American Pro: The True Story of Bike Racing in America

by Jamie O. Smith

American cycling has a long tradition of riding and racing on a shoestring and a prayer. Jamie Smith explores the domestic side of the world’s biggest amateur sport in American The True Story of Bike Racing in America.

American Pro rips away the thin veneer of professionalism among domestic racing teams to lay bare the heart and soul of a struggling sport. Smith traces the arc of one team’s racing career to discover colorful personalities, scrappy racing action, humor and heartbreak. American Pro shows what the sport the scramble for contracts, the dynamics of team chemistry, the unending travel, the Herculean struggle to realize the dreamall for the love of bike racing.

With sharp humor and insight, Smith uncovers what’s wrongand what’s rightwith America’s broken bike racing system. American Pro will transform how you think of domestic pro racing through a five-season exposé of the sport we love.

Genres: Cycling

Kindle Edition

Published May 19, 2018

About the author

Jamie Smith began writing while serving in the USAF guarding B-52s at a remote northern base. He wrote to alleviate the boredom then immediately burned the pages in order to stay warm.
He spent 25 years writing boring press releases for a sleepy Detroit suburb. The fact that they were sleepy had nothing to do with the press releases Smith wrote.
He also spent 25 years as a bike race announcer working at cycling events in 46 different states. His first work, Roadie - The Misunderstood World of a Bike Racer (VeloPress), was named a 2009 Michigan Notable Book by the Library of Michigan. His second effort, Reading the Race, includes sidebar commentary by 2013 Vuelta a Espana winner and 2012 Olympian, Chris Horner.
Smith lives and surfs in the Great Lakes area.

Reviews

[Rauno Villberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a bit dated, but actually not all that much when reading it now: bike racing is still bike racing and things like Strava or whatever social media platform were already popular back then so they get mentioned.
Fun to see names that were at the beginnings of their careers show up - Sepp Kuss, for example.

A solid journey, interesting to read and doesn't go on for too long.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

An inspiring and sad commentary about the state of bicycle racing in the United States. We are a fringe sport struggling to survive, we don't have a sustainable business model, but man is it fun!!

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the third book by Jamie Smith about American bicycle racing, the American bicycle racing scene (as perhaps one can still say). I read his first book, published ten years about (also by VeloPress) - Roadie . He has a more recent book, Reading the Race, written with Chris Horner is (apparently) intended as an instructional book for road bike racer-beginners - I have some interest in reading it but haven't got around to it yet.

VeloPress has some further background information on Mr. Smith.

The first book, Roadie, was intended to be somewhat humorous but this third book is more of a narrative where the humor that appears is part of what the narrative describes. The author's goal is to clarify what much of professional cycling racing at the levels below the World Tour (ie, Tour de France type events) is like in the U.S. today. He describes five seasons (2012-2016) of racing by a particular team that competed both in road events and criteriums.

You don't have to know that much about bicycle racing to enjoy the book. He doesn't focus a lot of attention on the bicycles themselves and their technology. Most of the narrative is more about the people involved and the challenges of this kind of semi-professional sport. The approach is mostly chronological covering the five separate seasons but there are some separate chapters, such as one on how families often host bicycle racers. Any book on bicycle racing has to have some blow-by-blow descriptions of interesting races and Smith is good at those.

Very nice.