French Revolutions

Comic writer Tim Moore trades his ailing Rolls Royce for a bicycle, a map and a water bottle in French Revolutions. This is a quest to pedal the route of the Tour de France, no mean feat for the fit, let alone a self-described suburban slouch. The resulting 2,256-haphazard-mile journey transforms Moore into an incredibly fit and passionately proud cyclist. Initially, Moore takes the "I will do it and it probably will kill me" approach. His normal perspective, as a stooge to life's misfortunes, plays well as he prepares to ride the route of the 2000 Tour de France. Moore is the everyman who pedalled in youth and now wouldn't ride a bike to the corner store. But unlike a traveller by car, train or plane, Moore has to navigate France under his own steam. Somewhere around the Ventoux, the world's windiest place, Moore starts to change. He becomes enraptured by the feat itself as mile by mile he realises he is no longer an accidental cyclist but a lean, mean cycling machine. Gradually, the narrative turns from travel to a personal quest. Along the route, Moore's details of the heroes of the Tour make an excellent primer on this gruelling race and helps the uninitiated understand the frenzy that grips France each July as the races meanders through incidental villages, over mountains and, finally, into Paris. It is worth reading for that alone. Having survived mountains of pain, a disgusting diet and motels of dubious value, a new, muscular Moore concludes that "I might never leave my mark on the Tour, but that didn't matter. It has left its mark on me". To follow Moore's path of perspiration is certainly not a vacation. Yet, this curmudgeonly clever and inspirational book makes one want to do just that. "Old Father Time was catching up with Old Father Tim. If I didn't do it this year, I wouldn't because maybe next year I couldn't," he says before starting out. And that, as Tim Moore so surely points out, is what pushes any true traveller out the door. --Kathleen Buckley

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Always pleasing - Rated
Tim Moore has produced a book that makes you laugh out loud yet again.

This one is slightly different as you suspect Moore had started to lose his mind before he even began his journey - the Tour de France route without even a modicum of serious training??? His stories of past tour riders demonstrates a genuine interest in his subject but his insane antics when attempting to emulate them suggests a man with very little reserves in the sanity store....

This book is, as always, a highly enjoyable (and individualistic) addition to the travel books of recent years. Forget Bryson, read Moore!

A good read but not as funny as many claim - Rated
I bought this book and started reading with anticipation. It is generally quite interesting, and does contain many amusing incidents, but I would certainly not describe the book as "laugh out loud funny". There is no doubting Moore's achievement in following much of the Tour route, and he does have a perceptive eye for the idiosyncracies of the French. I would class this as a holiday read, it doesn't overly tax the brain, it's funny in places, but could never be described as great literature. I would recommend it to read, and have no regrets about having bought it, but you will make your own mind up whether it deserves the hilarious plaudits it has been given.

Great for Tour de France fans - Rated
I have been lucky enough to follow a few Tours in my life usually on my own and on a motorbike with very little luggage and this book reminds me of the emotions I went through on those journeys. There was none of the pain obviously, but the scenery and constant weather watching brings it all back. The villages he describes come alive for one day in the year just because this amazing event is passing through. Until you've been up Ventoux, it's hard to imagine how anyone could cycle up it after being in the saddle all day but the author's references to the late Tom Simpson was also poignant reminding us of how he died 40 years ago on that mountain. This book is funny, descriptive and a great read for anyone who is in awe of cycling as I am and for someone who has never really ridden a bike before, I think he did rather well. Who cares if he cheated? All he did was face the stark realisation that the men who compete in the Tour de France are totally dedicated sportsmen with a passion most of us will never know.

Amusing in places, but wordy writing style - Rated
I'm afraid I didn't find this book particularly funny and came to dislike Moore's wordy, over-descriptive writing style; like one reviewer said, it tends to hide the meaning or intent of what he is trying to say. And were his experiences as really as entertaining as he makes out, or has he taken artistic license a bit too far?

I thought the most interesting bits were the anecdotes about past Tours, including Paul Kimmage's experiences, though these became less frequent in the latter half of the book.

Another star is lost because he didn't ride the whole route, as the book's title implies.

Larry David on a bike - Rated
Moore is a talented writer and in the space of 280 pages manages to give a pointed critique on the absurdities of the French; provide overwhelming proof that the word "exercise" for the over 30's is actually an abbreviation of the term "exercise in futility"; and, most impressive of all, comes perilously close to getting himself divorced.

My favourite bit in the book comes on the road to Evian. When Moore meets a couple who complain about how cold it is, he comments, with intentional vulgarity, that he's sure they can think of others ways of warming themselves up. Delighted with this, he cycles off only to become aghast when it finally dawns on him that they are not actually a couple but brother and sister. Initially repentant, Moore concludes that:

"my veiled accusation might indeed have forestalled an incestuous atrocity: they wore the same clothes, after all, and rode the same bikes - and, let's face it, there's no smoke without fire."

A witty and irreverent travelogue.