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Kings of the Road: A Portrait of Racers and Racing
Used like new
- GenresCyclingSportsNonfiction
208 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1987
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October 15, 2020
Published in 1987, which was the year that I decided I'd try road cycling as a hobby. 33 years later I'm still riding my bike despite fracturing my right acetabulum on May 1st this year (I was knocked off the bike, in a bike lane in Liverpool, by another "cyclist" while he was using his mobile phone. I await a hip replacement...).
Anyway, to the book. A stunning insight into the world of road racing, or rather that world as it was over three decades ago, before hard-shell helmets, clipless pedals (although Bernard Hinault and his team-mates had in fairness begun to use them and you can see him and Greg Lemond on the cover doing just that) and multi-coloured bibshorts, not to mention carbon fibre frames and electrically-assisted gear-changes.
What still strikes me today in just the same way that it did when I first opened the book in December 1987 is the beauty of the photography by Graham Watson.
Magowan mentions in his prose the "handsomeness" and beauty of the participants in professional road racing and it is difficult to disagree. Some of the images from the cobbled classics are painterly in their composition, with the chiselled beauty of the riders' leg muscles, contrasting with the tortured grimaces on their faces, betraying the physical effort involved in riding a bike at 25 miles per hour for 15o+ miles through rain, sleet and even snow over miles of medieval cobbled roads.
Magowan's portraits of the greats of yesteryear - Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche, Hinault, Robert Millar, Eddy Merckx et al - are insightful and entertaining. He describes men whose suffering on the bike is matched only by their desire to finish first in one of the most physically demanding, and ceaselessly dangerous, of professional sports.
The book presents a picture of the sport before the era of systematic doping of more recent years (although it would be naive to think that performance enhancement "medication" was not being prescribed in the 1980s) and as such it is something of a period piece and is none the worse for that.
If you enjoy cycling, or you enjoy watching cycling, or if you just enjoy admiring the unattainable muscular beauty of the professional cyclist's physique, you will undoubtedly enjoy Kings of the Road.
It has rarely been left unopened by me from one month to the next over the last 33 years. A wonderful book for cycling enthusiasts of any age or ability.
Anyway, to the book. A stunning insight into the world of road racing, or rather that world as it was over three decades ago, before hard-shell helmets, clipless pedals (although Bernard Hinault and his team-mates had in fairness begun to use them and you can see him and Greg Lemond on the cover doing just that) and multi-coloured bibshorts, not to mention carbon fibre frames and electrically-assisted gear-changes.
What still strikes me today in just the same way that it did when I first opened the book in December 1987 is the beauty of the photography by Graham Watson.
Magowan mentions in his prose the "handsomeness" and beauty of the participants in professional road racing and it is difficult to disagree. Some of the images from the cobbled classics are painterly in their composition, with the chiselled beauty of the riders' leg muscles, contrasting with the tortured grimaces on their faces, betraying the physical effort involved in riding a bike at 25 miles per hour for 15o+ miles through rain, sleet and even snow over miles of medieval cobbled roads.
Magowan's portraits of the greats of yesteryear - Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche, Hinault, Robert Millar, Eddy Merckx et al - are insightful and entertaining. He describes men whose suffering on the bike is matched only by their desire to finish first in one of the most physically demanding, and ceaselessly dangerous, of professional sports.
The book presents a picture of the sport before the era of systematic doping of more recent years (although it would be naive to think that performance enhancement "medication" was not being prescribed in the 1980s) and as such it is something of a period piece and is none the worse for that.
If you enjoy cycling, or you enjoy watching cycling, or if you just enjoy admiring the unattainable muscular beauty of the professional cyclist's physique, you will undoubtedly enjoy Kings of the Road.
It has rarely been left unopened by me from one month to the next over the last 33 years. A wonderful book for cycling enthusiasts of any age or ability.
Displaying 1 of 1 review