Slaying the Badger: Greg LeMond, Bernard Hinault, and the Greatest Tour de France by Richard Moore


Slaying the Badger: Greg LeMond, Bernard Hinault, and the Greatest Tour de France
Title : Slaying the Badger: Greg LeMond, Bernard Hinault, and the Greatest Tour de France
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 1934030872
ISBN-10 : 978-1934030875
Language : English
Format Type : Kindle, Library Binding, Paperback
Number of Pages : 304 pages
Publication : VeloPress

Bernard Hinault is "Le Blaireau," the Badger. Tough as old boots, he is the old warrior of the French peloton, as revered as he is feared for his ferocious attacks. He has won 5 Tours de France, marking his name into the history books as a member of cycling's most exclusive club. Yet as the 1986 Tour de France ascends into the mountains, a boyish and friendly young American named Greg LeMond threatens the Badger and France's entire cycling heritage. The stakes are high. Winning for Hinault means capping his long cycling career by becoming the first man to win the Tour six times. For LeMond, a win will bring America its first Tour de France victory. So why does their rivalry shock the world? LeMond and Hinault ride for the same team. Asked by a reporter why he attacked his own teammate, the Badger replies, "Because I felt like it." and "If he doesn't buckle, that means he's a champion and deserves to win the race. I did it for his own good."LeMond becomes paranoid, taking other riders' feed bags in the feed zone and blaming crashes on sabotage. Through it all, with the help of his American teammate Andy Hampsten, LeMond rides like a champion and becomes the first American to win the Tour de France. His win signals the passing of cycling's last hide bound generation and the birth of a new breed of riders. In Slaying the Badger, award winning author Richard Moore traces each story line to its source through innumerable interviews not only with LeMond and Hinault in their own homes but also with teammates, rivals, race directors, journalists, sponsors, and promoters. Told from these many perspectives, the alliances, tirades, and broken promises divulged in Slaying the Badger build to the stunning climax of the 1986 Tour de France. Slaying the Badger is an incomparably detailed and highly revealing tale of cycling's most extraordinary rivalry.

Slaying the Badger: Greg LeMond, Bernard Hinault, and the Greatest Tour de France Reviews

  • snailmartyr

    Slaying the Badger was a disappointment to me. It reminded me of the journalism at the time in the U.S. surrounding the 1986 TDF which invariably portrayed Hinault as villian and Lemond as doe eyed innocent. The degree to which the author went to demonizing Hinault in the

  • Hank Rearden

    Greg LeMond and my brother inspired me to start riding and racing. Back in the day if we wanted detailed info about races we had to wait for the next issue of Velo News or Winning magazine. Then CBS or one of the networks started covering the Tour de France on Sundays. We

  • Brian W.

    Author does a great job through interviews with the main players to give the reader a good picture of what went on behind the scenes of the 1986 TDF. Both Lemond and Hinault were both in difficult positions. Hinault the defending champion on his way out of a sport he had

  • Jason V. Kilmer

    I am not a lifelong cycling fan, having grown to follow it closely only after my own running career ended with a surgery and I needed an alternative outlet for fitness training and competition. This book provided me just enough backstory on the old norms and quirks of

  • DeeMee

    Very well done and thorough. Almost faultless about not taking sides. Though maybe that is a fault. I think the effort to be fair, which probably was needed for the book was almost too much. Not making it explicitly about how Greg Lemond was almost sabotaged by his own

  • AV bike-biker

    You've heard the stories, you've read the cycle mag versions this is , and identifies nuances. One is still left wondering how much of the issues Greg faced were the result of naivety to the European system versus European antagonism to the American upstart.

  • White Rabbit

    I thought I knew a lot about the 1986 Tour de France. I realize now that after reading Slaying the Badger, I had known very little. The author, Richard Moore, spends the first half of the book providing background about professional cycling and the key players in the

  • Steve Hanchett

    My interest in cycling came about later in life and although I was aware of Greg Lemond I really didn't have any depth of knowledge about his cycling career. After I became a fan of cycling I heard the names of the past greats, including Bernard Hinault, but again I really