The Eagle of Toledo: The Life and Times of Federico Bahamontes

I bought this with the intention of reading it when I wasn`t able to go out cycling due to snow and ice, but the mild start to the year I haven`t finished it yet.He is a rider I had heard of but I had no idea of how close he came to true greatness! Without going into too much detail, if he had played the game as others did he would have won many more races and major titles.The book starts with him growing up at the end of the Civil War and the devastation it had caused to Spain itself and it`s people, especially in areas like Toledo. Read it you won`t be disappointed.

great

I felt the author ran out of material and bulked it out with repetition. I struggled to stay with it until the end but like riding up Ventoux I stuck with it only Ventoux was easier.

Gift for Son In-law...he loved it!

A very enjoyable read. Can't imagine how hard it must have been in his day.

Great book, great price

Extremely well researched, excellent background material on Bahamontes' childhood struggles in poverty in post civil war Spain, and subsequent racing career. Wealth of first person interviews giving in depth analysis of numerous races and incidents. However the style is very heavy, does not flow well, gets bogged down in detail and jumps around too much for continuity. Bahamontes was a legend to my generation of riders, but the effort to provide an honest and realistic picture of a difficult and complex character leads to a generally negative feel, in which neither the subject nor post war professional cycling emerge with much if any credit. But maybe that's the reality without the hype. Although meticulously researched & honestly. written, the story gets lost in the facts. Lots of info, but I ended up just dipping into bits here & there.

Whilst I found this informative and well worth a read if you have an interest in this particular period of cycle racing I can't really say that I enjoyed it.Overall I thought it quite depressing. I tried to give Bahamontes the benefit of the doubt given his tough and deprived upbringing and the general state of Spain after the Civil War but in the end I just found him pretty irritating and unlikable.The book paints a very negative picture of cycle racing at that time.By the end of the book there seems to be a lot of repetition and padding.... but still worth sticking with and giving it a read.

I've read this book all the way through, in the subway, during my lunchbreak and I loved it. The only thing that bothered me was that the author all the time felt the need to judge about Fede's character. He clearly disagreed with it but for some mysterious reason didn't dare to say so. If he felt the need to judge Fede's character and doings he should do it and then free us for the rest of the book of the hmm-ing around. This didn't happen and took a chunk of the joy of the book away for me. It' a shame, because it is a good book. I for my part see it this way: Every person has a history, experiences who drive us and different reasons for our actions and we don't all need to be nice, agreeable and charming beings to be interesting, to achieve greatness, to inspire, to teach and to be admired. With all this said: I enjoyed the book and will surely read it a second time. Books like this always make me so thankful. Because without them so much of us, our history, our experiences would be lost forever.

How to describe Bahamontes? There are those who in times and content would say eccentric, irrational, all about money, arrogant, loner, not a team player, but all would respect the King of the Mountains.Bahamontes came from humble starvation beginnings, buying his first bike to purchase produce from farmers and illegally sell goods outside the markets. The climbs around Toledo were his youthful training grounds.Later, when Bahamontes started racing, his desires were on quick mountain climb money rather than winning a race. 1959, with a good coach, his energy was channeled into winning the Tour. He was capable of so much more as this book points out.A good read. Lots of commentaries by those who knew and rode with the King.

An engaging well written biography about a true Man of (Toledo) Steel. You'll never ride your bike with anywhere near the grit and determination of Fede and his contemporaries. These guys suffered through shocking conditions...where these days we would think twice before clicking in for a ride.One minor quibble: Perhaps it was the editor's fault but technical/translation? errors abound..."fifty-three-INCH chainrings". Many references to inner tubes ( sorry, it was tubulars a.k.a. sewups) ...and comically, describing Fede racing an uphill time trial carrying...spare WHEELS??? (This is from the hardcover, first printing 2012.)I just had to wince, look past these annoyances, and hope there weren't too many serious factual errors. I spotted a few items which I raised an eyebrow over - nothing major . I recognize these things get reinterpreted over the years by all the various voices.Still, a great read, a great story about a great cyclist. Buy it.

This was interesting and well written. I did not know a lot about Bahamontes, but I feel I do now. I have read a number of Fotheringham's books, and have never been disappointed by his story telling.

Great untold story if your a cycle racing fan! It is historical and tells the whole story of the Eagle.