Nicholson - The Great Bike Race

THE GREAT BIKE RACE

THE CLASSIC, ACCLAIMED BOOK
THAT INTRODUCED THE WORLD
TO THE TOUR DE FRANCE

by

Geoffrey Nicholson

Introduction by

William Fotheringham

THE GREAT BIKE RACE

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Its all about the ride.

Praise for The Great Bike Race

It impresses me that an Englishman, even one THE OBSERVER has called our resident cyclopath has succeeded in a venture akin to explaining Five-Day Test cricket to a visitor from Peking His description of the 1976 Tour is based on an honest eye and the careful assembly of pointilliste incident. It is interleaved with encyclopaedic historic flashbacks and is, as the French say of a decisive win, impeccably lucide. They ought to give him a special lap of honour.

Observer

If there were a maillot jaune for sportswriters, Mr Nicholson should be wearing it.

Economist

conveys the agony of the mountains, the exhilaration of the sprints and the dull ache of the treadmill, as well as the tactics and mathematics involved in team racing

Times Literary Supplement

The smell of rural France pervades this lovingly written study.

Scottish Daily Record

A delightful and perceptive book his greatest success is in his wonderfully vivid ability to describe the passing scene, whether witnessed from the grandstand of a stadium, from a caf terrace in a small mountain hamlet, or from the bedrooms of the participants and the armies of their assistants Mr Nicholson is very good indeed.

The Sunday Times

The quality of his writing transformed the character of sports journalism.

Guardian

One of the first English language accounts of a Tour de France in a book, and Nicholson is exploring virgin territory in his coverage of the 1976 Tour de France. When you read about the Tours iconicplaces, they are often riffs on Nicholsons original descriptions. A real historical artefact.

Cycling Weekly

This is a gripping tale even for someone who doesnt know a bidon from a peloton.

Essex Weekly News

A thorough analysis of the Tours background and history.

Sunday Telegraph

It is the best effort by a British sports writer for a long time. In THE GREAT BIKE RACE our erstwhile Guardian peddler has chronicled the sweat and spirit, drugs and dregs, intrigue and incest, clutter and clatter and wheel-whizz of the moveable feast that entrances all France for a very merry month in midsummer. Like the Tour itself, Nicholsons book is very special.

Guardian

An outstandingly attractive and exciting book, a coolly written and wry cliff-hanger. It is a virtuoso performance.

Economist

He is defiantly prosaic. His book is admirably lively.

New Statesman

For those who love a good read, from a pocket-size book, Mr Nicholsons effort is well worth while. The writing is impeccable, the allusions apt and inspiring and the whole a notable contribution towards present-day understanding of cycling.

Motor Cycle and Cycle Trader

He writes sports like Fielding wrote novels, good-naturedly, with a talent for revealing emblematic physical detail. Nicholsons Tour has plot, characters, complications, the narrative grip of a Tom Jones.

Time Out

A Velodrome Book

First published in 1977

This new edition first published in Great Britain in 2016 by

Velodrome Publishing

A Division of Casemate Publishers

10 Hythe Bridge Street

Oxford OX1 2EW, UK

and

1950 Lawrence Road, Havertown, PA 19083 USA

www.velodromepublishing.com

Geoffrey Nicholson 1977

Introduction William Fotheringham 2016

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher in writing.

Images courtesy Offside/ Lquipe

Maps by David Gibbons

The publishers would like to graciously thank Mavis Nicholson, and the Nicholson family, for their splendid support and assistance in the creation of this new edition.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-911162-02-5

Printed in the Czech Republic by FINIDR s.r.o

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This edition is dedicated to Geoffs three sons:
Steve, Lewis, Harry,
and to his five grandchildren:
Ben, Tess, Maud, Owen and Iris.

I t is one of the most evocative of opening sentences: In my case I came upon the Tour de France by way of Whitley Bay and Morecambe. To paraphrase the late Geoff Nicholsons beginning to this book, in my personal case I came upon the Tour de France by way of The Great Bike Race. There are books that change your life and shape your life. This is one of those.

In my case, it is probably the one. I was thirteen when the paperback appeared in 1978 and my mother who happened to be copy-editing for Magnum, the publishers brought home a copy for me and my late father, a former cyclist who kept a close eye on his old sport. I dont know whether poor old dad even got to read it. He certainly never got hands on it again once it had found its way into my bedroom. That paperback is still with me thirty-seven years on, albeit read to pieces, lacking the front cover, and kept in an envelope so that the pages dont get lost.

The Great Bike Race arrived in my sweaty paws when I was at my most impressionable age in the same way that Nicholsons sports editor at the Observer couldnt have picked a more susceptible reporter to send to the Milk Race in 1959 and it was after devouring his elegant, dryly witty phrases that I began hitting the Devon hills on a clunky old bike, COBs being what one had to ride as a teenager in the pre-Lapsarian days before carbon and aluminium. As I hauled the COB across Exmoor, it was Peter Post of Raleigh who I imagined driving up behind me waving a professional contract out of the window of his car. I knew just what he looked like thanks to Nicholson a long, slim, elegant man with a silver scarab hanging from a thong round his neck and small blue scars like a miners on his forehead.

The Great Bike Race remains, in my eyes, the finest book ever written about the Tour de France. The blend of the four core elements of the Tour travelogue, anecdote, dramatis personae and narrative is perfectly balanced, presented with a perfect turn of phrase, the craftsmanship worn so lightly that a wry smile is ever present as you scanthe page. Rightly, the book earned plaudits on publication in 1977 (4.95, Hodder & Stoughton): compared to Henry Fieldings