My history-making Tour de France

Tour de Force

Mark Cavendish MBE is widely regarded as the greatest sprinter in the history of cycling and is the 'Tour de France's best sprinter of all time', according to L'Equipe. 
 
Born and raised on the Isle of Man and having experienced early success on the track, 'Cav' joined professional road cycling team T-Mobile in 2006 as a stagiaire. During the 2008 season, he made his first big impact at the grand tours, winning two stages at the Giro d'Italia followed by four victories at the Tour de France at the age of just 22. 
 
Following his early career success, Cav went on to dominate the sport. On the track he became Madison World Champion in 2005, 2008 and 2016 and at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio he represented Great Britain in the Omnium event, winning a silver medal. 
 
On the road, Cav has achieved a phenomenal 52 Grand Tour stage wins, has won points jerseys at all three grand tours and in 2011 won the coveted green jersey at the Tour de France for the first time, as well as becoming UCI Road Race World Champion. His achievements led to him winning BBC Sports Personality of the Year, as well as receiving an MBE from Her Majesty the Queen. 
 
In the summer of 2021 Cav created history - in what many have called the greatest sporting comeback of all time - by equalling Eddy Merckx's long standing record of 34 Tour de France stage wins and winning the green jersey for the second time in his career in the process. He currently rides for UCI World Team Deceuninck-Quick-Step.

'I pulled off my glasses and wiped my eyes. "That was perhaps the last race of my career..."' 
 
Deep down, Mark Cavendish thought he was finished. After illness, setbacks and clinical depression, the once fastest man in the world had been written off by most. And at the age of 36, even he believed his explosive cycling career would fade out with a whimper. The Manxman hadn't won a single Grand Tour stage in Italy, Spain or France since 2016. 
 
But then came his incredible resurrection at the 2021 Tour de France. Included on the Deceuninck Quick-Step team at the very last minute, only after Sam Bennett suffered an injury, Mark set about rewriting history. He claimed back the green jersey he first wore in 2011, and his four stage victories finally saw him matching Belgian legend Eddy Merckx's all-time record of 34 Tour de France stage wins. Cycling greats are never content, and Cav's dogged determination and inner strength had earned him the record that few believed he could ever achieve. This is his own intimate account of that race, right from the saddle of the miracle tour.

At Speed

The hotly anticipated cycling autobiography of the year from the world's best sprinter

Cav is and will always be one of cycling’s biggest characters and At Speed captures him perfectly

Fantastic... a real insight... funny, self-lacerating, brutal

Ultimately the joy of At Speed is the sense that, warts and all, this is the story of a rare sportsman…who isn’t afraid to speak his mind rather than trot out the banal, PR-groomed soundbites of so many of his peers … this book speaks to both the heart and the mind of true cycling fans

[Cav is] special, the way he rides in the last metres. I don’t know exactly what it is, what makes him different, he’s just so fast

Britain's best ever Tour de France cyclist

Born and raised on the Isle of Man, Mark Cavendish became a world track champion as a teenager in 2005, a Commonwealth Games gold medallist a year later and in 2008 regained his world title in partnership with Bradley Wiggins. He switched his focus to the more glamourous world of road cycling, andis widely regarded as the most exciting and charismatic rider to grace the sport in years. As well as achieving record-breaking performances in the Tour de France, he became the road race World Champion in 2011.

The hottest sprinter in the world - Telegraph 
 
Mark Cavendish is the first British cyclist to win the Tour de France's green jersey, the first to wear the iconic rainbow jersey in almost 50 years and our only ever rider to capture the Giro d'Italia points title. He is the most prolific sprinter in the Tour's history, and - according to L'Equipe - the best sprinter of all time. But smashing records and racking up victories means whole new levels of fame: and this has come at a price. 
 
Living in the goldfish bowl, he has come under fire for his bombastic riding style and been portrayed as everything from an outlaw to a psychopath. Joining Sky in 2012, Cav soon found his own sprint interests to be incompatible with the team's other goals, while the expectations of a nation made his London Olympic failure hard to take. 
 
In At Speed Cav takes you through the highs and lows of it all in intimate detail. This is a take-no-prisoners account of life at the pinnacle of his sport, and learning how to survive in the fast lane, both on and off the bike.

Lives Less Ordinary

How to Win the World's Greatest Road Race

Born and raised on the Isle of Man, Mark Cavendish became a world track champion as a teenager in 2005, a Commonwealth Games gold medallist a year later and in 2008 regained his world title in partnership with Bradley Wiggins. Having now switched his focus to the more glamorous world of road cycling, Mark is widely regarded as the most exciting and charismatic young rider to grace the sport in years, a status he confirmed with his fantastic record-breaking performance in the 2009 Tour de France. Mark rides for Team Columbia and lives on the Isle of Man.

The Lives Less Ordinary series brings you the most exciting, adventurous and entertaining true-life writing that is out there, for men who are time-poor but want the best. Lives Less Ordinary drops you into extreme first-hand accounts of human experience, whether that's the adrenaline-pumping heights of professional sport, the brutality of the modern battlefield, the casual violence of the criminal world, the mind-blowing frontiers of science, or the excesses of rock 'n' roll, high finance and Hollywood. Lives Less Ordinary also brings you some of the finest comic voices around, on every subject from toilet etiquette to Paul Gascoigne. 
 
With more Tour de France stage wins than any other Brit, Mark Cavendish is one of the most explosive sprint cyclists that has ever graced road racing. This is his heart-pumping account from the saddle of what it takes in body and mind to win one of the sport's most legendary classics - the 298 kilometre Milan-San Remo. 
 
This digital bite has been extracted from Mark Cavendish's riveting book Boy Racer.

Boy Racer

Live the pure adrenaline of the Tour de France alongside Mark Cavendish, British cycling's hottest young superstar

Boy Racer...catch[es] the inner conflict between the impetuousness that makes Cavendish such a daunting competitor and the introspection that makes him such an interesting person

Highly personal and revelatory and gives you a unique insight to one of Britain's most successful and respected sportsmen

Few have brought the terrifying and visceral art of sprinting to life. Boy Racer redresses the balance.

Boy Racer, is essentially a masterclass in the art of winning relayed through the eyes of a young, hungry and sometimes impatient embryo superstar with a penchant for entertaining industrial language. It is also highly personal and revelatory and gives you a unique insight to one of Britain's most successful and respected sportsmen worldwide.

Born and raised on the Isle of Man, Mark Cavendish became a world track champion as a teenager in 2005, a Commonwealth Games gold medallist a year later and in 2008 regained his world title in partnership with Bradley Wiggins. Having now switched his focus to the more glamourous world of road cycling, Mark is widely regarded as the most exciting and charismatic young rider to grace the sport in years, a status he confirmed with his fantastic record-breaking performance in the 2009 Tour de France. Mark rides for Team Columbia and lives on the Isle of Man.

Boy Racer steps behind the scenes of the Tour de France. It unmasks the exotic, contradictory, hysterical and brutal world of professional cycling from the compellingly candid viewpoint of someone right in the thick of it. 
 
Written off as 'fat' and 'useless' in his youth, Mark Cavendish is now one of cycling's brightest stars and one of Britain's greatest ever cyclists. Some have called him cocky, but to anyone who doesn't like his style, Mark will simply shrug his shoulders and reply, 'I know I'm good. There's no point lying about it.' 
 
Peers say that they have never seen anyone with Cavendish's hunger for success and while this fearlessness - both in the saddle and on the record - has at times led to controversy, it has also earned him the respect of ever more fans. 
 
In Boy Racer we follow him through the mayhem of the Tour de France in a page-turning journey of pure exhilaration.

Mark Cavendish

'The greatest comeback in sports history'

'Mark Cavendish is the greatest sprinter in the history of the Tour and of cycling, his comeback is just amazing'

Mark Cavendish

Praise for Believe

'The greatest comeback in sports history'

'A miracle'

'Mark Cavendish is the greatest sprinter in the history of the Tour and of cycling, his comeback is just amazing'

'The greatest comeback in sports history'

'A miracle'

'Mark Cavendish is the greatest sprinter in the history of the Tour and of cycling, his comeback is just amazing'

'The greatest comeback in sports history'

'A miracle'

'Mark Cavendish is the greatest sprinter in the history of the Tour and of cycling, his comeback is just amazing'

Books by Mark Cavendish

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