Rough Ride: Behind the Wheel With a Pro Cyclist
Paul Kimmage
An eye-opening expose of and a heart-breaking lament for professional cycling
Paul Kimmage's boyhood dreams were of cycling glory: wearing the yellow jersey, cycling the Tour de France, becoming a national hero. He knew it wouldn't come easy, but he was prepared to put in the graft. The dedication paid off – he finished sixth in the World Championships as an amateur and in 1986, he turned professional.
He soon discovered it wasn't about courage, training hours or how much you wanted to win. It was about gruelling defeats, total exhaustion, and drugs - drugs that would allow you to finish the race and start another day.
Kimmage ultimately left the sport to write this book – profoundly honest and ground-breaking, Rough Ride broke the silence surrounding the issue of drugs in sport, and documents one man’s love for, and struggle with, the complex world of professional cycling.
‘A must read for any cyclist’ Cyclist
WINNER OF WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR
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About Paul Kimmage
Reviews for Rough Ride: Behind the Wheel With a Pro Cyclist
Daniel Friebe
Outdoor Fitness
A devastatingly frank description of life on the professional road cycling circuit, hurtful in its telling of unwelcome truths yet powerful in its capture of what it takes, legally and illegally, to compete
Mary Perryman
Huffington Post UK
In the wake of the Armstrong affair, you can’t move for books about doping, but Kimmage, and ex-pro rider himself, was the first to ‘spit in the soup’ back in the 1990s... A must read for any cyclist
Cyclist