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Rough Ride | 
 enlarge | Author: Paul Kimmage
Publisher: Yellow Jersey Press
Category: Book
List Price: £8.99
Buy New: £3.57
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New (28) Used (11) from £2.65
Rating:  21 reviews
Sales Rank: 31534
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5.1 x 1
ISBN: 0224080172
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.62092
EAN: 9780224080170
ASIN: 0224080172
Publication Date: June 7, 2007
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Condition: BRAND NEW - ***Delivery usually * 2 - 3 * working days - From Aphrohead of SOUTHPORT, Lancs, UK *** . Priority Airmail used Worldwide on International orders. Thanks from all at Aphrohead.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 16 more reviews...
 The Date, The Day...It's All Written Down September 4, 2008
cluricaune (Co. Armagh, N. Ireland)
Paul Kimmage is an award-winning sports journalist who writes for the Sunday Times newspaper in the United Kingdom. Born in Dublin, he is a former professional cyclist who competed in the 1980s - alongside compatriots Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche and Martin Earley. In "Rough Ride", Kimmage looks back on his life on the bike - he touches on his amateur years, though he focuses more on his time as a professional. While the move into professional cycling was a dream come true for Kimmage, the reality of professional cycling wasn't quite the dream he had hoped for : never mind the physical and psychological difficulties associated with the sport, cycling had a widespread drugs problem.
The 1980s were great times for Irish cycling - Sean Kelly was successful from one end of the decade to the other, while Stephen Roche won the Tour de France, the Giro d'Italia and the World Championships in 1987. Kimmage, however, was a domestique and never won a race. He entered the professional ranks with RMO in 1986, before moving to Fagor-MBK in 1989 - where he rode alongside Stephen Roche until the Tour de France. He abandoned that race and - despite having intended to quit at the end of that season - he never rode professionally again.
Kimmage was one of four new pros taken on by RMO in 1986 - however, as one of the few non-French riders, it was initially difficult for him to integrate into the team. Nevertheless, Andre 'Dede' Chappuis quickly became a friend - as, in time, did Jean Claude Colotti and Thierry Claveyrolat. As an amateur, Kimmage had heard rumours about the drug-taking in the professional ranks. However, he was determined to stay clean - even, initially, refusing to take the vitamin shots. (The shots were injected and, in Kimmage's mind, syringes meant doping. Nine stages of the 1986 Tour de France changed his mind : he wouldn't have been capable of starting stage 10 without a shot of Vitamin B12). So far as I know, vitamin shots don't count as doping - I may be wrong - but they certainly would certainly appear innocent enough to the man in the street. Similarly, caffeine tablets also sound reasonably innocent - however, they would return a positive test. Nevertheless, they were quite commonly used - taken early enough in the stage, the caffeine would've been out of the system by the time the cyclist reached doping control.
However, things in cycling went far beyond vitamins and caffeine tablets. Kimmage remembers arriving at a race in his early days carrying a briefcase, something that caused a bit of a slagging from the other riders. It was only later that he discovered many other cyclists carried pills and syringes in theirs - while Kimmage himself was only carrying his passport and a few letters. Since not every race tested for drugs, cyclists knew which races they could 'charge up' for safely. While it was never openly encouraged by the management, they were occasionally reminded of their duty as professionals - especially when there were world ranking points at stake. It wasn't uncommon for syringes full of amphetamines to be used, not only in these races but also in Criteriums. EPO, of course, only arrived in the 1990s - but Kimmage also touches on it in the second edition.
"Rough Ride" was first published in 1990 and, while he wasn't expecting it to be universally welcomed, he wasn't expecting the reception the book received. His friendships with Sean Kelly and Martin Earley survived - both are thanked for their support following the book's first publishing - though Thierry Claveyrolat and Jean-Claude Colotti weren't quite so understanding. Worse, things worked out terribly with Stephen Roche. It's clear from reading the book that Kimmage idolised Roche and that riding alongside him at Fagor was a dream come true. Roche, however, seemed to view the book as a personal attack, and was very quick to talk about the possibility of legal action. I'm not sure if the court case ever arrived...the cleanup cycling certainly hasn't. A sad book, but a very highly recommended one.
Phenomenal book, full of the contradictions of life on a bike. August 3, 2008
C. Tatnall
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Loved it. The latter edition has some articles and interviews which reflect on the ethics of the peloton not having changed from 89. Many people complain about Kimmage's partisan ire and lack of impartiality, but in the initial book it is nothing of the sort. The book is essentially a diary of his personal sporting troubles, and the acceptance that the organisations of cycling force nearly all young riders to reflect that to compete for any length of time doping is a necessity. He talks about his teammates drug use, but in the main it is a general look at the pressures and reality of doping during the tour/season.
It's full of contradictions that nearly all of us have apart from the Merx's, Hinault's and Armstrong's. Kimmage doesn't avoid the accounts of multiple failures and retirements from races. It's clear that he doesn't have the single-mindedness mentality and dedication for winning but also that he had the talent to compete in stages. Without performance enhancers he would never compete on his favoured routes.
The bitterness froths on the subsequent cycling & media aggression towards him. Was he right? Yes. He wasn't attacking his fellow cyclists, bombastic idiots like McQuaid saw fit to undermine him at every turn. It's a shame that McQuaid didn't put some effort into preventing the systemic drug abuse, that led to so many lives being destroyed by EPO in the 90's.
To all the people criticising Kimmage for his lack of proffessionalism, take a moment to think if you ever could get anywhere near finishing the tour. Then think if your true love of cycling would sustain through having to waste yourself for the team, whilst knowing you were racing
against doped up rivals. Yes he becomes very bitter, mainly after the abuse he receives from the cycling administration that should be ensuring a clean peloton.
Interesting insight July 2, 2008
Mr. Terence Jones (Glasgow, Scotland, U.K.)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I've read this book twice now.
I agree with some reviewers that there seems to be hypocrisy in Kimmage's accounts - he claims some of his friends and himself are victims of the pressure to dope just to survive however put Landis and Rasmussen up there in the same situation and they are villans.
However what must be remembered is that the villification of Landis et all by Kimmage happened a full 14 years AFTER the first part of the book.
By this time Kimmage has seen countless sabre rattling false dawns of "we'll clean this up" and each time it comes to nothing.
It needs to be remembered that Kimmage's peers that doped in the 80's are running the sport now.
I've read some of his comments in his newspaper articles and it seems has been left betrayed that the sport he loved could harbour so many
years of cheats. Even the great Jacques Anquetil said "Do you think we did all that with just water in our bottles?"
Even the new holier than thou brigade (David Millar) don't come out of this clean on his return to the Peleton he takes advise from the very doctor who 2 of his clients have been implicated in the Peurto scandal. So you can understand Kimmage's "will they ever learn" attitude.
Ironic as i write this that Spain have just won Euro 2008 and yet in the Puerto scandal of 100+ samples seized 24 are alledged to come from La Liga footballers.... Football has no EPO or blood doping controls just amphetamines and class A drugs......
A good enthralling read.
A Sad Tale that Had to Be Written February 13, 2008
Bill McGann (Cherokee Village, AR, USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
What's it like to be a wonderfully talented amateur bicycle racer who gets thrown into the meat-grinder of professional cycling? Kimmage answers the question in honest yet depressing detail.
An example: This book explains that the fatigued riders who did not place in the final stage of the Tour wouldn't be tested for dope, so they were free to take amphetamines. Reading "Rough Ride" is a lot like driving by a car crash. You really want to avert your eyes but can't. Kimmage's story of life as a cycling domestique is fascinating.
Kimmage makes it very clear that he is only telling his own personal story and not accusing any other rider in particular. But the practices he exposes clearly indict the entire profession. His revelations of the culture of doping within the peloton brought him withering criticism. He wasn't the first to get in trouble for revealing cycling's nasty underside. Bernard Thévenet almost died of liver failure from overuse of corticoids. When he confessed that doping was the cause of his health problems and that doping was a common practice within the peloton, the 2-time Tour winner suffered terrible opprobrium from the press, his sponsor and his fellow racers.
I believe Kimmage's book is the first (at least in English) to detail at length what life as a professional truly entailed. Since then former professional Erwann Menthéour has also written a memoir about doping in cycling which, to the best of my knowledge, has not been translated. Both he and Kimmage explained that the term for revealing cyclists' doping to the public is called "spitting in the soup". Menthéour's (who was caught using EPO) reply was "People are saying I am spitting in the soup, but it is necessary when it is poison." In the last year the wall of silence regarding doping has come tumbling down and several famous racers have confessed their misdeeds.
Yet Kimmage's book is the seminal tome and writing it was an act of courage.
The book is more than about doping. It details Kimmage's own failure to properly train and prepare for some seasons. He also describes the gut-busting exhaustion that the lesser riders suffer as they work at their limits for their more talented team leaders.
"Rough Ride" is a well-written book about racing in the 1980s but its lessons apply to the present. It is important reading for any cycling fan with an interest in what it takes to produce the spectacle we so enjoy watching.
- Bill McGann, author of The Story of the Tour de France
 Green Eggs and Ham December 30, 2007
Ms. K. Hall (London)
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
"I do not like to cycle in the rain, I do not like to cycle by a train ..." While drugs might have been a part of why Paul Kimmage's dreams of cycling glory didn't come true, the fact that he hated cycling in the rain, in Belgium, on the flats, in the heat ... well, just about anywhere and in any condition might actually be a better indicator of why he never got anywhere and maybe why he's such a bitter man. Of course, by saying this, in Kimmage's book I am an apologist for the dopers in the peloton, because what is also apparent in this book is that anyone who disagrees with him is villified ...
AS for the doping part of the book, it is actually very enlightening on how easy it was (is?) to dope, how easily the mind can be turned to it just to be able to get on a bike every day to compete, how prevalent it is in the sport. But there are a couple things that I find strange about Kimmage's viewpoint. First of all, he basically implies throughout that anyone who has any success is almost certainly a doper because pro cycling is so gruelling. But then he is astounded and hurt that Stephen Roche - Giro, Tour and World Champion in the same year - cuts him out of his life after publication of the book (and Roche was very good to Kimmage during his career). Secondly, near the end of the first edition of the book, Kimmage says that, even though he 'charged up' three times in his career, he isn't a cheat 'I AM A VICTIM' (in all caps) but in his add-ons through the years, he doesn't afford this explanation to Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich or Floyd Landis. No, these men should be drawn and quartered and their pieces flung to all four corners of the earth.
Another reviewer mentioned this, but I think it's important to reiterate - the guy never seemed to train! He abandoned race after race (at one point, at the beginning of the season, he figured he needed to complete one race because he'd abandoned the first seven he was in and he was worried they wouldn't renew his contract...). He took time off because he couldn't face training and then wondered why his next race was such a horrific experience. I actually came away with the impression that, as much as he might say he loved cycling and it broke his heart, he actually hated cycling - doing it, watching it, talking about it. Every other page he was 'sickened' or 'disgusted' by something. It started to get to sound like a fundamentalist's diatribe after a while. So, read the book definitely because there are very good things in it, but don't expect it all to make sense.
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