The Climb

Author: Chris Froome
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241969433
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 557

Book Description
On 26th July 2015, Chris Froome entered the record books. He won cycling's ultimate race - the Tour de France - for the second time. Taking a double Yellow Jersey was a staggering achievement. This memoir shows just how remarkable it was, given the uphill struggle Froome faced. Growing up in Kenya, biking down mile after mile of dusty road, and staying in a humble tin hut, he developed a fierce passion and determination to win. The road to Europe was long, gruelling and filled with setbacks - but it prepared him for teamwork as a domestique and then the leap to leader of Team Sky and a shot at winning the Tour de France. In The Climb, written with the renowned investigative reporter David Walsh, he vividly recounts the struggles, the rivalries, the battles, the comebacks. Finally he traces his path to triumph and his mission to help clean up cycling. Inspiring and exhilarating, it will leave you ready to face your own challenges in life, whatever they may be. 'Engaging, vividly evoked' Mail on Sunday, Books of the Year 'What Chris has done is phenomenal' Sir Chris Hoy

Lanterne Rouge

Author: Max Leonard
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1605987875
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 217

Book Description
Froome, Wiggins, Mercks—we know the winners of the Tour de France, but Lanterne Rouge tells the forgotten, often inspirational and occasionally absurd stories of the last-placed rider. We learn of stage winners and former yellow jerseys who tasted life at the other end of the bunch; the breakaway leader who stopped for a bottle of wine and then took a wrong turn; the doper whose drug cocktail accidentally slowed him down and the rider who was recognized as the most combative despite finishing at the back. Max Leonard flips the Tour de France on its head and examines what these stories tell us about ourselves, the 99% who don't win the trophy, and forces us to re-examine the meaning of success, failure and the very nature of sport.

Gironimo!

Author: Tim Moore
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1448156408
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Book Description
A 3,162 km race. A 48-year-old man. A 100-year-old bike. Made mostly of wood. That he built himself. Tim Moore sets off to recreate the most appalling bike race of all time. The notorious 1914 Giro d'Italia was an ordeal of 400-kilometre stages, cataclysmic night storms and relentless sabotage - all on a diet of raw eggs and red wine. Of the 81 who rolled out of Milan, only eight made it back. Committed to total authenticity, Tim acquires the ruined husk of a gearless, wooden-wheeled 1914 road bike with wine corks for brakes, some maps and an alarming period outfit topped off with a pair of blue-lensed welding goggles. From the Alps to the Adriatic the pair relive the bike race in all its misery and glory, on an adventure that is by turns bold, beautiful and recklessly incompetent.

Riding in the Zone Rouge

Author: Tom Isitt
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
ISBN: 1409171167
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 284

Book Description
'An evocatively thoughtful wider history of the race, the war and the peace' GUARDIAN 'Occasionally funny and regularly poignant, brilliantly focused in its research . . . His drive, wit and curiosity inform Zone Rouge . . . gently profound and genuinely moving' HERALD The Circuit des Champs de Bataille (the Tour of the Battlefields) was held in 1919, less than six months after the end of the First World War. It covered 2,000 kilometres and was raced in appalling conditions across the battlefields of the Western Front, otherwise known as the Zone Rouge. The race was so tough that only 21 riders finished, and it was never staged again. With one of the most demanding routes ever to feature in a bicycle race, and plagued by appalling weather conditions, the Circuit des Champs de Bataille was beyond gruelling, but today its extraordinary story is largely forgotten. Many of the riders came to the event straight from the army and had to ride 18-hour stages through sleet and snow across the battlefields on which they had fought, and lost friends and family, only a few months before. But in addition to the hellish conditions there were moments of high comedy, even farce. The rediscovered story of the Circuit des Champs de Bataille is an epic tale of human endurance, suffering and triumph over extreme adversity.

Domestique

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

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...

Swim, Bike, Run

Author: Alistair Brownlee
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0670923133
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 251

Book Description
Swim, Bike, Run is the ultimate triathlon book, from Olympic heroes the Brownlee brothers The Olympic Triathlon, Hyde Park, London August 7th 2012 'We jogged to our positions on the pontoon: two brothers, side by side, the world and everyone we ever cared about looking on. Eighteen years of training, culminating in this single race. Noise from the crowd impossible to imagine. Hearts thumping. Swim-hats pulled tight, goggles lowered. Into a crouch, poised for the hooter. Three. Two. One...' This is the story of how two skinny lads from west Yorkshire became the best triathletes in the world. Meet the Brownlees: Olympic Champion Alistair, World Champion Jonny. Brothers, training partners, rivals. They have obliterated the competition and set new standards for swimming, biking and running. But the Brownlee brothers have never forgotten their roots. They still do their schoolboy hill runs and Dales rides; still train harder and longer than anyone; still push each other to new heights. In this revealing, often very funny book they take us inside their world and inside their races. It's both a riveting story of brotherly rivalry and a rare insight into what it takes to be the best. Swim, Bike, Run is also packed with training secrets. Whether you are thinking about your first triathlon or are a seasoned competitor, here are unique sections on how to swim, bike and run, and advice on nutrition, injury, and mental approach. With the Brownlees in your corner, you will do more than you ever thought possible. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in swimming, cycling and running and will be loved by readers of Mark Cavendish's Boy Racer and Running with the Kenyans. Alistair Brownlee, 24, is a British triathlete from Yorkshire. He is the reigning Olympic champion, a back-to-back European champion and a two-time World champion. Jonathan Brownlee, 22, is also a British triathlete from Yorkshire. He is the reigning World Champion, a two-time World Sprint champion and an Olympic bronze medalist. 'Sport has two new heroes: a couple of nice lads from Yorkshire ' The Times

Tactical Fly Fishing

Author: Devin Olsen
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0811766039
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Book Description
Devin Olsen explains how the techniques he has used to become a repeat medalist in fly fishing competitions around the world can be adapted to everyday fly fishing situations. He covers strategies, tactics, and flies for rivers, small streams, and still waters, allowing anyone to fish more successfully by applying the approaches taken by competitive anglers.

Murder Below Montparnasse

Author: Cara Black
Publisher: Soho Press
ISBN: 1616952164
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 146

Book Description
A long-lost Modigliani portrait, a grieving brother’s blood vendetta, a Soviet secret that’s been buried for 80 years—Parisian private investigator Aimée Leduc’s current case is her most exciting one yet. The cobbled streets of Montparnasse might have been boho-chic in the 1920s, when artists, writers, and their muses drank absinthe and danced on cafe tables. But to Parisian private investigator Aimée Leduc, these streets hold darker secrets. When an old Russian man named Yuri hires Aimée to protect a priceless painting that just might be a Modigliani, she learns how deadly art theft can be. Yuri is found tortured to death in his atelier, and the painting is missing. Every time Aimée thinks she's found a new witness, the body count rises. What exactly is so special about this painting that so many people are willing to kill—and die—for it?

Murder in Pigalle

Author: Cara Black
Publisher: Soho Press
ISBN: 1616952857
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 316

Book Description
New York Times Bestseller Cara Black’s fashionable Parisian P.I. Aimée Leduc has a new look for her 14th adventure: five months pregnant. June, 1998: Paris’s sticky summer heat is even more oppressive than usual as rowdy French football fans riot in anticipation of the World Cup. Private investigator Aimée Leduc has been trying to slow down her hectic lifestyle—she’s five months pregnant and has the baby’s well-being to think about now. But then disaster strikes close to home. A serial rapist has been terrorizing Paris’s Pigalle neighborhood, following teenage girls home and attacking them in their own houses. Zazie, the 13-year-old daughter of the proprietor of Aimée’s favorite café, has disappeared. The police aren’t mobilizing quickly enough, and when Zazie’s desperate parents approach Aimée for help, she knows she couldn’t say no even if she wanted to.

The Rider

Author: Tim Krabb�
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1582342903
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Book Description
The classic bicycle road racing book first published in 1978 chronicles a 150-kilometer European road race and its competitors in vivid, realistic detail. Reprint.