.

Published in the United Kingdom as Butcher, blacksmith, acrobat, sweep : the tale of the first Tour de France by Yellow Jersey Press in 2017.

[Library owns both variations of title and BOTH are on this record. Patron's receipt may show title discrepancy.]

Includes bibliographical references (pages 341-342) and index.

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.--From publisher.

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