Via Twitter, August 23, Davis Phinney, former cycling great, President of Davis Phinney Foundation for Parkinson's and author of Happiness of Pursuit: A Father's Courage, A Son's Love and Life's Steepest Climb: Reading "Life in the Slipstream." Excellent account of cycling legend Bobby Walthour Sr. Recommended!
Via Twitter, September 15, Daniel Lee, author of The Belgian Hammer: Just got "Life in the Slipstream: The Legend of Bobby Walthour Sr. I love learning about cycling's great past."
Media News Group (San Francisco Bay Area), by Mark Tarte, August 7, 2011: At the turn of the 20th century, bicycling was all the rage across Europe and the United States and professional racing was in its infancy. A new book, "Life in the Slipstream, the Legend of Bobby Walthour Sr.," written by a Livermore native, came to my attention a few weeks ago and I began reading the tale of bike racing in its rowdy and sometimes violent beginnings.
Jim Langley, Road Bike Rider.com, Issue 486: While this isn’t a tech tip, I also want to tell you about a new cycling book
that I enjoyed, and believe would be the perfect escape for any vacationing
roadie sipping iced tea next to the lake in an Adirondack chair after putting in
the miles...I thoroughly enjoyed learning about one of our first
great cyclists and paced racers who competed in an event that at the time was
the world’s favorite sport. As I follow the Tour de France this year, it’ll be
hard not to think how easy the Tourmen have it compared to Walthour.
Farmville (Virginia) Herald, by Ken Woodley, June 16,2011: They don't make them like the late great cyclist Bobby Walthour Sr. anymore. He's every mythical sporting legend and Hollywood athletic hero rolled into one...and what an inspiration to everyone, all of us get knocked down, crashed into, or simply fall down when we cannot take another step or another day. It's the getting back up that matters and defines us, not the knocking crash that sends us falling down. The will to live should be our last testament. It certainly was Mr. Walthour's.
Andrew,
Just "reporting in" that I finished your magnificent work on Bobby Walthour Sr. last night. Throughout the book I felt I was revisiting scenes I knew, but only "sort of", and for the first time I got a feel for those scenes in a way that allowed me to think I was, in a way, "there". You know how bike riders get in a scrum and tell jokes about situations and each other; I could sense that in many places in your book. Wow, the homework you had to do to put this book together...as one who has had some familiarity with that daunting task, "Chapeau"!
--Owen Mulholland, Author of Uphill Battle: Cycling's Great Climbers
Andrew,
Just wanted to let you know I finished the Walthour book. I loved it! What an awesome era it was in cycling history. I'm glad you got it down for the rest of us.
--Thomas C Officer Sr, Litchfield, Conn
If you love American history, sports in general, or the great sport of cycling in this country, this is an unbelievably rich book that captures a world-class American athlete in one of our richest eras. As a fan of all three things, I couldn’t put this book down. This is a history of heroes, triumphs, and the stuff that makes them both bigger than life.
-- George Mount, U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame inductee
Few Americans realize that at the turn of the twentieth century, six-day competitions and motorcycle-paced bicycle races drew larger crowds than baseball. Andrew Homan, with his detailed telling of the life and career of Bobby Walthour, puts you squarely in the middle of the action, vicariously reliving the spine-tingling victories and anticipating the all-too-frequent horrific crashes that were part and parcel of the sport. Life in the Slipstream provides a glimpse into this nearly lost historical era when Americans first dominated the sport of cycling.
-- Joe Herget, executive director, U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame
Life in the Slipstream is a piece of history that I am thankful did not slip away. Bobby Walthour was a gladiator in the most brutal and dangerous form of bike racing there has ever been. Andrew Homan’s book does him justice, and Walthour’s courage and accomplishments put all the rest of cycling’s heroes in their places. Put yourself on a bike at 55 mph behind a motorcycle and find out for yourself!
-- Alexi Grewal, 1984 Olympic Road Race champion
A fantastic look at one of American cycling's Golden Age greats. A fast paced read full of harrowing detail of a life lived on the edge. Definitely a book that will appeal far beyond cycling circles. I loved it.
-- Mike McCarthy, former World Professional Cycling Champion and two-time U.S. Olympian
