Tour De France: The History, The Legend, The Riders

Rating:
Summary: Comes across a little opinionated, but...
Review: Despite his unfair treatment of Miguel Indurain's great career and Paul Kimmage's great book ("A Rough Ride"), this book does give the reader an interesting glimpse into the history of this great race. As others have commented, it is not comprehensive, the content being driven by the author's own passion for parts of the event's history.

Worth a read if only to help understand the origins of the drugs scandals of recent years which can be traced back to the early years of the sport.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing Emphasis on His Own Rides
Review: Disappointing in it's emphasis on the authors rides of Tour routes followed by the exploits of British riders. Only then does he deal with other riders in an extremely disjointed way. Extremely opinionated view dismissing many of the great riders due to percieved personality faults or (in the case of Indurain) lack of intelligence. This does not add up to a treatment of the History of the Tour. It is more just a collection of unrelated anecdotes.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting Insights Interspersed With Turgid Prose
Review: Graeme Fife's "Tour de France" is not a chronological history of the Tour. It is a series of little stories loosely woven around famous mountain passes and legendary riders, alternating with personal anecdotes of the author's own experiences in climbing the same passes.

There are some excellent passages in the book that give some glimpses into the personalities of the Tour. I was fascinated by Fife's portrayal of Henri Desgranges as both a stern and somewhat sadistic Tour director, how he shaped the Tour in its early days but also had the wisdom to bend with the times which allowed the Tour to grow into the premier event that it is today. There are gripping stories of what the early riders had to endure: attempted poisonings, poor nutrition, breaking bikes, trickery and sabotage.

Unfortunately the reader pays a price. One has to wade through some paragraphs of overly flowery writing that will make you cringe. For example, Fife writes about the Col du Glandin:

"Cloud pours over its rim, as it were from a hidden chimney serving the troll furnaces in the mountain's heart. Billows of smoke as white as steam, enough to herald a whole consistory full of new Popes. A diabolic machine stoking up ready for the engorging of the lone, the intrepid, Knight of the Campagnolo Gears advancing to meet the Dragon of the Mount Vicious in its swirls of inspissated mist."

See what I mean? Sometimes it's difficult to peer into Fife's writing, as if it is indeed obscured by swirls of inspissated mist.

Bottom line: if you can bear some overly romantic writing as well as some strong opinions, then this book may be worthwhile to get a series of unique glimpses into Tour history.