The Thinking Man's Tour

Tour de France - the history, the legend, the riders: Graeme Fife. Mainstream Publishing, 2000. 255 pages paperback, £9.99. ISBN 1-84018-284-9

Based on the writer's '25-year addiction to this unique event' (half of my own), this is, says Fife, 'an attempt to get inside the Tour's mystique' rather than a history. History is there, but in snapshots or brief video clips. Much of it is well known ( Les Forçats de la Route ), some of it less well-retailed, much necessarily left out. I'd have liked to read again the story of Hubert Opperman's 1927 Tour, one man against trade teams in a series of team time-trials. The rest is a series of accounts of Fife's own climbs of the major Alpine cols: L'Alpe d'Huez, Télégraphe, Glandon, Galibier, Izoard, Vars. As he climbs his thoughts stray to the great riders who preceded him. The accounts of what and who he's thinking about are much better than the story of his own struggles, which are often done in a sort of writing-by-numbers, tricked out with literary quotations unnaturally transplanted. Fife is too good a writer to need these pretentious, supporting devices. Why quote in French and then translate? Settle for one or the other.

My heroes are not always the same as Fife's. I recognise talent in any performer, but my admiration for Virenque's attacking style is tempered by the suspicion that it's easier to keep attacking when fuelled by steroids and EPO; I reserve my respect for those who can hack it without a fix. Fife almost despises Indurain ('Lovely man; no brain' he comments) for husbanding his resources and playing to his strengths; but Anquetil, who did exactly the same, plus being a druggie and a cheat, gets his wholehearted admiration. Incidentally, the latter emerges as the most talented shit cycling has ever seen – perhaps the instinctive recognition of this is why the fans never took him to their hearts as they did Vietto and Poulidor.

It's an attractive book. There's an insert of eight photos and a useful index. Georges Ronsse (not Rousse) was world champion. Big sprockets (the ones you climb on) give you a smaller gear, not a larger one. Incidentally the story of Bartali searching the route for Coppi's discarded bottle isn't apocryphal – Bartali tells it himself. Despite minor faults, a thoroughly enjoyable book to add to your shelf of addictions.

Ramin Minovi