Sex Lies and Handlebar Tape-The Story of Jacques Anquetil

[nvpacchi]

clever title I might add!

Has anyone read it? Is it worth reading?

 

[patricknd]

i enjoyed it.

 

[L'arriviste]

Menage à trois. 'Nuff said.

 

[nvpacchi]

Menage à trois. 'Nuff said.

We got ourselves an oldschool Tim Meadows

 

[Anonymous]

i have had the paperback on order from play for over a year now. :/ still waiting.. its been put off so many times.

 

[brianf7]

Its hard to get in English I have it but I tell you it is very soft compared to what we publish today.
He was a great Cyclist and the best time trialer ever look how many times he won the GP Des Nations.
But if you are looking for a juicy story you may be dissapointed.

He was a French national hero so what ever goes with that I leave to imagination.
He was considered as a Gentalman
he always used a hancercheif to blow his nose while riding.

 

[FKLance]

I thought it was a beautiful book, very interesting and funny stuff too.

 

[Susan Westemeyer]

I reviewed it for Cyclingnews, let me see if I can find the link.

Susan

edit: http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/book-review-jacques-anquetil-biography

 

[johnnh]

I was given it for Christmas. Read half of it and then gave up. A not very entertaining read about a not very nice person.

 

[pedaling squares]

Wow. Married his doctor's wife and fathered a child with his step-daughter. It would be hard to screw the doctor over any worse than that. I wonder if all those women looked like his mother?

 

[Le breton]

I was given it for Christmas. Read half of it and then gave up. A not very entertaining read about a not very nice person.

Most people didn't know about his private life in his lifetime.
Anyway, much of the French public didn't like him, but his fellow racers loved him.

François Hamon, who was a "little pro racer" told me a typical story: They both were in a race, the very popular Chateaulin criterium ( It usually drew 80 000 paying spectators). At one point they were sprinting for a 50 000 french francs "prime" and Anquetil was going to win it.

He then looked under his arm to see who was behind him and he let François Hamon pass him and win the 50000FF. That was about 1 month minimum wage in those days, ie something like 1500$ nowadays, i.e. peanuts for Anquetil but a lot for Hamon. Everybody was happy : the public who saw a local racer beat Anquetil in a sprint, Hamon and all the other "small pros".

Poulidor was too greedy to ever do such a thing and that cost him no doubt a number of wins, the pack preferred to see Anquetil win.

 

[Ashtabula]

Most people didn't know about his private life in his lifetime.
Anyway, much of the French public didn't like him, but his fellow racers loved him.

...

Poulidor was too greedy to ever do such a thing and that cost him no doubt a number of wins, the pack preferred to see Anquetil win.

Interesting, and it seems to me plausible from what I know. An example of how public perception can be the inverse of what insiders think. And this is the European, mostly continental public, so that the usual factors we invoke about the English-speaking public don't apply.