Book Report: French Revolutions
Did you love Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods? Where you particularly attracted to the light-hearted way Bryson blended outdoor/adventure writing with travel and history? If so, you have to read Tim Moore’s book French Revolutions.
In French Revolutions, Moore sets out to ride the entire route of the Tour de France, albeit in a fashion more in-tuned with a novice cyclist—dividing the stages of the tour into smaller days, and eventually bypassing some stages altogether. Of course, unlike the pros, Moore is taking this trip mostly self-supported, carrying his gear and food with him, biking to his lodging, and route finding as he goes. Also, Moore did almost no training in advance of the trip.
Seeing the country from the seat of a bike allows Moore to explore the nuances of France, taking the reader from the rural countryside to the glitzy resorts of the high mountains. Along the way, readers are treated to stories from the country’s history to famous tales from the tour to interactions with locals and other tourists. The reader is also taken along for the ride as Moore transforms from a cycling neophyte to someone admiring the new-found tone of his legs—a tone partly discovered thanks to his maiden voyage into leg waxing.
Along the way, Moore also has fun with the often too self-serious sport of cycling. Popping pills to fuel him up one of the Tour’s most arduous climbs to secretly racing an old man on a commuter bike to the practice of caring for a cyclist most important part—no not the legs, the perineum.
Much like A Walk in the Woods part of the charm of French Revolutions is the fish-out-of-water aspect of Moore, a novice cyclist diving into the deep-end of bicycling by tackling its most iconic challenge. But it’s not just the cycling world that Moore doesn’t fit in into. Being a British person traveling in France Moore must also tackle the language and cultural challenges presented to him in addition to physical challenges on his journey. Challenges that frequently lead to uncomfortable situations for Moore and high comedy for the reader.
If you’re looking to break away from the vast amount of overly weighty books about cycling, love travel writing, or just want to laugh out loud pick up a copy of Tim Moore’s French Revolutions today.
By Tim Peck
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