Argyle Armada by Mark Johnson

Argyle Armada by Mark Johnson

SPORTS/CYCLING

Victory at Paris-Roubaix. Four stage wins, seven days in the yellow jersey, and the team prize at the Tour de France. Stage wins at the Tour of California and the Vuelta a Espana. Fighting for first place with a budget half that of their main ProTour competitors, the 2011 Garmin-Cervelo team became one of the most admired teams in pro cycling.

Founded in 2003 as a low-key development squad for young American cyclists, by 2011 Garmin-Cervelo had evolved into a fully international enterprise that shook the foundation of the pro cycling establishment. Though the team lacked a lavish budget and the big-name stars of its ProTour competitors, it convincingly won some of the world's greatest races.

Writer-photographer Mark Johnson spent a year embedded with the Garmin-Cervelo professional cycling team, recording its most intimate personal dramas and its public celebrations. From winter training camp on the cobbled lanes of medieval Girona, Spain, to hard-earned stage victories in July's Tour de France, to flesh-shredding crashes at the Tour of Spain in September, Argyle Armada delivers an unprecedented look at America's most celebrated cycling team.

Argyle Armada is a portrait of life as a member of a pro cycling team during a time of painful transition for the sport. Inside the team buses and stage-race hotels, cycling struggles to shake off the hidebound traditions of the past and expand to a global sports franchise. The charge is led by Garmin-Cervelo team founder Jonathan Vaughters and his unconventional band of bike racing revolutionaries.

More than a book about racing, Argyle Armada unveils the dramatic forces that Garmin-Cervelo navigates as team founder Jonathan Vaughters tries to push forward his vision of a reformed sport. Along the way, countless difficult decisions must be made to keep the team competitive in the chase for ProTour points, money, respect, and fame.

With all-access insight and spectacular color images, Argyle Armada offers an unprecedented look inside one team as it battles for the future of professional cycling.

Foreword by Jonathan Vaughters