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la course en tete: racing in the time of covid. youcaxton publications paperback 229pp illus. £12.99

la course en tete - racing in the time of covid

at one time in the last century, britain's cycling aficionados relied greatly on either acquiring a copy of an italian or french newspaper to learn of continental racing, or perhaps the odd snippet in one of britain's mainstream press. either that, or wait until each thursday came to pass to eagerly rifle the pages of 'the comic'. later, in pre internet days, there were the monthlies, all of which would offer a precis of each part of the season in more general terms, unable to match the relative immediacy of their weekly competition.

however, with king of the mountains success in the tour de france from scotland's robert millar in 1984, along with ireland's sean kelly's green jerseys in '82 and '83, the recently constituted channel four, began a half-hour tour highlights programme in 1985. all the same, by the time we'd admired gary imlach's polo shirt du jour and watched the adverts, there wasn't a great deal of cycling to be seen. for newbies to the sport, it remained a mystery as to how millar could be first across the first two summits, yet be nowhere to be seen at stage end.

providing the explanation for the latter and other conundrums was left to the rise and rise of satellite television, bringing us eurosport and its subsequent televising of entire stages from the flag drop to crossing the line at stage finish. from that point onwards, british cycling fans could begin to equal the knowledge and appreciation of their european counterparts. the internet only added to that situation, with a wide range of websites offering every last nugget of information to satisfy the most obsessive of obsessives. suddenly the cycling magazines began to see their heyday slip from their grasp; by thursday, 'the comic' had been usurped in every way imaginable, and even the crumbs had little mileage left for the monthlies.

things are little different today. though thewashingmachinepost has recognised this situation by totally avoiding any mention of le tour during the regular three weeks in july (offering a refuge to those suffering from too much french racing), there are hundreds of alternatives should the racing game be your atom of delight. in which case, who on earth would think it a good idea to bring a book to publication, covering the very subject that has already been dissected in infinite detail in the press, on the telly box and on the interwebs?

that would be la course en tete.

this consists of a group of cycling journalists, to wit: oj borg, nick bull, peter cossins, william fotheringham, matt morris, sadhbh o'shea, sophie smith and jeremy whittle. an impressive bunch, you must admit. and if collectively they thought it a wizard wheeze to engage in a new publishing venture in the middle of a global pandemic, then who are we to argue? as author william fotheringham says in the introduction:

"...the idea of putting a website on line to bring cycling fans the best writing that a group of long-standing cycling journalists could provide had been kicking around my mind for a while."

as a commercial venture, you might think it had little going for it, but mr fotheringham later points out that america's peloton magazine engaged the services of la course en tete to provide them with coverage of the much delayed tour de france and giro d'italia. and now, there's this excellent book entitled 'racing in the time of covid', providing us with the sort of quality writing you just don't get anywhere else. and when you consider just how many words are currently expended on the competitive milieu, that's quite some achievement.

there are impressively short chapters on the lack of stages for pure sprinters, how covid affected the uae tour, sheltering mrs roglic and child in a press car during a hailstorm, and peter cossins on the old guard vs the young guns. "I started the day with my focus very much on the opening time-trial of the Giro d'Italia, but then it drifted. I can justifiably blame Mathieu van der Poel for this."

i'm well aware that i have an annoying habit of recommending books as being 'compulsory reading', a cliché i perhaps ought to make efforts to avoid. but then along comes a book like this, and it's hard to exclude just such a recommendation. i cannot pretend to be familar with the work of all the writers named above, but when will fotheringham e-mailed to ask if i'd like a review copy, based on his name alone, i replied that such was a question that scarcely needed to be asked.

the depth of cycling knowledge possesed by the contributors to la course en tete is surely without peer in the realm of velocipedinal journalism. there is something here for everyone, presented in commendably short chapters, which, combined, provide a series of snapshots of the much-delayed, yet highly engaging 2020 season. if you're like me, the 'wham, bam, thank you ma'am' racing, was hard to take-in. to be honest, i really needed someone (or several someones) to make sense of it all.

this book is the absolute shizzle.

la course en tete

sunday 13 december 2020

twmp ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................