Rating: 
Summary: the best cycling novel...
Review: This is easily the best novel I've read about bicycle racing--
it's relatively short, no murders, no love interest, just
bicycle racing pure and simple. It centers on a single minor
1-day race in southern France, 150 kilometers in the mountains,
and a racer (Krabbe) who is decent but not professional caliber.
The novel is part stream-of-thought, part flashbacks to Krabbe's
other 300+ races, part anecdotes about the great cyclists from
the Tour de France and elsewhere. If you want a baseball
analogy, Krabbe would be playing in the low minor leagues, and
describing the life there, and relating some tales about well-
known major-leaguers--kind of a Ron Shelton [Bull Durham] of
bicycle racing. In the Tour de France, the police keep the roads
clear for the racers: in the Tour de Mont Aigoual, police are
at intersections directing the racers, but you share the road
with ordinary drivers. Krabbe describes speeding down steep
mountain roads and having to plan in his mind what to do if a car
comes around the corner towards him while he's doing 60kph.
A very involving, finely-written book!
Rating:
Summary: Life is the metaphor for the race.
Review: You needn't be a racer, nor for that matter a cyclist, to revel in this gem of a book:The exhiliration - "I was in the lead group for one sweep of the cranks, then ... the blind wall of wind was there again for me alone. 'What kind of nonsense is this ?' I thought, then the lights went out." The profoundness - "Nothing is better for a firm and solid faith than being in the wrong." And the humor - "You can tell good riders by their faces, bad riders by their faces too - but that only goes for riders you already know." What I can't figure out is why it took over 20 years for this European classic to finally get translated into English.
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