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  • Cycling's 50 Triumphs and Tragedies

  • The Rise and Fall of Bicycle Racing's Champions
  • By: Les Woodland
  • Narrated by: David L. Stanley
  • Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
  • 2.9 out of 5 stars (8 ratings)

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Cycling's 50 Triumphs and Tragedies

By: Les Woodland
Narrated by: David L. Stanley
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Summary

When more than 100 men or women go racing down a road, inches away from each other, in all weather, over all kinds of roads, the opportunity for a brilliant win or a terrible accident is always there.

For more than a century, bicycle racers have sought glory, but have often found only misery. There can be only one winner, and even that triumph can be mixed with terrible loss. Fausto Coppi, coached by a blind man, set the World Hour Record in Milan during the war while the city was being shattered by bombs.

Tom Simpson was world champion in 1965, but by 1967, he was nearly a has-been. Desperate to win the Tour de France, he took an overdose of amphetamines and died by the side of the road of heart failure, probably caused dehydration triggered by the drugs that were to help him win.

Great joy and tragedy so close together.

Join cycling's most accomplished writer, Les Woodland, as he explores the heroic, sometime triumphant side of cycling, all the time reminding us that for every winner in cycling, there has to be a hundred losers. Sometimes their tale is better or sadder than the winner's.

We'll go on a journey around 50 sites of success and sorrow. Some of them, tragically, combined.

©2015 Les Woodland (P)2015 McGannPublishing
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History
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Heard some of these before

Some interesting and entertaining stories. Heard some of them before. Did not like the way it was read. Very American did not suit the stories

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10 hours of listening to a Sat Nav

I've got to start listening to the clips before purchasing. I love cycling but this book made a loved sport sound boring. A bunch of boring stories read by a guy that sounds like a Sat Nav. A Sat Nav that does impressions but every impression sounds the same. Even the stories I knew and are interesting were made boring.

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