Joseph Delaney used to be an English teacher, before becoming the best-selling author of the Spook's series, which has been published in 30 countries and sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide. The first book, The Spook's Apprentice, was adapted into a major motion picture starring Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore.

Joseph Delaney

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Nicolas Roche

Nicolas Roche has a famous surname to all fans of cycling. The son of legendary Irish and World Champion Stephen Roche, Nicolas had to fight to make it as a professional and even harder to make his mark as his own man in this toughest of competitive sports. 
 
His rise up the ranks has been meteoric, with top 15 finishes in both the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España, but his attitude to his chosen profession has remained undimmed. Honest, eloquent and passionate about the cycling world, Nicolas gained acclaim and a devoted fan following for his Tour diaries serialised in the Irish Independent. 
 
Now a major contender for a podium finish in a grand tour, in the award-winning Inside the Peloton Nicolas tells in full the story of life as a professional cyclist and of the remarkable events that have brought him this far. From furious spats with teammates and exhilarating races against the world's best, this is a gripping cycling adventure and tale of a fiercely competitive sportsman.

Inside The Peloton

My Life as a Professional Cyclist

Daniel Friebe

'The whole point of a race is to find a winner... I chose to race, so I chose to win.' 
 
For 14 years between 1965 and 1978, cyclist Edouard Louis Joseph Merckx simply devoured his rivals, their hopes and their careers. His legacy resides as much in the careers he ruined as the 445 victories - including five Tour de France wins and all the monument races - he amassed in his own right. So dominant had Merckx become by 1973 that he was ordered to stay away from the Tour for the good of the event. 
 
Stage 17 of the 1969 Tour de France perfectly illustrates his untouchable brilliance. Already wearing the yellow jersey on the col du Tourmalet, the Tour's most famous peak, Merckx powered clear and rode the last 140 kilometres to the finish-line in jaw-dropping solitude, eight minutes ahead of his nearest competitor. 
 
Merckx's era has been called cycling's Golden Age.It was full of memorable characters who, at any other time, would all have gone on to become legends. Yet Merckx's phenomenal career overshadowed them all. How did he achieve such incredible success? And how did his rivals really feel about him? Merckx failed drug tests three times in his career - were they really stitch ups as he claimed? And what of the crash at a track meet in Blois, France that killed Merckx's pacer Fernand Wambst, which Merckx claimed deeply affected him psychologically and physically? Or the attack by a spectator in 1975? 
 
Despite his unique achievements, we know little about the Cannibal beyond his victories. This will be the first comprehensive biography of Merckx in English, and will finally expose the truth behind this legendary man.

Eddy Merckx: The Cannibal

Alistair Brownlee

Jonathan Brownlee

This is the story of how two skinny lads from west Yorkshire became the best triathletes in the world. 
 
Meet the Brownlees: Olympic Champion Alistair, World Champion Jonny. Brothers, training partners, rivals. They have obliterated the competition and set new standards for swimming, biking and running. 
 
In this revealing, often very funny book they take us inside their world. It's a riveting story of the races and their rivalry, as well as an inspiring guide to swimming, cycling and running. With the Brownlees in your corner, you'll do more than you ever thought possible.

Swim, Bike, Run

Our Triathlon Story

William Fotheringham

Voted the most popular Italian sportsman of the twentieth century, Fausto Angelo Coppi was the campionissimo - champion of champions. The greatest cyclist of the immediate post-war years, he was the first man to win cycling's great double, the Tour de France and Tour of Italy in the same year - and he did it twice. He achieved mythical status for his crushing solo victories, world titles and world records. But his significance extends far beyond his sport. 
 
Coppi's scandalous divorce and controversial early death convulsed a conservative, staunchly Roman Catholic Italy in the 1950s. At a time when adultery was still illegal, Coppi and his lover were dragged from their bed in the middle of the night, excommunicated and forced to face a clamorous legal battle. The ramifications of this case are still being felt today. 
 
In Fallen Angel, acclaimed cycling biographer, William Fotheringham, tells the tragic story of Coppi's life and death - of how a man who became the symbol of a nation's rebirth after the disasters of war died reviled and heartbroken. Told with insight and intelligence, this is a unique portrait of Italy and Italian sport at a time of tumultuous change.

Fallen Angel

The Passion of Fausto Coppi

Jeff Connor

A fast-paced, fly-on-the-wall story of courage, endurance, bungling, rows and cheating in sport's greatest marathon 
 
In 1987, the Tour de France was won by Irishman Stephen Roche. It was the first time the champion had hailed from outside the Continent or the States and the first time in 20 years a British team - ANC Halfords - had competed in the world's toughest and craziest race. Jeff Connor not only stayed with the British team but also found himself an unofficial team member. 
 
In this long-awaited new edition of Wide-Eyed and Legless, now widely regarded as a classic, Connor describes what it takes to compete, survive and win during those 26 days of gruelling effort. Alongside the heroism and athleticism, he reveals the extraordinary amounts of chicanery, from pulling riders along to illicit drug use. 
 
Time has not dimmed the impact of this eye-opening and entertaining close-up look at the supreme endurance event, and Wide-Eyed and Legless is destined to be acclaimed by a new generation of cycling enthusiasts. 
 
Jeff Connor's other books include the definitive story of the Busby Babes, The Lost Babes, and Up and Down Under, an account of the 2001 British Lions tour.

Wide-Eyed and Legless

Inside the Tour de France

James Toseland

Ted Macauley

James Toseland, youngest ever World Superbike Champion at just 23 years old, has rocketed into a league of biking legends, following in the footsteps of Carl Fogarty, Troy Bayliss and Neil Hodgson. 
 
Toseland's success has been driven by a lifetime of tragedy. Using racing as a release, he became a fearless daredevil and had moved his way up through the ranks of British Superbikes by the time he was sixteen. 
 
But there was even more turmoil to come - a career of dramatic crashes and a collision in Monza, Italy, which left James seriously injured and his Honda team-mate dead. 
 
Winning his second Superbike championship in 2007, and about to make the move to MotoGP for 2008, James' story is one of genius, tragedy and an overwhelming will to succeed.

The Autobiography

Andy McGrath

•SHORTLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2022• 
•A SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE TIMES AND THE GUARDIAN• 
 
The remarkable untold story of the mercurial cycling prodigy Frank Vandenbroucke, written by William Hill award-winning author Andy McGrath. 
 
They called him God. For his grace on a bicycle, for his divine talent, for his heavenly looks. Frank Vandenbroucke had it all, and in the late Nineties he raced with dazzling speed and lived even faster. 
 
The Belgian won several of cycling's most illustrious races, including Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Paris-Nice and Ghent-Wevelgem. He was a mix of poise and panache who enthralled a generation of cycling fans. Off the bike, he only had one enemy - himself. Vandenbroucke dabbled in nocturnal party sessions mixing sleeping pills and alcohol and regularly fell out with team managers. By 1999 his team had suspended him and this proved to be the start of a long, eventful fall from grace. Depression, a drug ban, addiction, car crashes, divorce and countless court appearances subsumed his life. He threatened his wife with a gun. He tried to commit suicide twice. And when police found performance-enhancing drugs at his house, Vandenbroucke said they were for his dog. 
 
It seemed he had finally learned from his mistakes. Then, on 12 October 2009, aged just 34, Vandenbroucke was found dead in a hotel room in Senegal. 
 
Guided by exclusive contributions from his family, friends and team-mates, William Hill award-winning author Andy McGrath lays bare Vandenbroucke's chaotic, complicated life and times. God is Dead is the remarkable biography of this mercurial cycling prodigy.

God is Dead

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2022

David V. Herlihy

In the spring of 1892, Frank G. Lenz, a gallant young accountant from a modest German American family, set forth from his unhappy home in Pittsburgh to circle the globe atop a new 'safety' bicycle with inflatable tyres (the forerunner of today's road bike). He brought along a large wooden camera and arranged to send regular reports to his sponsor, Outing magazine, effectively making him a harbinger of the great bicycle boom that was about to explode with stunning social and industrial repercussions. Two years, fourteen thousand miles and many adventures later, after crossing the United States, Japan, China, Burma, India and Persia, just as he was about to enter Europe for the home stretch, Lenz vanished. His presumed murder in Asiatic Turkey jolted the American public and became an international cause célèbre. 
 
The Lost Cyclist recounts, for the first time ever, the short but remarkable life of Lenz and the heroic efforts of another American 'globe girdler', William L. Sachtleben, who was sent by Outing to unravel Lenz's mysterious death in Turkey - all set against the horrifying backdrop of the Hamidian massacres.

The Lost Cyclist

The Untold Story of Frank Lenz's Ill-Fated Around-the-World Journey

Mark Wallington

From the author of the bestselling 500 Mile Walkies, this is the true story of one man and his bike ... 
 
It was a cold, bleak, British summer morning when intrepid Mark set out to travel the seventeen-hundred miles to Lapland on his bicycle. The land of reindeer nomads and the Midnight Sun had him under its spell. 
 
Suitably equipped with a new locknut A and pivot bolt B, a compass, a pair of sunglasses with only one lens and a Norwegian phrasebook, he was soon to discover the joys of Central Milton Keynes, win a marathon he never ran in Brassington, become stranded on the Yorkshire Dales, pick raspberries in Northumbria and finally catch a train from Newcastle - back to London! 
 
His dreams of obtaining a genuine reindeer hatstand were shattered forever!

Destination Lapland

Discover the story of Britain’s ultimate cyclist and his ill-fated race during the 1967 Tour de France, from the bestselling author of Half Man Half Bike 
 
Tom Simpson was an Olympic medallist, world champion and the first Briton to wear the fabled yellow jersey of the Tour de France. He died a tragic early death during the 1967 Tour. A man of contradictions, Simpson was one of the first cyclists to admit to using banned drugs, and was accused of fixing races, yet the dapper 'Major Tom' inspired awe and affection for the obsessive will to win which was ultimately to cost him his life. 
 
 Put Me Back on My Bike revisits the places and people associated with Simpson to produce the definitive story of Britain's greatest ever cyclist. The fully revised and updated edition of William Fotheringham's classic biography features a new foreword and postscript further exploring the truth behind the legend. 
 
‘The best cycling biography ever written' Velo 
 ‘A beautiful explanation of why Simpson's legend still exerts such a powerful hold’ Sunday Times

Put Me Back on My Bike

In Search of Tom Simpson

Stephen Roche

In 1987, Irish cycling legend Stephen Roche had an extraordinary year – the year to end all years. 
 
June 1987: Winner of the Giro d’Italia 
July 1987: Secured the yellow jersey at the Tour De France 
September 1987: Victory at the World Cycling Championships in Austria 
 
By winning the Giro d'Italia, Tour de France and world championships in the same season, Stephen Roche defied all odds to win cycling’s ‘triple crown’.Born to Ride, his first full autobiography, takes this extraordinary year as the starting point to explore the rest of his life. He doesn't hold back as he examines the many ups and downs of his time on and off the bike, scrutinising victories, defeats, rivals, serious injury, doping allegations and agonising family breakdown. Beneath the charm and rare natural talent, Roche finally reveals himself as a smiling assassin - a master strategist who lives to attack. 
 
 ‘One of the most riveting sporting biographies I've read’ Herald

Born to Ride

The Autobiography of Stephen Roche

Tommy Simpson

The cyclist Tom Simpson is a legend. The first British world champion, the first Briton to pull on the fabled yellow jersey of the Tour de France - he brought professional cycling to a nation and inspired generations of riders. His autobiography, Cycling is My Life, was written the year before he died tragically on the barren moonscape of Mont Ventoux during the 1967 Tour aged just twenty-nine. Forty years on, hundreds of fans still make the pilgrimage to the windswept memorial which marks the spot where he died. 
 
In an age where each Tour de France seems more blighted by scandal than the next, Simpson's story is as relevant now as it was then. A man of contradictions, Simpson was one of the first cyclists to admit to using banned drugs, yet the dapper 'Major Tom' inspired awe and affection from the British public for the obsessive will to win which was ultimately to cost him his life. 
 
First published in 1966, Simpson's autobiography is essential reading for every dedicated cycling fan and an engaging story of the life of an iconic sportsman.

Cycling is My Life

Ned Boulting

‘British cyclist. It used to be an oxymoron, a sort of silliness. Like French Cricket’ 
 
 Ned Boulting has noticed something. It’s to do with bikes. They’re everywhere. And so are their riders. Some of these riders seem to be sporting sideburns and a few of them are winning things. Big things. Now Ned wants to know how on earth it came to this. And what, exactly is 'this'. 
 
 In On the Road Bike, Ned Boulting asks how Britain became so obsessed with cycling. His journey takes him from the velodrome at Herne Hill to the Tour of Britain at Stoke-on-Trent via Bradley Wiggins, Chris Boardman, David Millar (and David’s mum), Ken Livingstone, both Tommy Godwins, Gary Kemp (yes, him from Spandau Ballet) and many, many more. The result is an amusing and personal exploration of the austere, nutty soul of British cycling. 
 
'Funny, fascinating and frequently touching ... will be enjoyed by anyone with even a passing interest in cycling. No bib shorts required' Guardian

On the Road Bike

The Search For a Nation’s Cycling Soul

Lance Armstrong

In 1999, Lance Armstrong made world headlines with the most stunning comeback in the history of sport after battling against life-threatening testicular cancer just eighteen months before returning to professional cycling. His first book, It's Not About the Bike, charted his journey back to life and went on to become an international bestseller. 
 
Now, in his much-anticipated follow-up, Armstrong shares more details of his extraordinary life story, including the births of his twin daughters Grace and Isabel. Never shy of controversy, Armstrong offers, with typical frankness, his thoughts on training, competing, winning and failure. He also tells of the work he did for the foundation he created following his dramatic recovery, addresses the daunting challenge of living in the aftermath of cancer and treatment, and shares further inspirational tales of survival. 
 
A fresh outlook on the spirit of survivors everywhere, Every Second Counts is an account of a man who strives every day to meet life's challenges - whether on his bike or off. 
 
 
Every Second Counts was first published in October 2003. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey in January 2013, Lance Armstrong admitted to having taken performance enhancing drugs in all seven of the Tours de France in which he competed between 1999 and 2005. He was officially stripped of these wins by the UCI, the world governing body for cycling, in 2012.

Every Second Counts

Edward Pickering

When Chris Boardman first raced against Graeme Obree, in a time trial in Newtonards, Northern Ireland, in 1990, it was the start of a rivalry that captivated the British public for a decade and brought cycling on to the front pages. Boardman was the establishment figure: reserved, scientific, middle-class. Obree was the rebel: the Flying Scotsman, working-class, riding a home-made bike. Both were after one thing - to be the fastest man on two wheels. 
 
After Boardman had won Britain's first cycling gold medal for 72 years at the Barcelona Olympics (inspiring none other than Bradley Wiggins to get on a bike), attention turned to the world hour record, the blue riband event of track cycling. Between 1993 and 1996, the pair took it in turns to smash the record, with Boardman's team breaking the boundaries of technology and the loner Obree constantly reinventing ways of building and riding bikes while battling his many demons. 
 
The Race Against Time tells the story of how Britain first started to dominate cycling, but is also about the struggle between art and science, tradition and innovation, commercialism and individuality. It is the tale of two complex characters who redefined the sport and set in motion a new era in British cycling, the legacy of which we enjoy to this day.

The Race Against Time

Wilfried de Jong

The world as seen from a bike 
 
'Understated, comic and melancholic... It’ll inspire you to get back on your bike.' Martin Love, The Guardian 
 
‘One of the most entertaining sports books I have ever read’ Joe Short, The Daily Express 
 
In this award-winning collection of cycling tales, Wilfried de Jong uncovers the true soul of cycling – why we do it, why we watch it, why we hate it, why we love it – stripped bare. 
 
With his distinctly comic and melancholic charm Wilfried ponders life, love and death on his trusted bike, chasing the essence of our existence against the backdrop of major cycling events or while roaming alone in nature. 
 
Whether he is describing being ejected from Paris-Roubaix, a terminal incident with a bird while out riding, or explaining why he is standing stark naked on Belgian cobbles with a tyre in his hand, Wilfried unlocks a sport that involves so much pain, punishment, and a high probability of failure, but that will always liberate and inspire us.

The Man and His Bike

Musings on life and the art of cycling

Emma O'Reilly

When Emma O'Reilly joined the US Postal cycling team in 1996, she could have had no idea how she would become a central figure in the biggest doping scandal in sporting history. Yet when Lance Armstrong, starting his comeback from cancer, signed for US Postal, it was Emma, the only woman on the team, who became his personal soigneur. This is the definitive inside story of that time, and of the enormous repercussions that resonate to this day for Emma, Lance and the whole sport. 
 
Emma had the strength to break cycling's omerta by speaking out against the culture of doping. She thought she would be one of many whistleblowers, doing what she believed was right. Isolated and shunned by the sport she loved, however, her reputation was systematically destroyed. And yet she had the courage to bounce back, and remarkably, to forgive those who made her existence a living hell. This is the ultimate memoir of truth and its many consequences.

The Race to Truth

Blowing the whistle on Lance Armstrong and cycling's doping culture

Sean Conway

Sean Conway was stuck in a life dead end of his own making when he heard about a round the world cycling race. He was immediately inspired – but it was a huge undertaking and he’d hardly been on a bike in years. Could he really cycle all the way round the world, solo and unsupported? 
 
Six months later, after completing a punishing training schedule and packing up everything he owned into boxes, Sean was in Greenwich Park on the start line of the adventure of a lifetime. Soon he was way ahead of schedule, averaging 180 miles per day, and on course to break the round the world cycling record. But then disaster struck, and Sean was forced to confront the possibility that he may not be able to complete the race... 
 
In the course of his 16,000-mile journey, Sean travelled the famous pan-American highway across the Atacama Desert, outran tornados, relied on fellow travellers to ferry water across the Australian outback, and inadvertently joined a cycle club in Mumbai. He learnt things about himself he didn’t know and rediscovered a spirit of adventure that changed everything. This is a book about an amazing and sometimes incredibly difficult journey, but it’s also a book about never giving up when there’s an opportunity to follow your dreams.

Cycling the Earth

A Life-changing Race Around the World

Anne Mustoe

When ex-headmistress Anne Mustoe gave up her job, bought a bike and took to the road, she couldn't even mend a puncture. 12,000 miles and 15 months later, she was home. 
 
Her epic solo journey took her around the world, through Europe, India, the Far East and the United States. From Thessaloniki to Uttar Pradesh, from Chumphon to Singapore, she faced downpours, blizzards and blistering deserts, political turmoil and amorous waiters - alternated with great kindness from strangers along the way. 
 
A Bike Ride is the first in the series of Anne Mustoe's successful and inspiring travelogues.

A Bike Ride

12,000 miles around the world

Tyler Hamilton

Daniel Coyle

WINNER OF THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 
 
On a fateful night in 2009, Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle met for dinner in Boulder, Colorado. Over the next eighteen months, Hamilton would tell Coyle his story, and his sport's story, in explosive detail, never sparing himself in the process. In a way, he became as obsessed with telling the truth as he had been with winning the Tour de France just a few years before. The truth would set Tyler free, but would also be the most damning indictment yet of teammates like Lance Armstrong. 
 
The result of this determination is The Secret Race, a book that pulls back the curtain and takes us into the secret world of professional cycling like never before. A world populated by unbelievably driven – and some flawed – characters. A world where the competition used every means to get an edge, and the options were stark. A world where it often felt like there was no choice.

The Secret Race

Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs

Tim Lewis

** Winner of the British Sports Book Awards 2014 New Writer of the Year ** 
 
Where there is hope there can be redemption. 
 
 Meet Adrien Niyonshuti, a member of the Rwandan cycling team. Adrien was seven years old when he lost his family in the 1994 genocide that tore Rwanda apart. Almost twenty years later he has a shot at representing his country at the Olympics. 
 
 Meet Jock Boyer, the coach of Team Rwanda. One of the top American cyclists of all time, Jock recognises the innate talent for endurance that the Rwandans possess. A man with a dark past, Jock is in need of a second chance. 
 
 Meet Tom Ritchey, the visionary inventor of the mountain bike and the U.S. money man looking to recover from a profound personal crisis. 
 
 In The Land of Second Chances, Tim Lewis charts the incredible true story of the Rwandan cycling team as they overcome impossible odds to inspire a nation.

Land of Second Chances

The Impossible Rise of Rwanda's Cycling Team

Max Leonard

lanterne rouge (French | noun): The competitor who finishes last in the Tour de France 
 
 Froome, Wiggins, Merckx – we know the winners of the Tour de France, but what about the men who finish last? 
 
Lanterne Rouge tells the forgotten, often inspirational and occasionally absurd stories of the last-placed rider. We learn of stage winners and former yellow jerseys who tasted life at the other end of the bunch; the breakaway leader who stopped for a bottle of wine and then took a wrong turn; the doper whose drug cocktail accidently slowed him down and the rider who was recognised as the most combative despite finishing at the back. 
 
 Flipping the Tour de France on its head and examines what these stories tell us about ourselves, the 99% who don’t win the trophy, Lantern Rouge forces us to re-examine the meaning of success, failure and the very nature of sport. 
 
‘A lively account of largely forgotten men... It’s not easy to come up with an original angle on Le Tour, but with this rear view Leonard has managed the feat in style’ Independent on Sunday

Lanterne Rouge

The Last Man in the Tour de France

Matt Rendell

Restlessly vital and possessed of great physical strength, José Beyaert lived many lives. During the Second World War, he boxed and trafficked arms for the Resistance on his bicycle. After it, he became an international cyclist. In 1948, a mile from the end of the Olympic road race around Windsor Park, he broke away alone to take the gold medal and started an adventure that would last the rest of his life. 
 
 A Tour de France rider in the sport's golden age, José was invited to open a new velodrome in Colombia, South America. He travelled, intending to stay a month. Instead, driven by his thirst for adventure, he stayed for fifty years, becoming by turns athlete, coach, businessman, emerald-trader, logger, smuggler, perhaps even hired killer. 
 
 Matt Rendell, who knew José Beyaert and met many of his family, friends and associates, tells the fascinating story of an almost-forgotten sporting hero who, incapable of living by other people's rules, lived his many lives on his own terms.

Olympic Gangster

The Legend of José Beyaert - Cycling Champion, Fortune Hunter and Outlaw

Chris Boardman

Chris Boardman is the 2017 winner of the Cross Sports Cycling Book of the Year for his autobiography Triumphs and Turbulence. 
 
‘The true inspiration was that Olympic gold won by Chris Boardman in Barcelona… I was so in awe of Chris Boardman’ Sir Bradley Wiggins 
 
You may know him as the much-loved co-presenter of ITV’s Tour de France coverage or enjoyed his BBC Olympic coverage, but beyond the easy charm Chris Boardman is one of our greatest, most inspiring cyclists. 
 
Boardman’s lone achievements in the 80s and 90s – Olympic track gold, the world hour record, repeatedly claiming the yellow jersey in the Tour de France – were the spark that started the modern era for British cycling. His endeavours both on and off the bike have made him the founding father of current golden generation – without him there would simply be no Hoy, Wiggins or Cavendish. 
 
It is a story full of intrigue: from Olympic success, to the famous duels with Graeme Obree and the insanity of the Tour de France. Chris became a legend for his combination of physical ability and technical preparation, almost single-handedly taking British cycling from wool shirts and cloth caps into the era of marginal gains. Indeed, after his career on the bike ended, a new chapter began as the backroom genius behind GB cycling. As head of the R&amp;D team known as The Secret Squirrel Club, Chris has been responsible for the technical innovations that made the difference in 2012 and developed Boardman Bikes, which has become the country's bestselling premium bike range.

Triumphs and Turbulence

My Autobiography

Mark Beaumont

The inspiring story of one man's record-breaking cycle around the world. 
 
On Monday 18th September 2017, Mark Beaumont pedalled through the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. 78 days, 14 hours and 40 minutes earlier he set off from the same point, beginning his attempt to circumnavigate the world in record time. Covering more than 18,000 miles and cycling through some of the harshest conditions one man and his bicycle can endure, Mark made history. He smashed two Guinness World Records and beat the previous record by an astonishing 45 days. 
 
 Around the World in 80 Days is the story of Mark's amazing achievement - one which redefines the limits of human endurance. It is also an insight into the mind of an elite athlete and the physical limits of the human body, as well as a kaleidoscopic tour of the world from a very unique perspective; inspired by Jules Verne's classic adventure novel, Mark begins his journey in Paris and cycles through Europe, Russia, Mongolia and China. He then crosses Australia, rides up through New Zealand and across North America before the final 'sprint finish' thorough Portugal, Spain and France, all at over 200 miles a day. This is the story of a quite remarkable adventure, by a quite remarkable man.

Around the World in 80 Days

My World Record Breaking Adventure

Robert Dineen

Reg Harris, whose statue overlooks the Manchester Velodrome, is the legend who all track cyclists want to emulate. He was a poor, working-class boy born in the Depression who escaped the Lancashire mills to utterly dominate his sport. He triumphed as world champion an incredible 
five times between 1947 and 1954 and performed medal-winning heroics at the London Olympics. 
 
At his peak he was the most adored sportsman in the country attracting huge crowds, sponsorship, and the company of the rich and famous. But, fiercely driven and ruthlessly single-minded, Harris had a dark side. His was a sensational life fuelled by an insatiable need for money, celebrity, fast cars and beautiful women that constantly threatened to destroy him. 
 
Following an exhaustive investigation, Robert Dineen has uncovered an epic sporting rise and fall – a story more astounding than anyone had known.

Reg Harris

The rise and fall of Britain's greatest cyclist

Paul Howard

Sex, Lies and Handlebar Tape is the astonishing biography of French cycling star Jacques Anquetil. For the first time since his death in 1987, it reveals the extraordinary truth behind the legend, the man and the cyclist. 
 
His list of 'firsts' alone makes him worthy of a place in the cycling pantheon: the first man to win the Tour de France five times; the first man to win all three grand tours - the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España; and the first man to win both the Tour and Vuelta in the same year. 
 
However, the extraordinary life of Anquetil does not stop at his achievements on a bike. He candidly admitted to using drugs, offended legions of fans by confessing that his only motivation for riding was financial and infamously indulged his enthusiasm for the high life. He also seduced and married his doctor's wife, had a child with her daughter and then sustained a ménage à trois with both wife and stepdaughter under the same roof for 12 years. When this 'family' eventually imploded, he attempted to inspire jealousy in his former lovers by having a child with his stepson's ex-wife. 
 
Containing exclusive contributions from Anquetil's family, friends, teammates and rivals, Sex, Lies and Handlebar Tape untangles myth from reality and confirms that fact is definitely stranger than fiction.

Sex, Lies and Handlebar Tape

The Remarkable Life of Jacques Anquetil, the First Five-Times Winner of the Tour de France

Paul Kimmage

In A Rough Ride, Paul Kimmage gives a devastatingly frank account of what life is really like in the world of professional cycling. In tracing his mixed fortunes, Kimmage describes not only the grueling pressures of the sport but also the seamier side: the widespread use of drugs to enhance performance. A Rough Ride breaks the law of silence to expose a world where the supposed glamour has worn very thin.

A Rough Ride

An Insight into Pro Cycling

Robert Penn

The bicycle is one of mankind's greatest inventions - and the most popular form of transport in history. Robert Penn has ridden one most days of his adult life. In his late 20s, he pedalled 40,000 kilometres around the world. Yet, like cyclists everywhere, the utilitarian bikes he currently owns don't even hint at this devotion. Robert needs a new bike, a bespoke machine that reflects how he feels when he's riding it - like an ordinary man touching the gods. 
 
It's All About the Bike is the story of a journey to design and build a dream bike. En route, Robert explores the culture, science and history of the bicycle. From Stoke-on-Trent, where an artisan hand builds his frame, to California, home of the mountain bike, where Robert tracks down the perfect wheels, via Portland, Milan and Coventry, birthplace of the modern bicycle, this is the narrative of our love affair with cycling. It's a tale of perfect components - parts that set the standard in reliability, craftsmanship and beauty. It tells how the bicycle has changed the course of human history, from the invention of the 'people's nag' to its role in the emancipation of women, and from the engineering marvel of the tangent-spoked wheel to the enduring allure of the Tour de France. It's the story of why we ride, and why this simple machine remains central to life today.

It's All About the Bike

The Pursuit of Happiness On Two Wheels

This is not a 100,000-word, minute-by-minute, blow-by-blow account of the 2011 Tour de France. 
This is not the story of Cadel Evans. 
This is not the story of Alberto Contador, Andy Schleck, or Bradley Wiggins. 
And it's not even the story of Mark Cavendish. 
(Although he is in it quite a lot.) 
This is the story of the lesser-known heroes; the Johnny Hoogerlands, the Thomas Voecklers, the hitchhikers, the maniac press drivers, Norbert Dentressangle and the greatest ever Tour de France*. 
I was there. And this is what I saw. That is all. 
 
In this 20,000-word digital short, ITV's Ned Boulting, author of How I Won the Yellow Jumper, takes an honest and idiosyncratic look at the unforgettable 2011 Tour de France, when Mark Cavendish won the Green Jersey. 
 
*probably

How Cav Won the Green Jersey

Short Dispatches from the 2011 Tour de France

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