Read For Free Put Me Back On My Bike: In Search Of Tom Simpson Constructed By William Fotheringham Ready In Hardcover

biography starts routinely enough and was easy to pick up and put back down, However, as I progressed, the urge to read more became greater, There is a relevancy here that has lasted,
Good biography of Tom Simpson and well worth a read, As with a number of books on similar subjects recently, it's almost as much about the author's journey in finding out about his subject as it is about the subject himself.
If truth be told I'm getting a bit bored with this approach, although I do understand the temptation,
An interesting look into the life and death of Tom Simpson, one of the first Brits to make it good on the European cycling scene.
What I did not know was his hero status to the French and Belgians, He was adopted as one of their own, This adoration of Tommy Simpson inis not something that we see so much now among the nonEuropean riders.
If you follow cycling, this is a good book, Not strictly a full biography, more an in depth analysis of the mind of Tom Simpson and the factors that contributed to his sad demise on Mont Ventoux.
Combines surgical precision when it comes to detail and at the same time it is so poetic in its admiration of Simpson and Mont Ventoux that the reader questions him/herself how is this even possible.
That Mr Fotheringam achieves that in this book is no mean feat and it makes him a great journalist and author.
Quite easily the best cycling book I've read so far, A classic. Disappointing really. Doesn't really live up to being a great read, but it is an interesting insight into the man Tom Simpson.
This book improved as it went on and it is clear that Fotheringham uses his own experience of cycling to give life to cycling events and cycling history in a way that excites and interests lay readers like me.


It wasn't until the last third of the book that Fotheringham stopped pulling his punches in relation to Simpson's doping and the culture of doping in cycling in thes ands.
I thought this section of the book looking at

Simpson warts and all was the strongest part of the book.
I felt the other parts of the book whilst quite good did not reach the same heights as the author was too circumspect on the matter.


The last chapters on the mountain Simpson died trying to climb and the chapter on the build up to Simpson's death, his actual death and the immediate aftermath were excellent.
It feels that you are experiencing the events live for the first time and Fotheringham's writing gives life to the mountain in a way you see it as a monster and you feel as if you are with Simpson in his final hours.


The opening and middle chapters were a mix of the good and average, You get a decent picture of Simpson as a person, though at times I found the parts on his financial situation and family life a bit wooden.


A good book, which whilst not perfect I enjoyed reading, I will try other books by this author, Interesting read. Tom becomes more human through the book, it admits to tip toeing around the amphetamines issue and being from the middle of the Armstrong years it casts the world in a light that doesn't sit true now.
This book was interesting, giving a good insight into the foreign world of cycling in thes, It focused a little too much on the drugs but was otherwise brilliant, I cannot believe that this book has been sitting by my bed for almost a year, hmm, Anyway I was only on pageI think, so it didn't take me long to get back up to speed with Tom Simpson.

William Fotheringham has written a good book here, but, and there is a but, it seemed to me to go on far too long.

I am, and have been for many years, a keen cycling fan, and have followed the major races for more years than I can remember.
Maybe this all stems from my father being a keen amateur rider who actually overlapped in terms of career with Tom Simpson, although my father was coming to the end of his career as Tom was just beginning.


Anyway this book dwells on the enigma that was Tom Simpson, a man driven to extremes in his performance, a man who was for many years the best British cyclist some of his records have only recently been surpassed by the likes of David Millar, Sir Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas, a man who had a vision for British cycling that has only just come to passyears later, a man who unfortunately succumbed to the pressure of the time to race with medicinal assistance, to such an extent that he paid the ultimate price, by dying on Mont Ventoux in theTdF.

Yes it was really interesting but there is only so much one can say about this man who led the way for British cycling, and even the updated last chapter inyears old so way out of date, given that Lance Armstrong is still a hero and noone has heard of Bradley Wiggins.

So all in all an interesting book, but unless you are a real fan of British cycling, I wouldn't bother if I'm honest.
Read something more modern. 'The best cycling biography ever written' Velo Tom Simpson was an Olympic medallist, world champion and the first Briton to wear the fabled yellow jersey of the Tour de France.
He died a tragic early death on the barren moonscape of the Mont Ventoux during theTour, Almostyears on, hundreds of fans still make the pilgrimage to the windswept memorial which marks the spot where he died.
A man of contradictions, Simpson was one of the first cyclists to admit to using banned drugs, and was accused of fixing races, yet the dapper "Major Tom" inspired awe and affection for the obsessive will to win which was ultimately to cost him his life.
Put me Back on my Bike revisits the places and people associated with Simpson to produce the definitive story of Britain's greatest ever cyclist.
Fotheringham intends here to see all the edges around Simpson's death, It's more complex than simple doping we can't dismiss the rider responsabity, but also analyze his place in the system, a system plague of exploitation and insecurities.
How long the chain of responsability must be extended And it's a mistake see things from a current perspective, what we know now it's not the same they knew then, for instance about the damage these substances could cause.


The author approachs all that from the perspective of the sixties, explaining what was known then and how cycling was related to salaries, races and criteriums, the importance of soigneurs, the abscence of the proescution of doping, etc.
And makes too a resemblance of Simpson as a person, his ambitions, his personality, his emotional baggage,

I think he pays too much attention to Mont Ventoux ending the book, since it seems to focus more importance on the ascent, moving it away from the cyclist.
And this is not the place to analyze the climb, but the place to tell how professional cycling is and were, the pressure cyclists have to decide whether embrace this world or not.
The latter is the most interesant of this book, along with the consecuencies that Simpon's death had in the subsequent fight against doping.
I really admired Fotheringham's balanced approach to his subject, It's sometimes too easy to give in and be defensive when you genuinely like the person you're writing about, and Simpson clearly was a likeable man.


Fotheringham kept enough distance to write about where Simpson went wrong, and how Simpson's death was a tragedy brought on not only by the amphetamines in his system, but by his determination to ride himself into oblivion, which cost him his life a short distance from the summit of Mont Ventoux.


This reader was left with a pervasive sense of loss upon finishing the book, I'd found the book remarkably moving, the prose exceptionally profound in places, and like the author himself, I found myself wishing I could spend more time in Simpson's company.
Sadly, tragically, this is of course impossible,

As a result of Fotheringham's descriptive writing, his indepth approach to his subject, and his frank honesty, I can genuinely say I will never look at Tom Simpson or even Mont Ventoux the same way again.
A very engaging biography of a terrifically charismatic cycle racer, A real grafter who worked his way from a pit village in the north of England to mixing it with the racing elite in Europe.


Tom Simpson seems to have been a real character, showman, eccentric and very likeable man the kind of sportsman that seems in very short supply in the modern era.


Strangely even the drug taking doesnt tarnish his memory, It was a different era and they were playing by different rules back in the day, It took many years following his death before they really got to grips with formalising antidoping procedures and even now there is a lingering taint to cycle racing that never quite goes away.


Its a real shame that he died too soon with so many projects still to be achieved.




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