Book Friday - Slaying The Badger by Richard Moore

So time for the second instalment of the “Book Friday” series. This time I will be reviewing a cycling book (which will be no surprise given the amount of coverage I give this sport on here)

Slaying the Badger, LeMond, Hinault and the greatest ever Tour de France - by Richard Moore

The quality of a book like this will ultimately have to in some part depend on the topic, and alternatively a poor author can ruin a good topic. In this case both the excellent and enthralling topic and the superb writing style and extensive research brought by the author, lead to an excellent result.

This book, as the title suggests, deals with the titanic struggle between Hinault (“the Badger”), the titan of cycling and LeMond, the American upstart, both teammates, for the 1986 edition of the Tour de France. As well as this, there were other reasons that (especially in hindsight) the 1986 Tour de France was interesting and indeed a pivotal moment in the sport, which the book pays full attention to.

The two protagonists

Indeed, the actual main topic is only covered in the last third of the book. The first two thirds of the book set the scene acting as biographies’ for both LeMond and Hinault In addition the backward cycling scene of the 80’s and the seeds of change that were being planted during this period are covered. The blurb of this book does not mention this at all, but the coverage of the modernisation of cycling during this period and the roots of the coming momentous change in the sport, is one of the most interesting parts of this book, especially to the may cycling fans who are fairly familiar with the titanic struggle between Hinault and LeMond. I, for one, never knew that this change was actually planned from the very top of the sport with the all powerful Jacques Goddet having actively seeking to promote cycling in American and American cyclists in Europe. As well as Goddet, many of the big directeur sportifs (mangers) such as Cyrille Guimard also were trying to recruit American cyclists to increase their attractiveness to sponsors and too bolster their squads with unknown talent.

The book is very well researched, with the author having personally conducted interviews with all of the key players in the 86 Tour. In addition major figures of the cycling scene throughout the 80’s in the peloton, in the bureaucracy of the race organisers and in the ranks of the journalists who covered the race where consulted. These excepts are invaluable to this books coverage of this spectacle, the reference of what was said in the past and present is interesting, as are the recent opinions of the people in the know, from the lowly domestiques to the all powerful directeur sportifs (manger). The literature of the time, from the sports papers of Europe to the bemused broadsheet coverage of the English speaking world is well consulted to good effect.

This is a book that is good for both newcomers to cycling (and the story of the 1986 TdF) and those who are fairly well versed in cycling history. It explains cycling’s complexity and sometimes strange ways to the former, whilst offering plenty of anecdotes to the latter. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone.