Customer Reviews
The Date, The Day...It's All Written Down - By: cluricaune, 04 Sep 2008 
Paul Kimmage is an award-winning sports journalist who writes for the Sunday Times newspaperin the United Kingdom. Bornin Dublin, he is a former professional cyclist who competedin the 1980s - alongside compatriots Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche & Martin Earley. In "Rough Ride", Kimmage looks back on his life on the bike - he touches on his amateur years, though he focuses more on his time as a professional. While the move into professional cycling was a dream come true for Kimmage, the reality of professional cycling wasn't quite the dream he had hoped for : never mind the physical & psychological difficulties associated with the sport, cycling had a widespread drugs problem.
The 1980s were great times for Irish cycling - Sean Kelly was successful from one end of the decade to the other, while Stephen Roche won the Tour de France, the Giro d'Italia & the World Championshipsin 1987. Kimmage, however, was a domestique & never won a race. He entered the professional ranks with RMOin 1986, before moving to Fagor-MBKin 1989 - where he rode alongside Stephen Roche until the Tour de France. He abandoned that race & - despite having intended to quit at the end of that season - he never rode professionally again.
Kimmage was one of four new pros taken on by RMOin 1986 - however, as one of the few non-French riders, it was initially difficult for him to integrate into the team. Nevertheless, Andre 'Dede' Chappuis quickly became a friend - as,in time, did Jean Claude Colotti & Thierry Claveyrolat. As an amateur, Kimmage had heard rumours about the drug-takingin the professional ranks. However, he was determined to stay clean - even, initially, refusing to take the vitamin shots. (The shots were injected and,in Kimmage's mind, syringes meant doping. Nine stages of the 1986 Tour de France changed his mind : he wouldn't have been capable of starting stage 10 without a shot of Vitamin B12). So far as I know, vitamin shots don't count as doping - I may be wrong - but they certainly would certainly appear innocent enough to the manin the street. Similarly, caffeine tablets also sound reasonably innocent - however, they would return a positive test. Nevertheless, they were quite commonly used - taken early enoughin the stage, the caffeine would've been out of the system by the time the cyclist reached doping control.
However, thingsin cycling went far beyond vitamins & caffeine tablets. Kimmage remembers arriving at a racein his early days carrying a briefcase, something that caused a bit of a slagging from the other riders. It was only later that he discovered many other cyclists carried pills & syringesin theirs - while Kimmage himself was only carrying his passport & a few letters. Since not every race tested for drugs, cyclists knew which races they could 'charge up' for safely. While it was never openly encouraged by the management, they were occasionally reminded of their duty as professionals - especially when there were world ranking points at stake. It wasn't uncommon for syringes full of amphetamines to be used, not onlyin these races but alsoin Criteriums. EPO, of course, only arrivedin the 1990s - but Kimmage also touches on itin the second edition.
"Rough Ride" was first publishedin 1990 and, while he wasn't expecting it to be universally welcomed, he wasn't expecting the reception the book received. His friendships with Sean Kelly & Martin Earley survived - both are thanked for their support following the book's first publishing - though Thierry Claveyrolat & Jean-Claude Colotti weren't quite so understanding. Worse, things worked out terribly with Stephen Roche. It's clear from reading the book that Kimmage idolised Roche & that riding alongside him at Fagor was a dream come true. Roche, however, seemed to view the book as a personal attack, & was very quick to talk about the possibility of legal action. I'm not sure if the court case ever arrived...the cleanup cycling certainly hasn't. A sad book, but a very highly recommended one.
Phenomenal book, full of the contradictions of life on a bike. - By: C. Tatnall, 03 Aug 2008 Loved it. The latter edition has some articles & interviews which reflect on the ethics of the peloton not having changed from 89. Many people complain about Kimmage's partisan ire & lack of impartiality, butin the initial book it is nothing of the sort. The book is essentially a diary of his personal sporting troubles, & the acceptance that the organisations of cycling force nearly all young riders to reflect that to compete for any length of time doping is a necessity. He talks about his teammates drug use, butin the main it is a general look at the pressures & reality of doping during the tour/season.
It's full of contradictions that nearly all of us have apart from the Merx's, Hinault's & Armstrong's. Kimmage doesn't avoid the accounts of multiple failures & retirements from races. It's clear that he doesn't have the single-mindedness mentality & dedication for winning but also that he had the talent to competein stages. Without performance enhancers he would never compete on his favoured routes.
The bitterness froths on the subsequent cycling & media aggression towards him. Was he right? Yes. He wasn't attacking his fellow cyclists, bombastic idiots like McQuaid saw fit to undermine him at every turn. It's a shame that McQuaid didn't put some effort into preventing the systemic drug abuse, that led to so many lives being destroyed by EPOin the 90's.
To all the people criticising Kimmage for his lack of proffessionalism, take a moment to think if you ever could get anywhere near finishing the tour. Then think if your true love of cycling would sustain through having to waste yourself for the team, whilst knowing you were racing
against doped up rivals. Yes he becomes very bitter, mainly after the abuse he receives from the cycling administration that should be ensuring a clean peloton.
Interesting insight - By: Mr. Terence Jones, 02 Jul 2008 I've read this book twice now.
I agree with some reviewers that there seems to be hypocrisyin Kimmage's accounts - he claims some of his friends & himself are victims of the pressure to dope just to survive however put Landis & Rasmussen up therein the same situation & they are villans.
However what must be remembered is that the villification of Landis et all by Kimmage happened a full 14 years AFTER the first part of the book.
By this time Kimmage has seen countless sabre rattling false dawns of "we'll clean this up" & each time it comes to nothing.
It needs to be remembered that Kimmage's peers that dopedin the 80's are running the sport now.
I've read some of his commentsin his newspaper articles & it seems has been left betrayed that the sport he loved could harbour so many
years of cheats. Even the great Jacques Anquetil said "Do you think we did all that with just waterin our bottles?"
Even the new holier than thou brigade (David Millar) don't come out of this clean on his return to the Peleton he takes advise from the very doctor who 2 of his clients have been implicatedin the Peurto scandal. So you can understand Kimmage's "will they ever learn" attitude.
Ironic as i write this that Spain have just won Euro 2008 & yetin the Puerto scandal of 100+ samples seized 24 are alledged to come from La Liga footballers.... Football has no EPO or blood doping controls just amphetamines & class A drugs......
A good enthralling read.
A Sad Tale that Had to Be Written - By: Bill McGann, 13 Feb 2008 What's it like to be a wonderfully talented amateur bicycle racer who gets thrown into the meat-grinder of professional cycling? Kimmage answers the questionin honest yet depressing detail.
An example: This book explains that the fatigued riders who did not placein the final stage of the Tour wouldn't be tested for dope, so they were free to take amphetamines. Reading "Rough Ride" is a lot like driving by a car crash. You really want to avert your eyes but can't. Kimmage's story of life as a cycling domestique is fascinating.
Kimmage makes it very clear that he is only telling his own personal story & not accusing any other riderin particular. But the practices he exposes clearly indict the entire profession. His revelations of the culture of doping within the peloton brought him withering criticism. He wasn't the first to getin trouble for revealing cycling's nasty underside. Bernard Thévenet almost died of liver failure from overuse of corticoids. When he confessed that doping was the cause of his health problems & that doping was a common practice within the peloton, the 2-time Tour winner suffered terrible opprobrium from the press, his sponsor & his fellow racers.
I believe Kimmage's book is the first (at leastin English) to detail at length what life as a professional truly entailed. Since then former professional Erwann Menthéour has also written a memoir about dopingin cycling which, to the best of my knowledge, has not been translated. Both he & Kimmage explained that the term for revealing cyclists' doping to the public is called "spittingin the soup". Menthéour's (who was caught using EPO) reply was "People are saying I am spittingin the soup, but it is necessary when it is poison." In the last year the wall of silence regarding doping has come tumbling down & several famous racers have confessed their misdeeds.
Yet Kimmage's book is the seminal tome & writing it was an act of courage.
The book is more than about doping. It details Kimmage's own failure to properly train & prepare for some seasons. He also describes the gut-busting exhaustion that the lesser riders suffer as they work at their limits for their more talented team leaders.
"Rough Ride" is a well-written book about racingin the 1980s but its lessons apply to the present. It is important reading for any cycling fan with an interestin what it takes to produce the spectacle we so enjoy watching.
- Bill McGann, author of The Story of the Tour de France
Green Eggs and Ham - By: Ms. K. Hall, 30 Dec 2007 
"I do not like to cyclein the rain, I do not like to cycle by a train ..." While drugs might have been a part of why Paul Kimmage's dreams of cycling glory didn't come true, the fact that he hated cyclingin the rain,in Belgium, on the flats,in the heat ... well, just about anywhere &in any condition might actually be a better indicator of why he never got anywhere & maybe why he's such a bitter man. Of course, by saying this,in Kimmage's book I am an apologist for the dopersin the peloton, because what is also apparentin this book is that anyone who disagrees with him is villified ...
AS for the doping part of the book, it is actually very enlightening on how easy it was (is?) to dope, how easily the mind can be turned to it just to be able to get on a bike every day to compete, how prevalent it isin the sport. But there are a couple things that I find strange about Kimmage's viewpoint. First of all, he basically implies throughout that anyone who has any success is almost certainly a doper because pro cycling is so gruelling. But then he is astounded & hurt that Stephen Roche - Giro, Tour & World Championin the same year - cuts him out of his life after publication of the book (and Roche was very good to Kimmage during his career). Secondly, near the end of the first edition of the book, Kimmage says that, even though he 'charged up' three timesin his career, he isn't a cheat 'I AM A VICTIM' (in all caps) butin his add-ons through the years, he doesn't afford this explanation to Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich or Floyd Landis. No, these men should be drawn & quartered & their pieces flung to all four corners of the earth.
Another reviewer mentioned this, but I think it's important to reiterate - the guy never seemed to train! He abandoned race after race (at one point, at the beginning of the season, he figured he needed to complete one race because he'd abandoned the first seven he wasin & he was worried they wouldn't renew his contract...). He took time off because he couldn't face training & then wondered why his next race was such a horrific experience. I actually came away with the impression that, as much as he might say he loved cycling & it broke his heart, he actually hated cycling - doing it, watching it, talking about it. Every other page he was 'sickened' or 'disgusted' by something. It started to get to sound like a fundamentalist's diatribe after a while. So, read the book definitely because there are very good thingsin it, but don't expect it all to make sense.
