Blazing Saddles: The Cruel and Unusual History of the Tour De France

I bought this book and although I read the whole thing, I was glad to have finished it. The couple of pages devoted to each Tour gradually become repetitive and tiresome, and this book offers nothing that hasn't been mentionned before. You are effectively reading the same words for each tour, repeated page after page. It will sit on my shelf with the rest of the cycling books, but I doubt it will be re-read again in the foreseeable future.

Superficial and disappointing. (5/6 people found this helpful)

I ordered this item with the highest expectations, having read Matt Rendell's superb biography of Il Pirata: The Death of Marco Pantani. Which book I'd recommend wholeheartedly to anyone interested in cycling and its many highs and perhaps even more numerous lows; but unfortunately, I can not recommend not this one.

Having read the book, I can't tell you how disappointed I am.

No information which is not available in a hundred earlier books; I shan't cite them here but if you are a TdF fan or a cycling fan at all, you probably have all of them already. Also, there are some outright faults with this book, quite gratuitous, inexplicable in a professional publication.

Firstly, the photographs. Oh, there are some wonderful vintage photos in this book; including several I'd never seen before. They're all captioned, sure, but some of the most intriguing are not referenced in the text at all! For instance, I *really* wanted to know what was going on in the picture captioned, 'One transitory headache for Andre Darrigade; one mortal blow for Constant Wouters ... He never regained consciousness and died eleven days later' (p.132). Is this really a photograph of a rider suffering a brain hemorrage or whatever and dying on his bike? Does this have anything to do with the Tour de France? I don't know! And unfortunately, after reading this book, I still don't know, because the picture and its caption are not referenced in the text. Likewise, there are some famous TdF pictures - like the one with the peloton deciding they'd had enough of this and wanted to do some sea-bathing instead, p.110 - which as a cycling fan I knew about; but if you were approaching this stuff for the first time you'd have no more idea after reading this book, since the incident is not mentioned in the text. Nor is poor Abdulkader Zaaf, whose picture appears on the very next page (111); a Muslim who had never touched alcohol in his life, this guy accepted a bidon from a bystander and quaffed it in one, in his desperate thirst, unaware that it contained red wine. He immediately became so drunk that he set off again in the wrong direction and eventually collapsed and had to abandon. He then returned to his home country where he was arrested as a spy, and spent several years in prison. This is a tragic story and deserves far more than the pseudo-comic photographic caption this book chooses to give it.

There are just *loads* of other photos printed with captions but no context - highly frustrating at best, and at worst, very disrespectful to the persons concerned.

And finally - I simply cannot believe, CANNOT believe, that Matt Rendell does not even mention Fabio Casartelli in his account of the 1995 Tour de France. The guy DIED for heaven's sake; please let it be the last fatality on the Tour? But does Rendell mention him. No. Nada. Not one word. NOTHING.

Dunce's cap and in the corner until next period, I think. Very disappointing book. Not a patch on the Pantani biography. Alas, I'll think more than twice before buying another of Matt Rendell's books.

I'm just happy that I got a discount here at Amazon because otherwise, I'd be even more annoyed!

fantastic (3/5 people found this helpful)

This was a fantastic read, which brought to life the key moments of the tour throughout the years. I am often accused of being a real saddo about the tour de france by my friends, but I learnt lots more about this spectacular event. Vive le tour, Bravo Matt Rendall - yet again!!

Blazing Saddles: The Cruel and Unusual History of the Tour De France

Matt Rendell

Reader Reviews:

Tedious (3/3 people found this helpful)

Superficial and disappointing. (5/6 people found this helpful)

fantastic (3/5 people found this helpful)

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