The Tour

Dave has done it again in The Tour, a sequel to The Race (also very highly recommended). The Tour takes up the story of Ben immediately after the events of The Race (I am doing my best not to give anything away ;-) ). The Tour is in many ways the "dark side" of the The Race, examining the unsavory side of the sport: doping (a governing body has recently proposed a 4 year ban for cyclists that test positive for PED's -Performance Enhancing Drugs-and I am all for it). Cheating by one leads to the cheating of many in an effort ("justifiable", in a way, as these cyclists give up years of their lives training for these races) to keep up. Hopefully we have turned the corner. A highly recommended read. Read The Race first, although one could certainly read this book as a stand alone, but you'd be gyping yourself out of another fantastic read. Now help me to convince Dave to write a Giro-version sequel to Ben's cycling adventures. ;-)

Thoroughly entertaining. Insights of the peleton and racing abound. Central to the story is Ben's, the main character's, ethical struggle about doping. This theme is particularly timely given the current state of cycling and the many heroes who have succumb to the promise of power, strength, success and glory through doping. Ben must navigate some very thought provoking, tense, ethically tricky situations. The reader is given the opportunity to examine their own beliefs while gaining some insight into the athlete's strong desire for success and the external forces which can lead an athlete to compromise their ethics. Highly recommmended.

I don't generally read sports books, and I know nothing about competitive cycling, so I really wasn't sure what to expect when I started this book. However the characters, the writing and the compelling plot line really drew me in. I was impressed with the intensity of the story, and the way the author weaves a whole bunch of different plot strands - the race, the question of doping, the past history of the participants - together. It was fascinating. Equally amazing was the way Shields drew me into a world I previously knew nothing about. I *love* novels that, when I finish them, I feel so much smarter and knowledgeable than when I started them (probably because I was raised on Sesame Street and I still expect learning to be fun!) This is one such book. I had no idea, before I read it, that cycling is so complex and such a team sport, full of strategy. During the last Tour de France, I amazed my husband with all my 'inside info' about what was happening. Shields immerses the reader in this world in the course of a compelling and surprising story that centers on a topic always in the news these days. What really impressed me is how Shields brings out an ambiguity about drug use in cycling. In the media, drug use is presented as an unabashed evil: it's cheating, and it's nasty and it's the downfall of the sport. While Shields acknowledges and to some extent presents this perspective, by putting the reader in the shoes of the athletes riding the Tour, he asks him/her to reconsider big questions - like 'what does it mean for things to be fair or equal anyway?' in light of this issue. While I'm sure that cyclists will love this book, I would actually recommend it to non-cyclists as well. I think anybody who likes being immersed in another world - readers of historical fiction, for example, or people who like books set in foreign countries - would really enjoy this.

Dave Shields maintains his status as a master story-teller in this sequel to The Tour. Like his previous work, it's a fast paced sports thriller that mimics the excitement and tension of the Tour de France. For me, the best part about this book was learning what goes on below the simple-looking surface of a bicycle race. Before I read The Race, I never knew anything of the team nature of the sport or of the careful tactics that go into conserving the energy of teams' stars. In the light of current doping scandals in this and other sports, the timely exploration of the ethics of doping is extremely thought-provoking. As with The Race the plot of The Tour is more complicated than most sports novels, so be prepared for some surprises. Lynn Hoffman, author of The New Short Course in Wine and the forthcoming bang-BANG from Kunati Press.(ISBN 1601640005)

You don't need to be a fan of bicycle racing to enjoy this novel. Like THE RACE, the strategy and all the physical, mental, and emotional struggles Ben face are fascinating. THE TOUR also focuses on the timely issue of performance enhancing drugs.