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Home > The Story of the Tour de France Volume 2: 1965-2007
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The Story of the Tour de France Volume 2: 1965-2007
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By Bill McGann and Carol McGann
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 (5 Reviews)
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List Price: $19.95
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Publisher:
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Dog Ear Publishing, LLC
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Published:
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December 31, 1969 |
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Binding:
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Paperback
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Pages:
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404
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Volume 1 of The Story of the Tour de France concluded with Jacques Anquetil s record setting fifth Tour win. Volume 2 opens with the greatest Italian racer of the modern age, Felice Gimondi and his effortless victory at the young age of 22. Despite his extraordinary talent, he never won the Tour again. Starting in 1969, Eddy Merckx began his run of 5 victories. Bernard Hinault, who also managed to win 5, followed him.
Unable to fulfill his destiny as a likely 5-time winner because of a hunting accident, LeMond won the Tour 3 times. LeMond s era was followed by the remarkable Spaniard Miguel Indurain, the first man to win the Tour 5 times in a row.
The late 1990s were a time of extreme crisis for the Tour as the culture of doping within the professional cycling community erupted into the scandal of 1998. The Story of the Tour de France deals with this episode at length.
Emerging from a near-fatal bout of cancer, Lance Armstrong went on to do what no other rider in the Tour s long history had ever been able to accomplish, win the Tour 7 times. Following Armstrong s retirement, the Tour was again seized by scandal, this time Floyd Landis disqualification for drugs after winning the 2006 Tour.
The book concludes with the story of the 2007 Tour, followed by a quest for the greatest ever Tour de France rider and an epilogue that explains the reasons for the extraordinary success of the Tour.
What they are saying about The Story of the Tour de France:
After forty years of study on the subject, I can with some confidence say Bill and Carol McGann s The Story of the Tour de France is the finest such work ever produced in the English language, and perhaps in any. Most of my preferred references are in French, one runs to over 800 pages, yet the McGanns opus revealed information new to me in almost every paragraph. Their research has been not only impeccable, but insightful.
Owen Mulholland, author of Uphill Battle/i> and Cycling s Golden Age
The Story of the Tour de France: How a Newspaper Promotion Became the Greatest Sporting Event in the World by Bill and Carol McGann is a must read.
Road Bike Action Magazine
For any historian of the sport the McGanns Tour de France history is essential reading. Details of the stages and the riders are not glossed over. For those who are new to the sport, the McGanns bring the glory days of the sport alive with the intrigue that still exists today. Epic stages that might have faded into oblivion are eloquently recounted so that future generation of cyclists will know the rich history of our beautiful sport.
Neil Browne, editor, Road Magazine
Besides towering over all bicycle races, the Tour de France endures for its unique Gaulic character, like Victor Hugo s Les Miserables. The McGanns passionate and insightful writing evokes the raucous cast of riders, promoters, and journalists thrusting through highs and lows worthy of opera. This volume stands out as a must-read book for anyone seeking to appreciate cycling s race of races.
Peter Joffre Nye, author of The Six-Day Bicycle Races: America's Jazz Age Sport and Hearts of Lion
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Customer Reviews:
Add Your Own Review |
 Even better than Volume 1..., September 9, 2008
By Rocco Vaselino (Ivins, UT United States)
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Since reading the McGann's first volume on the Tour, I have been eagerly awaiting Volume 2, which I received a few days ago. Volume 1 documents the beginnings of the Tour de France and the early years (through 1964), and covers the race and it's context better than any other book. Volume 2 is even better; more robust and with greater detail; and it is the best piece on the world's greatest sporting event ever. Each year's Tour is recapped, but more interesting are the rider descriptions, tactics, and color. As an example from the 1992 Tour:
"Claudio Chiappucci was what Miguel Indurain wasn't. Where Indurain was cold, calculating, riding only to win and no more, knowing that whatever time gaps he had allowed could be closed with a display of brute horsepower in the time trials, Chiappucci was the opposite. The Italian was willing to gamble, to take magnificent chances to gain time. He had to run these big risks knowing how vulnerable he was in the time trials. Indurain said that he had to have eyes on the back of his head when he raced Chiappucci." The book is busting with observations such as this. How entertaining!
If you are a racer or a casual rider, you will love this book. And if you are a Lance Armstrong-era noob, you will gain more insight into that period from this book than from any other.
Highly recommended from an old Category 2 racer.
7 of 7 people found the above review helpful.
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Great book for a Great Race!, December 16, 2009
By Mike Jacoubowsky (Redwood City, CA)
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This is a book for those with a reading light on their nightstand. Bill and Carol McGann have put together an encyclopedia of the Tour de France between 1965-2007, what most of us can relate to as the modern era. The transition from National teams (riders racing under the flag of a given country, ie., France, Germany, Italy etc) to Factory teams (Peugeot) to the multi-corporate sponsorships we have today. The various doping scandals of the past, which help provide a context for what we hear about today. The back-breaking transfers from one stage to the next that might have the riders not arriving at their next town until midnight, leaving short rest for the following-day's 120+ mile race. The progress (and decline) of riders from year-to-year in a linear chronology that makes it easy to follow.
All too often we see little snippets of information, perhaps on [...] or LeTour.fr, giving us the route for the current race and telling us when it last rode over this pass, or through this town, without any context. With this book in hand, you'll have it, and you can imagine how things might play out this time! That's where I find "The Story of the Tour de France" invaluable, as I have visited the Tour de France 9 of the past 10 years, and feel like I have inside information on how things are likely to unfold.
There's a place in the world for oversized coffe-table books with beautiful full-page color pictures on glossy paper. But if you want a great reference book to keep at your side while following the Tour de France, whether in person or on TV or the 'net, this is for you. Why go to sleep with the TV droning on in the background, waiting for that nightly coma to set in, when you can read a book like this instead?
2 of 2 people found the above review helpful.
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 Full of information, yes; the best...? No, July 31, 2009
By Voice of Zip (Greenbrae, CA)
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These volumes (I am including both) took a while to negotiate mainly due to the sheer number of statistics and terse, historical details. I would definitely NOT recommend this book to the neophyte as a stand alone source of cycling history. Knowing a fair amount racing and its history made the reading manageable, but someone without any background might be disinclined to make the effort this version requires. A good history is, in my opinion, a readable one, and this one gets a bit tedious. There is a lot of information here, though this is not the book's salient liability. It just is rather dry. However, since it is unique in the genre - gazetteer-like, not much "style" to the writing as compared to simply delivering facts - fair comparison is difficult. Ok as a reference, but there are others that entertain as well as inform.
2 of 4 people found the above review helpful.
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 Wealth of Information, Poorly Edited, May 22, 2010
By ambling across the cornfields at 15.. (southwestern Illinois)
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This book needs a good editor. It contains lots of facts, but the editing is poor. There were a variety of reasons that this book was hard to read. There were some basic problems with the use of numbers: "he won the next 2 stages" as opposed to "he won the next two stages". The book was laid out along a very strict time line, with little chance to understand the personalities of the riders. There were also small editorial comments thrown in along the way that only distracted the reader and did nothing to add to the story.
I do not want to be totally negative. The book seemed to be well-researched, maybe the best English-language history available. However, I would urge the publisher to re-work the narratives significantly prior to the release of the next edition. I would have enjoyed a more readable book.
2 of 6 people found the above review helpful.
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Part two of an excellent Tour de France history, February 27, 2010
By James L. Witherell, Author, Bicycle History
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Picking up where volume 1 left off, the McGanns continute to deliver interesting insights into the world's greatest bicycle race. Once again, you feel more like you're involved in a discussion about the race instead of just reading a book about it.
Bill and Carol McGann provide you with more than enough facts to understand what's going on during any particular stage of the race, but more importantly, they tell you why the day's deals, attacks, etc. were made, and why they matter. All of this is written in a conversational style that makes the book hard to put down.
There's more to winning the Tour de France than just riding a bicycle as fast as you can. As Jacques Anquetil once said, "People think a racing bike is made for going fast. They are wrong; a racing bike is made solely for winning races."
1 of 1 people found the above review helpful.
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