Some of the negative reviewers are disappointed by this book because it doesn't really explain bike racing. They're right, but they're also missing the point. This book is about Bobke, not bike racing. As such, it's very much worth reading.
Many books about cycling seem based on the idea that the riders are lonely, obsessed heroes who are willing to die face down on a peak in the Alps for a moment of glory. Or, alternately, they're doped up cyborgs who are willing to die face down for a pile of money.
While there probably are some examples of both stereotypes, the reality is that, as Bob Roll points out, in Europe, most professional cyclists are working class guys. And so is Bob Roll. That's what makes this book so interesting to me-- and maybe why it disappoints some other reviewers.
Roll is a real oddball as a professional cyclist. (And I don't mean his off-the-wall irreverence, though that is the 800-pound gorilla in the room whenever Roll is present.) Roll's oddness as a professional is that he enjoyed a long career near the top of the road racing and mountain biking worlds, yet he was a thoroughly unexceptional rider. He wasn't really fast, he wasn't a great climber, and he certainly wasn't a great tactical mind. However, he was as tough as a $2 steak. Throughout his career he was willing-- and able-- to race with a nearly maniacal focus on helping his team win. He was relentless, to the point of making his competitors believe that he would ride through walls if need be to beat them. And maybe he would have done just that; who really knows?
In this book, Roll takes us with him as he toils deep in the peloton, as he crashes in horrendous piles of screaming riders, as he pauses to throw up on a French farmer's front lawn, as he goes on fanatical ten-hour training rides with Lance Armstrong or alone in the snow on closed highways in the Rockies. These things, and not the races themselves, are what professional cycling is like for a real-world, working-class guy with a relentless work ethic and a boundless love for cycling.
I'm not sure I'd enjoy being with Bobke on a long car ride, and I most definitely wouldn't want to be trapped in a stalled elevator with him, but I really enjoyed this book. If a regular guy can do an international sport at a high level, Roll is that guy. Read this book, and you'll probably never look at bike racing and the men who do it in quite the same way ever again.
This book isn't really about bike racing. It's about Bob Roll-- Bobke-- a true American original.
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