Bike racers were America’s media darlings less than a century ago—dashing, eccentric, and very rich daredevils. Until the 1920s bike races drew larger crowds than all other American sports events, including Major League Baseball games. Prize-winning racer and journalist Peter Joffre Nye vividly re-creates this period of sports history, forgotten until now, in Hearts of Lions, a true story of courage, daring, and occasional lunacy.
Revised, updated, and expanded, this second edition of Hearts of Lions is based on interviews with more than one thousand cyclists whose racing careers span from 1908 through the 2016 Rio Olympics, along with interviews with trainers and family members. Included are stories about Joseph Magnani, the lone American from southern Illinois who rode on the dusty roads of Europe in road racing’s golden era of the 1930s and 1940s; Lance Armstrong, whose rise in the mid-1990s was eclipsed in the doping era that still casts a long shadow over the sport; Kristin Armstrong, a three-time Olympic gold medalist who set new standards for women in cycling; and Evelyn “Evie” Stevens, who chucked a Wall Street career in her mid-twenties to compete in two Olympics and win several world championship gold medals.
Hearts of Lions is a colorful, exciting, classic work on the art of bicycle racing over 140 years against a backdrop of social, political, and technical changes.
Peter Joffre Nye has worked as a prize-winning author, journalist, and magazine editor in Washington, DC. He is the author of several books, including The Fast Times of Albert Champion: From Record-Setting Racer to Dashing Tycoon, an Untold Story of Speed, Success, and Betrayal. His articles have been published in a variety of venues, including the Washington Post, USA Today, and Sports Illustrated. Eric Heiden is a physician and a former long-track speed skater, road cyclist, and track cyclist. He won five individual gold medals and set four Olympic records and one world record at the 1980 Winter Olympic Games.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Eric Heiden Part 1. The Golden Years 1. To the White House 2. The Fastest Things on Wheels 3. Gentlemen Amateurs Turn Professional 4. John M. Chapman, Czar of Cycling 5. A Bizarre Twist 6. Wonderful Nonsense in the Jazz Age 7. Sputtering to an End Part 2. “Spit and Scotch Tape” 8. L’Américain 9. Jack Heid, America’s Premier Cyclist 10. The Allure and Agony of European Road Racing 11. Outside Normal Limits 12. America’s First Woman National Champion 13. Pedali Alpini 14. The Rainbow at the End of the Crash Part 3. “One Good American Rider” 15. The Awakening 16. Breaking Away 17. The Drought Finally Ends 18. The Americans are Are Coming, the Americans are Are Coming 19. “The Day the Big Men Cried” 20. Liars Club 21. Queen of the Oval Hour 22. The Match Sprinters 23. A Mother, Three Olympics, Three Gold Medals 24. The Summing Up Acknowledgments Bibliography Index
