Domestique: The Real-life Ups and Downs of a Tour Pro Author: Charly Wegelius | Language: English | ISBN:
B00CP5UBQG | Format: PDF
Domestique: The Real-life Ups and Downs of a Tour Pro Description
For 11 years I was a professional cyclist, competing in the hardest and greatest races on Earth. I was in demand from the world's best teams, a well-paid elite athlete. But I never won a race. I was the hired help.
When my mum dropped me off in a small French town aged 17, I was full of determination to be a professional cyclist, but I was completely green. I went from mowing the team manager's lawn to winning every amateur race I entered. Then I turned pro and realised I hated the responsibility and pressure of chasing victory. And that's when I became a domestique.
I learned to take that hurt and give it everything I had to give, all for someone else's win. When the order came in to ride it was I pushed out with the hardest rhythm I could, dragging the group faster and faster, until my whole body screamed with pain. There were times I rode myself to a standstill, clutching the barrier metres from the line, as the lead group shot past. But that's what made me a so good at my job.
As my career took off, I started looking at the fans lining the route, cheering us like heroes. The passion for cycling oozed off them, but they couldn't know what it was really like. They didn't see the terrible hotels, the crazy egos or all the shit that goes with great expectations. Well, this is how it is.
- File Size: 2484 KB
- Print Length: 324 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0091950937
- Publisher: Ebury Digital (June 6, 2013)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00CP5UBQG
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21,753 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #6
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Sports > Individual Sports > Cycling - #6
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in Books > Business & Money > Industries & Professions > Sports & Entertainment
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in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Sports > Individual Sports > Cycling - #6
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Charly Wegelius can be very very funny when he writes, but this book gives a serious view of life as a professional cyclist. There is a lot of information about how racing is done at the professional level, which is kind of unnecessary when you know about cycling, but very informative for those less knowledgeable. The main thing is that the reader can see how very difficult life is in the professional ranks, both on and off the bike. For this man to have succeeded without any "enhancements" is beautiful. He may never have actually won a race, but he is a giant winner when you consider he rode in the era of doping but did so clean - a bigger winner than any of those cheaters who may have crossed the finish line first.
By ktp
I think there is a kind of irony in the fact that the Brits are now so dominant in stage racing. They will have to abandon the outsider role that they have had for so many years in the world of pro cycling. It is this outsider status that makes Wegelius' story so compelling and his book a must read. He shows up at a French dominated team as a teenage outsider, and works his way to valued pro the hard way. He learned the hard way largely because the continentals did not take him seriously.The British on the other hand had no real clue how continental racing actually worked. Witness the incident at the World Championship when Wegelius agreed to work for a foreigner largely because his own British squad was a hopeless case for competing. He, of course, was a "criminal" for engaging in the kind of horse trading that is and has been integral to continental racing.
Besides these ironies Wegelius lends useful insights for the reader who wants to get the feel of a grand tour from the inside. His description of the Vuelta since it has been scheduled in the fall is constantly with me,when I make plans to watch this year's version: a virtual afterthought on the pro calendar-full of the injured, the test cases, the has- beens and the still-standing.His description of the place of the Giro in Italian life is worth the read in itself.
I ordered this book with hopes of insights on the real workhorse of the pelaton can provide and I was not disappointed.
By John Rowland
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