''It wasn''t a race but a war game'' Bernard Hinault ''Without question, the hardest one-day bike race ever created'' George Hincapie The Tour of Flanders – known to cycling fans as the Ronde – is the biggest one-day bike race in the world. It is a potent mix of grit , cobbles, steep climbs, narrow roads, national pride, beer, brutal weather and the maddest, most passionate fans in the sport. It’s the Tour de France boiled down into a single day of non-stop action – the Belgian equivalent of the Grand National, Wimbledon and the FA Cup final. And there’s yet more to it than that. Edward Pickering tells the story of the Tour of Flanders , its history, culture and meaning, through the prism of the 2011 Ronde, an incredible edition that was one of the most exciting bike races of the past half-century. He weaves the narrative of that day into a broader study of the race, with eyewitness accounts from the key locations of the Ronde and dozens of interviews with the riders. The Ronde is a textured portrait of a race, but it also explores the deep links between bike races and the landscape and culture in which they take place, and explains how cycling works, with the most detailed analysis of a single event ever seen.

39;The race is, as Pickering explains in this beautifully written book, inseparable from the landscape, and the people who inhabit Flanders. The Ronde is exquisitely written and its style, at least to me, is fascinating... Read this wonderful book about the world’s greatest race. Unleash your inner Flandrian: the ten-commandments on how to be a Flandrian are revealed within: You will not regret it.'

Auteur
Ed Pickering is one of the UK's leading cycling writers, having written for a range of publications from Cycling Weekly to the New York Times and Loaded. He is the author of the critically acclaimed The Race Against Time and The Yellow Jersey Club, and the editor of Procycling magazine.

Texte du rabat

Inside The Tour Of Flanders, The World's Toughest Bike Race. This is the first English language book to provide an in-depth account of the race as well as assessing its history and how it has come to form such a vital part of Flemish identity.

Résumé
A brilliant and revealing insight into Flanders and the most challenging of the Monuments: the Ronde.