When the news hit about the former professional cyclist and disgraced Tour de France winner Floyd Landis last week, I thought straight away of Paul Kimmage and his contraversial book, “Rough Ride”. Why would I do that? After all, “Rough Ride” was published in 1990, almost twenty years ago now.
Well, just like Landis, Kimmage was a professional cyclist and natural journal-keeper, who retired and wrote a book about having used performance enhancing drugs to recover from the severe demands that the heavy workload imposed upon him. And while he didn’t actually shop anyone else as having done the same, he made it fairly clear that the use of performance enhancing drugs was pretty widespread in professional cycling. And the release of the book blew the doors off the way the public regarded professional cycling forever.
So if you’re at all interested in the Floyd Landis story, then I strongly recommend you get hold of a copy of Paul Kimmage’s book Rough Ride (affiliate link). Things haven’t really changed all that much in twenty years of professional cycling, it seems…
Rough Ride: things haven’t changed
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Sorry, who was Paul Kimmage again?
Paul Kimmage was first of all an Irish professional road cyclist. He was a contemporary of Stephen Roche and Sean Kelly. He was born into a cycling family: his father was the national road race champion in Ireland in 1962 and his brothers were also successful cyclists.
His amateur career was arguably better than his professional career, winning the 1981 national road race championship and taking sixth-place in the amateur world road race in 1985. As a professional, he rode in four Tours de France from 1986 through to 1989, in the role of domestique.
After racing his last Tour de France in 1989, however, Kimmage went into sports journalism. Rough Ride was his first book but you can see more of his writing at his page at the TimesOnline.
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And what is “Rough Ride” about?
Rough Ride tells the story of Kimmage’s foray into competitive cycling, from the first races he rode as a teenager through to the last race he rode, the 1989 Tour de France.
The first part of the book describes the typical highs and lows of competitive cycling. There are good days and bad days. There are days when his legs and mind are strong, the weather is fine and he places well, maybe even wins. And there are days when it buckets it down with rain, there are cross-winds and he punctures only miles from the line.
The second part describes the transition from amateur to competitive cycling. The naive young man from Ireland, eager to make his mark on the world, took contracts with ACBB and later with CC Wasquehal before winning a professional contract with RBO under French cycling legend Bernard Thevenet. He found living away from home, the squalor of living hand-to-mouth and the hard work of maintaining his fitness in the circumstances trying, but he came through and ultimately raced his first Tour de France in 1986.
The last part of the book is structured around the four Tours de France, from 1986 through to 1989. Kimmage gives his diary entries for each day, which show him getting more and more tired as the race continues. Between the grand tours are the criteria and smaller races. In asides, Kimmage tells how the riders, himself included, turned to performance enhancing drugs to keep themselves racing despite massive exhaustion. He is matter-of-fact, not dramatic. You wouldn’t know it was illegal unless he hadn’t already told you.
Oh, and he tells some good anecdotes along the way, too.
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And what happened?
Well, when the book was published, the cycling world went into uproar and a lot of people were very cross with him. A forgiving person might suggest that they were cross because their good name had been inpugned. A cynical person might believe that they were indignantly refuting what they knew to be true but didn’t want to be uncovered.
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So is Kimmage a professional cyclist who became a journalist?
I think he is first and foremost a journalist who happened to be a professional cyclist for a few years at the start of his career. During the 1989 Tour, Kimmage already had a journalistic contract to write a weekly column for the Sunday Tribune. From his diary entries at the time, it was clear that during that Tour, he had already mentally switched off from his career as a professional cyclist and switched onto his next career as a journalist.
And he became a damn good one: you’ll probably remember him as the man who dared to ask Lance Armstrong a direct question about doping, at the 2009 Amgen Tour of California:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUAO7xmNKeA
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Why should I read Rough Ride again?
It’s the first truly honest look at performance enhancing drugs in professional cycling, possibly in sport as a whole. It’s also a gritty and realistic view on the difficulty of existing as a low-level professional sportsman, without the glamour and with only half-decent pay. It’s about the hardships of training all-hours and racing and still having to wash, clean and maintain your own equipment and clothing can take its toll.
Finally, don’t forget, Kimmage is a damn good journalist and writes a decent turn of phrase so you won’t be bored if you take it on holiday with you. I hope you enjoy it.
Want more? Check out this great interview with Paul Kimmage from Cycling Weekly.
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