«Up the Road»
Americans traveling abroad who yearn for a bit of news from home can always turn to the International Herald Tribune. Now and again the reader of the IHT gets lucky and there is a short essay by Samuel Abt on some aspect of bicycle racing. Abt's essays are always interesting and always well written. He has a gift for summing up a situation in a few short words, probably a requirement for a newspaper columnist who is given just a small part of the editorial page.
My favorite Abt bon mot remains this sentence describing the way a supremely fit and somewhat arrogant Laurent Fignon was treating a sub-par Bernard Hinault in the 1984 Tour de France, "If you couldn't kick a man when he was down, when could you kick him?" That was the race in a single sentence.
"Up the Road" is a collection of Abt's essays and each is a pleasure to read. I preferred his book on the 1984 Tour, "Breakaway", where he was able to write at length about the race and display his very substantial knowledge of cycling. But I'll take my Abt where I can get it. This is a fun book and I really recommend it.
- Bill McGann, Author of The Story of the Tour de France
[Saturday, February 02, 2008]
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«More from the master»
If you know Samuel Abt's work, you'll know what to expect from this book: a collection of short but beautiful and insightful essays on European racing, all previously published in the International Herald Tribune. Abt's knowledge of Grand Tour racing is vast and his expatriate (American) perspective is unique. He is the undisputed king of the cycling essay.
This collection spans the period from the arrival of the Anglos (the "Foreign Legion") in the early 1980s to Lance Armstrong's seventh Tour de France win in 2005. Don't expect comprehensive coverage, though: the essays are about this and that and, despite Greg LeMond's name in the subtitle, not many of them are about LeMond. The book is garnished with a few Graham Watson photographs.
Much as I treasure Abt's essays-even having read most of these before-I still yearn for the longer thematic work he could set himself to: a history of the Anglos in the European peleton, maybe, or the LeMond racing biography that's never been written. He chides Richard Virenque for meticulously amassing mountain points and little else; surely he's not going to retire with only the black-and-white jersey for essays.
[Tuesday, January 31, 2006]
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