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Today the Tour de France begins. For those wanting to get into the spirit of things, Étape, a new book by Richard Moore, is now available. The book highlights stages from past tours with first hand accounts from different riders, both “legends and scoundrels”. I am looking forward to reading this as the tour plays out. Following is an excerpt from the press release.

What if all the best Tour de France stages happened in one race? In his new book Étape: 20 Great Stages from the Modern Tour de France, critically acclaimed author Richard Moore weaves first-person interviews with cycling’s great riders to assemble a “dream team” of the best Tour de France stages in modern history.

Featuring exclusive interviews with the Tour’s legends and scoundrels about their best-ever day on the bike (and their most heartbreaking defeats), Moore unravels lingering mysteries and recounts strange tales from 20 great stages of the Tour, including: LeMond’s impossible return from near-death, Schleck’s primal scream atop the Galibier, Merckx’s self-described toughest Tour, Cav’s mind-bending victory in Aubenas, Hinault’s hellish battle with Fignon.

Étape assembles the greatest days of modern Tour history into a Tour de France of incredible victory, glorious failure, shocking revelation, and beautiful memories. In the words of those who were there, Étape recreates each day vividly and reveals the beauty and the madness of cycling’s greatest race.

In their own words: Lance Armstrong, Jean-François Bernard, Chris Boardman, Mark Cavendish, Claudio Chiappucci, Laurent Fignon, Andy Hampsten, Luis Herrera, Bernard Hinault, Jörg Jaksche, Bobby Julich, Greg LeMond, Frans Maassen, Freddy Maertens, Iban Mayo, Eddy Merckx, David Millar, Wilfried Nelissen, Joël Pelier, Stephen Roche, Andy Schleck, Marc Sergeant, José Luis Viejo, Urs Zimmermann, and more.