Tour de France - History in your Hands
This incredible book combines a written history and a living museum exhibit. Uniquely, this book contains superb items of removable facsimile memorabilia slipped into the pages, plus photographs - some never seen before - that not only bring the text to life but show other personal items from long forgotten Tours.
This is the perfect celebration of the world's toughest test of cycling endurance.
The new Treasures of the Tour de France book comprises an authoritative narrative account of each major era in the history of the epic race, up to and including the 2008 Tour!
The reportage is complemented by features on the superstars and the memorable moments for each of the eras. It also contains 40 facsimile items of sporting memorabilia integrated into the pages of the book.
The reader can relive the dramatic events that have entranced the watching millions by holding and examining souvenir brochures, posters, stickers, postcards and items of correspondence from leading figures associated with the epic sports event..
Many of these items are newly researched and previously unpublished!
Also includes:
- Riders' 1910 Tour contract and rulebook
- Signed postcards, maps and posters
- Journalist's hand-written notes from the first-ever high mountain stage
- More than 275 archive photographs and 40 removable items of Tour de France memorabilia
- Foreword by five-time Tour champion Bernard Hinault
Brand New and updated for 2009 with dramatic story of the 2008 Tour!
"A coffee table tome that promises to put the Tour's history in your hands... Some of the posters and pictures are of such high quality you could frame them." The Observer
"The perfect bluffers' guide to the world's toughest sporting event." Andrew Diprose, GQ Sport