Uphill Battle: Cycling's Great Climbers

Mountains weren't added to the Tour de France until 1905. Tour boss Henri Desgrange added them only because a staffer incessantly hounded him until, finally worn down, Desgrange capitulated. At first, the mountains in the Tour de France were the more modest ascents of the Vosges and Alps. In 1910 the Tour added the giant pyrenean climbs; the Peyresourde, Aspin, Tourmalet and the Aubisque. A year later came the high Alps. The addition of hard climbing transformed the Tour. The men who have the ability to bound up the mountains (the Italians have a special word for these riders: Scattista) have fascinated cycle race fans since that race in 1905. Sometimes they are specialists who can only climb, but do not have the complete set of cycling skills to win the Tour (Rene Vietto, Jose Manuel Fuente and Andy Hampsten are in this category). Others have so much power, are such magnificent athletes that they can climb with the specialists and also time-trial and ride cobbles with equal ease. This group would include Lance Armstrong, Greg LeMond, Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali. Owen Mulholland takes them all on (including episodes from both the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France) and tells their stories well. What makes this book a pleasure is that Owen writes as if he were talking to you. His enthusiasm comes across every page. He is a man mad about bikes and bike racing and I love everything he has ever written about the sport. There are 39 chapters, each about a particular climber and each is a gem -Bill McGann, author of "The Story of the Tour de France: How a Newspaper Promotion Became the Greatest Sporting Event in the World".

A good review of cycling's great climbers, this book is a window into many of the great climbing by bike performances. As you read many of the heroic uphill battles that have taken place within cycling's major tours, Mulholland has you on the hill, feeling the rider's pain. Many of these accounts will be unknown to all but the most rapid cycling fan and deserve to be told. While only including major European climbing exploits, this account is a good addition to a cycling library. For a collection of American climbing exploits (along with the most difficult hillclimbs in the U.S. and other climbing information) see the book 'The Complete Guide to Climbing (By Bike)' from Extreme Press.

Owen Mulholland is known as a writer of cycling history and "Uphill Battle"is a worthwhile addition to the specialized genre of books for bike nuts. While there has been a recent torrent of books on the Tour de France, this book also describes some interesting and exciting stages of the other great stage races, the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta in Spain. The book is arranged in chronological fashion as a series of brief biographies of climbing cyclists. The stories really begin in 1905 when mountains were introduced into the Tour de France for the first time. It is a never-ending amazement to me how incredibly difficult the early Tours were, with terrible roads, fixed gear bicycles and gargantuan stages. For example, the 1926 Tour, Mulholland informs us, was almost twice as long as the current version! It is true that many of the stories have been repeated for decades-what fan of the Tour does not know of Eugene Christophe and the broken fork, or poor Rene Vietto turning around for his team leader, or Merckx's virtuosity in seemingly everything? But there are a lot of other good stories here about riders who had their moments of glory in the mountains and then, over time, slid out of sight. Some riders were not known for their climbing at all, including Rik van Looy, but still managed to go for the prize when it beckoned. The chapter on Lance Armstrong is the longest single one in the book and is a good recapitulation of Big Tex's career to his fifth Tour de France victory in 2002. While Mulholland does not fawn over Armstrong, it is clear that Lance Armstrong is a rarity in pro cycling as a rider who is not only superb at time trialling but one of the very best at climbing as well. The book could have used better editing in avoiding the occasional repetitions. As well, the Modern Era is represented by allrounders, such as Fignon, LeMond, Indurain and Roche instead of the pure climbers one would expect to see. That said, the chapters on the Columbian star Luis Herrera and the Basque Roberto Laiseka are illuminating, and the chapter on Marco Pantani captures the very ambivalent record of this Giro and Tour winner. The book could have been improved with more on other races with difficult climbs but as it stands it is an entertaining and enjoyable account and worth recommending. There are some very good pictures, including a great one of Anquetil and Poulidor elbowing each other like sprinters as they climb the Puy-de-Dome in 1964. Bikes of steel, men of iron.