Riding High: Shadow Cycling The Tour De France

Rating:
Summary: Over The Mountains with Malt Loaves
Review: In this charming book, Paul Howard, a British journalist (writing for a construction industry magazine!) and clearly one fit amateur cyclist, recounts his trip matching the route of the 2003 Tour de France, each stage ridden before the pros start and before the gendarmes close down the roads. Instead of a mass of sponsors, he is able to count on the donation of a bicycle from its Taiwanese manufacture and instead of a bus and support vehicles, his dad is out there driving the team car. He is joined by friends on some of the stretches but generally is out on the road alone, meeting his father at prearranged points to refuel.

Mr. Howard has an excellent knowledge of the lore and traditions of the Tour de France, as befits someone who lived in France for a year as an amateur racer. But as the miles roll by, he becomes more and more focussed on practical matters-the best croissants, getting past the gendarmes, navigating out of town. His Tour de France is a matter of endurance: finding enough food, getting enough sleep, dealing with the endless roads. For anyone who has ridden a bicycle any distance, it is impressive that there was only one stage he did not start due to exhaustion, and that he managed to ride a creditable amount of each of the three stages he did not fully complete. That still left him with nearly 3,000 kms and 117 hours of riding under his belt when he finished on the Champs d'Elysee in Paris. In the Appendix, he notes the time that the professional riders put in for each stage, comparing his own modest speeds.

The map says "France," but Paul Howard is travelling in some kind of Tour Parallel Universe. He rides past cheering fans and is accompanied by a motley collection of other cyclists: hardcore racers and eccentric cycletourists loaded with pots and pans. The hotels vary wildly in quality. He worries about his health, looking for danger signs as he suffers from knee pain and the worst heat in a European summer in centuries. He meets real TdF riders. And at the end of each day he is anxious to call his wife and infant daughter and let them know he is doing alright. And there is his joy in consuming malt loaves, some kind of strange British victual unknown to cyclists on the west side of the Atlantic.

If you are a cyclist, buy this book and encourage one of our own. Perhaps he will do the Giro d'Italia for us next! But preferably with a helmet this time.