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The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France

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The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France Paperback – May 7, 2013

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  • Print length 320 pages
  • Language English
  • Publisher Bantam
  • Publication date May 7, 2013
  • Dimensions 5.27 x 0.73 x 7.93 inches
  • ISBN-10 034553042X
  • ISBN-13 978-0345530424
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  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bantam; Reprint edition (May 7, 2013)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 034553042X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0345530424
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.2 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.27 x 0.73 x 7.93 inches
  • #39 in Mountain Biking
  • #100 in Sociology of Sports (Books)
  • #7,783 in Memoirs (Books)

About the authors

Daniel coyle.

Daniel Coyle is the New York Times best-selling author of the The Culture Code, The Secret Race, The Little Book of Talent, The Talent Code, Lance Armstrong's War, Hardball: A Season in the Projects and the novel Waking Samuel. Winner (with Tyler Hamilton) of the 2012 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Prize, he is a contributing editor for Outside magazine, and also works a special advisor to the Cleveland Guardians. Coyle lives in Cleveland, Ohio during the school year and in Homer, Alaska, during the summer with his wife Jen, and their four children.

Tyler Hamilton

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

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Read These 3 Books About the Tour de France

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By Concepción de León

  • July 27, 2018

As the Tour de France nears its end, here are three books that trace its history and influence, as well as one amateur bicyclist’s adventurous attempt to complete the circuit on his own.

THE FIRST TOUR DE FRANCE Sixty Cyclists and Nineteen Days of Daring on the Road to Paris By Peter Cossins 384 pp. Nation Books. (2017)

As its title suggests, this book delves into the origins of what is now the biggest cycling event in the world. It was organized by editors of a flailing magazine who hoped to drive up interest in their publication, but few were eager to join the three-week long race; it was over tough terrain, more suited to horses than to bicycles, which weighed as much as 35 pounds at the time. The editors bribed a mishmash of unemployed laborers to participate, and Cossins uses their stories to paint a picture of France in the early 1900s to show how the race influenced the culture of cycling.

CYCLE OF LIES The Fall of Lance Armstrong By Juliet Macur 461 pp. Harper. (2014)

In this biography, Macur, a New York Times reporter, writes an illuminating portrait of the most notorious man in cycling. Though doping in sports preceded Armstrong, he was particularly calculated in his use: When he lost a race in 1995, he pressured his teammates into getting on a doping regimen and took extreme measures to ensure he wasn’t caught, like getting blood transfusions to force clean test results or pulling out of races to avoid being tested altogether. According to our reviewer, “what makes the story fascinating isn’t the dope,” but rather “Armstrong himself.” Based on interviews with Armstrong, estranged family members and more than 100 other witnesses, Macur tells the story of how Armstrong gained acclaim and what led to his eventual fall from grace.

FRENCH REVOLUTIONS Cycling the Tour de France By Tim Moore 277 pp. St. Martin’s Press. (2002)

This travelogue is one writer’s account of tracing the 2,256-mile Tour de France circuit of the 2000 race. He was out of shape and a novice biker, so he gave himself double the time, six weeks, to complete it. Our reviewer wrote that Moore “plays his foolhardy crusade purely for laughs, tempering the slapstick with bits of cycling lore and reflections on the event’s physical demands.” Moore gets lost within the first 10 minutes and soon starts cheating, pushing his bike up hills or skipping sections that are particularly challenging, but by the end, wrote our reviewer, “his triumphs — however modest — feel painfully earned.”

Follow New York Times Books on Facebook and Twitter (@nytimesbooks) , sign up for our newsletter or our literary calendar . And listen to us on the Book Review podcast .

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John S. Jacobs was a fugitive, an abolitionist — and the brother of the canonical author Harriet Jacobs. Now, his own fierce autobiography has re-emerged .

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Best New Tour de France Books

As the Tour de France has grown in popularity with English-speaking fans, so has the number of books about the world’s most prestigious bike race. Here’s a selection of some of the most recent releases on the Tour’s history, champions, and folklore. —Whit Yost

The Climb by Chris Froome

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Must-Read Tour de France Books

There have been thousands of books written about the tour de france - after all, there's been plenty to write about. and some of them have been real crackers..

There should be something for everyone on this list of books about the Tour de France , its history and its riders.

Histories of the Tour de France

Following the tour.

Graham Watson's Tour de France Travel Guide: The Complete Insider's Guide to Following the World's Greatest Race ( UK , US ) is a few years out of date now but it's still a practical guide to following the Tour. Photographer Watson is a 30-year veteran of the Tour – time he’s spent not just nailing some great photography, but also perfecting the logistics of organising the trip as a spectator. 

Tour de France cyclists

Merckx fans will enjoy Merckx 69: Celebrating the World's Greatest Cyclist in his Finest Year and Eddy Merckx: The Cannibal by Daniel Friebe.

William Fotheringham's ever-popular Put Me Back On My Bike: In Search of Tom Simpson remains an excellent read, as does The Badger: Bernard Hinault and the Fall and Rise of French Cycling .

There is also Indurain , The End of the Road: The Festina Affair and the Tour that Almost Wrecked Cycling , and Reckless: The Life and Times of Luis Ocana by Alasdair Fotheringham.  Racing Through the Dark: The Fall and Rise of David Millar   is the story of how one of Britain's most promising cyclists got sucked into a world of doping, his arrest and subsequent suspension from the sport tarnishing a promising career. But it's also a story of renewal as Millar writes about life in the wilderness and his journey back to the peloton. See also Millar's The Racer: The Inside Story of Life on the Road .

And to a British rider of a previous generation. Graeme Fife's Brian Robinson: Pioneer charts the life of the first Briton to complete the Tour de France, and the first to claim a stage victory. Robinson also became the first British rider to win the  Critérium du Dauphiné . Fife's book is a profile of a seemingly modest rider whose forays across the Channel and into Europe paved the way for others to follow.

To the modern peloton and we have tomes by Chris Froome and Mark Cavendish's At Speed . My Time ( UK , US ) is Bradley Wiggins' biography. It tracks his climb back from 2010, through the disappointments of 2011 to the podium in 2012 and then to the Olympics. See also My Hour – as the name suggests, it's about his hour record. There is also the more recent Icons: My Inspiration, My Motivation, My Obsession , with a foreward by Merckx.

Doping and the Tour de France

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2024 Tour de France program and race guide

AVAILABLE TO ORDER NOW! The official Tour de France 2024 race program and guide includes all the route maps for each stage, plus stage start and end times, and team and rider profiles.

Posted: 20 May 2024

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Buy the Official 2024 Tour de France Guide now

The build-up to the 2024 Tour de France starts here

Stan Portus

The build-up to the 2024 Tour de France has begun, with the UK’s only official Tour de France Guide now on sale.

This year's 204-page Official Tour de France Race Guide is packed with profiles of every team, exclusive interviews with key contenders of the men’s and women's races, key rider stats, stage maps and plenty more, plus an exclusive Italian Masters magazine, double-sided A2 map of this year's routes and beer mats featuring current GC, points and mountain winners.

Or upgrade to the Premium Tour de France Guide and get all the same great content plus exclusive Italian Masters magazine, a double-sided A2 map of this year's routes, legendary mountain climb-themed coasters and souvenir cycling socks.

  • Buy the Official Tour de France Guide 2024 now
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Spread from the 2024 Tour de France guide showing Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig.

Get all this with your 204-page Official Tour de France Guide

  • The only official UK Tour de France race guide
  • All the stages, maps, itineraries and profiles from the biggest race in women’s and men’s cycling
  • Full breakdown of each race team
  • Interviews with the stars of this year’s race
  • Official Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift double-sided, A2 wallchart with route map
  • Celebrate this year’s men’s Grand Depart with our exclusive Italian Masters magazine
  • Exclusive beer mats showcasing last year's GC, points and mountain winners in the Standard edition or upgrade to the Premium edition for legendary mountain climb coasters and exclusive Tour-themed cycling socks.

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COMMENTS

  1. The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France

    Discover the dark and thrilling secrets of the Tour de France with Tyler Hamilton, a former champion cyclist who reveals the truth about doping, cover-ups, and winning at all costs. The Secret Race is a gripping and eye-opening memoir that exposes the hidden world of professional cycling. Buy the paperback edition on Amazon.com today.

  2. 9 Books About the Tour de France That Every Cyclist Should Read

    The Tour de France's most famous peak is the focus of this book, which includes conversations with former yellow jersey wearers Lance Armstrong and Eddy Merckx on what makes "the killer ...

  3. Tour de France

    This new edition has been fully updated to include the drama from Tours right up to 2020, with the coronavirus pandemic making for an event like no other. One of the world's biggest annual sporting events, the Tour de France draws 10-12 million spectators, is broadcast in 190 countries, and has a social media following of more than 7.5 million. Features hundreds of rarely seen photographs ...

  4. Read These 3 Books About the Tour de France (Published 2018)

    By Concepción de León. July 27, 2018. As the Tour de France nears its end, here are three books that trace its history and influence, as well as one amateur bicyclist's adventurous attempt to ...

  5. French Revolutions: Cycling the Tour de France

    Moore is a crazy Brit who decides he's going to cycle the Tour de France route in 2000 about a month before the tour and discovers that, at the end of all things, he was indeed mad to undertake such an adventure. He fails in some of his goals, triumphing in others. He meets genuinely good people and a bunch of pratts.

  6. Best New Tour de France Books

    Merckx 69 by Jan Maes and Tommy Stouken. Media Platforms Design Team. In 1969, Eddy Merckx won the first of his five Tour de France titles in dominant fashion. Published this year in honor of ...

  7. The Tour de France : A Cultural History

    The Tour de France. : "Chris Thompson has written an engaging, nicely-paced account of France's world-famous cycle race: his writing is lively and full of detail and excitement. But he has done much more than simply narrate the story of the Tour. His book sets the race—its history, its participants and its meaning—firmly in its shifting ...

  8. Must-Read Tour de France Books

    The Tour is Won on the Alpe: Alpe d'Huez and the Classic Battles of the Tour de France (UK, US) is French cycling journalist Jean-Paul Vespini's history of the legendary Alpe d'Huez, a mountain rivalled only by the Ventoux for the honour of the Tour de France's most mythical climb. With 21 hairpins over 13.1km and with an average gradient ...

  9. Tour de France 100 by Peter Cossins

    Tour de France 100 summarizes the top 100 most interesting stages of the Tour with maps and photos. This book is probably only for someone who already knows (and cares a lot) about bicycle racing - otherwise I would recommend other books with better photography. JDK1962. 1,306 reviews 20 followers. May 14, 2014.

  10. Buy the Official 2024 Tour de France Guide now!

    Buy the Official 2024 Tour de France Guide now! Start your build-up to this year's Tour de France with the UK's only Official Tour de France Guide.

  11. Tour de Force by Mark Cavendish

    Cav's book, reliving this years Tour de France was the perfect antidote to those blues. non-fiction. Like. Comment. Chris McBurney. 21 reviews 5 followers. July 13, 2022. A perfect holiday read for a sport enthusiast. I loved the little insights to his journey to return to the top of the sport. An honesty that's increasingly lacking in ...

  12. Official Tour de France 2024 Guide Magazine

    Gear up for the cycling event of the year with the Official Tour de France 2024 Guide Magazine. Whether you're a seasoned cycling enthusiast or a casual fan, our magazine is your ultimate companion to the 111th edition of the Tour de France. Explore the thrilling route from Florence, Italy, on 29 June, to the scenic finish line in Nice ...

  13. A Tour de France reading list

    Paperback. In stock. Usually dispatched within 2-3 working days. Twenty years ago, British road cycling was in the doldrums: today it is at the top of the world thanks to Bradley Wiggins' Tour de France win, Mark Cavendish's road world title and the dominance of the British squad, Team Sky. This book tells the story of this sport's meteoric ...

  14. Official route of Tour de France 2024

    4. Apennines (Italy), the Italian and French Alps, Massif Central and Pyrenees will be the mountain ranges on the 2024 Tour route.. 4. The number of countries visited in 2024: Italy, San Marino, Monaco and France. Within France, the race will pass through 7 Regions and 30 departments.

  15. Road Book

    Road Book. L'Etape du Tour de France - Home > Extra Services > Road Book.

  16. 1923: The Mystery of Lot 212 and a Tour de France Obsession

    In the autumn of 2020 Ned Boulting (ITV head cycling commentator and Tour de France obsessive) bought a length of Pathé news film from a London auction house. All he knew was it was film from the Tour de France, a long time ago. Once restored it became clear it was a short sequence of shots from stage 4 of the 1923 Tour de France.

  17. Tour De France Books

    avg rating 3.87 — 372 ratings — published 2003. Books shelved as tour-de-france: It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life by Lance Armstrong, The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tou...

  18. Official website of Tour de France 2024

    Tour de France 2024 - Official site of the famed race from the Tour de France. Includes route, riders, teams, and coverage of past Tours. Club 2024 route 2024 Teams 2023 Edition Rankings Stage winners All the videos. Grands départs Tour Culture news ...

  19. Netflix Tour de France: Unchained returns with Tadej Pogačar ...

    Tour de France: Unchained debuted in 2023 as a series along the lines of the successful Drive to Survive Formula 1 show. Drive to Survive gave F1 a huge surge in popularity, and it appears that ...