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William Fotheringham

The Paris-Roubaix Classic. 273 kilometres of torment across the bone-crunching pavé of northern France. 
In 1976 the celebrated Danish film director, Jørgen Leth, embarked on an ambitious project to capture the spirit of this spectacular and cruel one-day race. The resulting film, A Sunday in Hell, has become the most admired cycling documentary of all time, and its revolutionary camera and sound techniques have forever changed the way the sport is viewed on screen. 
The film centres around legends including Eddie Merkx, Roger De Vlaeminck, Freddie Maertens and Francesco Moser, capturing not just their experiences from the saddle, but also the mood of a nation and its relationship with the most punishing of the Spring Classics. 
Sunday in Hell looks at the men, the method and the places behind the film. It observes the creativity of Leth and his collaborators, explores the lives of riders such as unlikely winner Marc Demeyer and revisits locations which have changed little to this day.

Sunday in Hell

Behind the Lens of the Greatest Cycling Film of All Time

Jens Voigt

Push until it hurts, then push some more 
 
Even by the standards of a sport that requires enormous stamina and capacity for suffering, Jens Voigt is in a class on his own. Beloved by cycling fans for his madcap one-man breakaways as much as his sense of humour and quotable catchphrases, Jens is one of the most popular personalities in cycling. 
 
Jens was born near Hamburg, and came up through the East German system before the Wall came down. He got into the national team through the German army, before signing for his first big team. In many ways he is cycling’s anti-star; despite arguably spending more time at the front of the Tour de France than any other rider he has only worn the yellow jersey twice as his efforts have always been in the service of others. 
 
Jens embodies the best of cycling’s qualities – loyalty to his team, sacrifice, and devotion to the sport. He says, ‘I’m not a head person, I’m more of a heart and guts guy. That’s how I race.’ Shut Up Legs is a funny, insightful and entertaining look at the tough realities of professional cycling, told in Jens’s trademark irreverent and inimitable style.

Shut up Legs!

My Wild Ride On and Off the Bike

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

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

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

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

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

Charly Wegelius

**Winner - Sweetspot Cycling Book of the Year** 
 
For 11 years I was a professional cyclist, competing in the hardest and greatest races on Earth. I was in demand from the world’s best teams, a well-paid elite athlete. But I never won a race. I was the hired help. 
 
When my mum dropped me off in a small French town aged 17, I was full of determination to be a professional cyclist, but I was completely green. I went from mowing the team manager’s lawn to winning every amateur race I entered. Then I turned pro and realised I hated the responsibility and pressure of chasing victory. And that’s when I became a domestique. 
 
I learned to take that hurt and give it everything I had to give, all for someone else’s win. When the order came in to ride I pushed out with the hardest rhythm I could, dragging the group faster and faster, until my whole body screamed with pain. There were times I rode myself to a standstill, clutching the barrier metres from the line, as the lead group shot past. But that’s what made me a so good at my job. 
 
As my career took off, I started looking at the fans lining the route, cheering us like heroes. The passion for cycling oozed off them, but they couldn’t know what it was really like. They didn’t see the terrible hotels, the crazy egos or all the shit that goes with great expectations. Well, this is how it is…

Domestique

The Real-life Ups and Downs of a Tour Pro

Tim Moore

'Bill Bryson on two wheels' Independent 
 
Scaling a new peak of rash over-ambition, Tim Moore tackles the 9,000km route of the old Iron Curtain on a tiny-wheeled, two-geared East German shopping bike. 
 
Asking for trouble and getting it, he sets off at the Arctic winter's brutal height, bullying his plucky MIFA 900 through the endless and massively sub-zero desolation of snowbound Finland. 
 
Haunted throughout the journey by the border detritus of watchtowers and rusted razor wire, Moore reflects on the curdling of the Communist dream, and the memories of a Cold War generation reared on the fear of apocalypse - at a time of ratcheting East-West tension. 
 
After three months, 20 countries and a 58-degree jaunt up the centigrade scale, man and bike finally wobble up to a Black Sea beach in Bulgaria, older and wiser, but mainly older.

The Cyclist Who Went Out in the Cold

Adventures Along the Iron Curtain Trail

Find yourself confused, nodding along when a rouleur relates how le biscuit was effrité (crumbled)? How today they’re feeling Angers (past caring)? 
 
Fear no more, for Boulting's Velosaurus will illuminate, enlighten and, frankly, mislead. 
 
In his Velosaurus, ITV Tour de France commentator and cycling writer Ned Boulting provides the ultimate lexicon of nonsense terminology surrounding the esteemed Tour de France. Featuring essential vocabulary like Alpe (an Alp), panache (riding with doomed flamboyance, conscious of the need to renew one’s contract), moutarde (any race that ends, begins or passes through the city of Dijon) and maillot (a jumper, obviously), Boulting’s Velosaurus is the ideal companion to all things peloton for linguistically-challenged fans of non-automotive two-wheeled sport. 
 
'Deserves to be on any Tour de France fan’s shelf.' Cycle

Boulting's Velosaurus

A Linguistic Tour de France

Bradley Wiggins

One man, one bike, one hour. The inside story of Bradley Wiggins's record-breaking ride 
 
For 60 minutes this summer, the British public stopped what they were doing, switched on their radios, their TVs, refreshed their Twitter feeds and followed Bradley Wiggins’s attempt to break one of sport’s most gruelling records: The Hour. 
 
The premise is simple enough: how far can you cycle in one hour. But it is thought to be one of the toughest events an athlete can endure, both physically and psychologically. Eddy Merckx, cycling’s über-champ, called it the hardest thing he ever did. Wiggins, like many before him, discovered the unique pain of pushing yourself as hard as you can for 60 minutes. 
 
In this revealing book, Bradley Wiggins takes you behind the scenes of his record attempt. From planning to preparation, to training to execution, Bradley shares his thoughts on his sacrifices, his heroes, and the people who have supported him along the way as well as what’s to come as he heads towards the twilight of his stellar career. 
 
Supported by stunning photography, My Hour is a fitting celebration of one of Britain’s best-loved sportsmen in his finest hour.

Bradley Wiggins: My Hour

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

In the never ending streams of traffic and the choking fumes of pollution this book gives the average cycle enthusiast or, indeed novice, a collection of quotes, sayings and proverbs on even more reasons why one should get on their bike. 
 
In the format of the bestselling Keep Calm and Carry On, Keep Calm and Pedal On is the perfect gift for keen bikers. It is a book that will give a cyclist comfort in the knowledge that their passion for bikes is shared with some of world's greatest leaders, personalities and authors. 
 
After all, in the words of John F. Kennedy, 'Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride.'

Keep Calm and Pedal On

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

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

Mike Carter

What would happen if you were cycling to the office and just kept on pedalling? 
 
Needing a change, Mike Carter did just that. Following the Thames to the sea he embarked on an epic 5,000 mile ride around the entire British coastline - the equivalent of London to Calcutta. 
 
He encountered drunken priests, drag queens and gnome sanctuaries. He met fellow travellers and people building for a different type of future. He also found a spirit of unbelievable kindness and generosity that convinced him that Britain is anything but broken. This is the inspiring and very funny tale of the five months Mike spent cycling the byways of the nation.

One Man and His Bike

Paul Howard

The Tour de France is a world-renowned, almost mythical sporting competition. Since 1903, participants have battled not just with each other but also with the terrain, mechanical hindrances, the occasional sadism of the organisers and even with the fans. The demands on the riders are so great that the achievements and rivalries of those involved have passed into sporting legend. Recently, however, the event has been tarnished by the institutionalised doping of some riders and teams. As a result, the authenticity of these very achievements and rivalries has been called into doubt.To find out whether an increasingly sceptical public could once again laud the exploits of the past century with conviction, club cyclist Paul Howard set out to complete the Tour - in the year of its 100th anniversary - on level terms with today's riders. But, instead of teammates, mechanics and possibly the contents of the local pharmacy as support, he had a handful of friends, his dad and a sense of humour to see him through. With only three weeks to complete over 2,000 miles, was it possible to put a human face on a super-human undertaking? Could a fan's homage to past glories help the Tour regain its place as one of the world's most admired sporting challenges? Riding High is Howard's diary of his experiences as he rides the Tour de France route from start to finish, setting off each day only hours before the professionals, at each stage sharing anecdotes and noting the historical highpoints that have made the Tour one of the most iconic sporting events in the world.

Riding High

Shadow Cycling the Tour de France

Thomas Dekker

'I have success, money, women. I've been lionised by the public and the media. The world is at my feet. I've spread my wings and here I am, soaring above everything and everyone. But in reality, the descent has already begun.' 
 
Thomas Dekker was set to become one of pro cycling’s superstars. But before long, he found himself sucked in by the lure of hedonistic highs and troubled by the intense pressure to perform. 
 
In The Descent, Dekker tells his story of hotel room blood bags, shady rendezvous with drug dealers and late-night partying at the Tour de France. This is Dekker’s journey from youthful idealism to a sordid path of excess and doping that lays bare cycling’s darkest secrets like never before.

The Descent

Iain MacGregor

SHORTLISTED FOR CYCLING BOOK OF THE YEAR AT THE BRITISH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 
 
'Paris-Roubaix is the best race in the world and knocks spots off the Tour de France.' Sir Bradley Wiggins. 
 
Paris-Roubaix. The Hell of the North. The ultimate monument in cycling's Classics. More than 150 miles across dusty or muddy roads, much of it puncture-inducing and bone-breaking cobblestones. Even professional riders blanche at the very mention of it. Tour de France winners (with the notable exception of Wiggins in 2014) make their excuses from it. So why on earth would an amateur even dare to attempt it? 
 
In To Hell on a Bike, Iain MacGregor does just that and as he prepares for the ride of his life, he explores the history and culture of this extraordinary race. With insights from legends of the sport, trainers, mechanics and fellow writers, as well as those who have maintained the traditions of Paris-Roubaix since its inception over a century ago, it is the ultimate story of the ultimate cycling challenge.

To Hell on a Bike

Riding Paris-Roubaix: The Toughest Race in Cycling

Professional cycling is a rich, dynamic and often controversial sport that lends itself to great writing. Some of the most famous and illustrious races were founded by newspapermen and The Cycling Anthology continues this tradition by bringing together the best in the business. 
 
Volume Five is an eclectic mix of stories old and new: 
 
As World War One is commemorated acros the globe, Brendan Gallagher looks at cycling's war heroes and the role the bicycle played in WWI. 
 
Jeremy Whittle goes in search of panache - why you don't always have to be a winner to be a winner in the public's eyes. 
 
Francois Thomazeau examines how the Tour de France became the international event it is today. 
 
The 2014 Tour de France is relived in the form of poetry, by Ellis Bacon. 
 
Lionel Birnie tells the story behind the Linda McCartney cycling team, the great British team that could have been. 
 
Joey McLoughlin was a shining star of the British cycling scene in the 1980s and '90s - Andy McGrath finds out what happened to him. 
 
Edward Pickering returns to one of cycling's great Pyrenean climbs - Superbagneres. 
 
As Matt Beaudin finds out, the Tour de France is a treat for the senses - albeit a loud one. 
 
Matt McGeehan sends a postcard from the 2014 World Track Championships in Colombia. 
 
And Daniel Friebe introduces us to Jean Francois Naquet-Radiguet: Tour de France pioneer.

The Cycling Anthology

Volume Five (5/5)

Max Leonard

Why do road cyclists go to the mountains? Many books tell you where the mountains are, or how long and how high. None of them ask ‘Why?’ 
 
After all, cycling up a mountain is hard – so hard that, to many non-cyclists, it can seem absurd. But, for some, climbing a mountain gracefully (and beating your competitors up the slope) represents the pinnacle of cycling achievement. The mountains are where legends are forged and cycling’s greats make their names. 
 
Why are Europe’s mountain ranges professional cycling’s Wembley Stadium or its Colosseum? Why do amateurs also make a pilgrimage to these high, remote roads and what do we see and feel when we do? 
Why are the roads there in the first place? 
 
Higher Calling explores the central place of mountains in the folklore of road cycling. Blending adventure and travel writing with the rich narrative of pro racing, Max Leonard takes the reader from the battles that created the Alpine roads to the shepherds tending their flocks on the peaks, and to a Grand Tour climax on the ‘highest road in Europe’. And he tells stories of courage and sacrifice, war and love, obsession and elephants along the way.

Higher Calling

Road Cycling’s Obsession with the Mountains

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

Charlie Woods

Bikie lays bare the true heart of cycling. Every grass-roots enthusiast, keen racing man and elite professional has one thing in common: he loves his bike and riding it. 
 
 The author pinpoints the source of his love, tracing its development in the individual, how it draws people into a community and then a tradition – creating a whole worldwide culture to celebrate that deep affection for what is a technological marvel and transcendent experience. 
 
 Great champions, too, are inseparable from their bikes. They merge into them, becoming a composite image, figures of myth. 
 
 As well as exerting an emotional hold, cycling, in its famous races, also mounts a living proof of exemplary virtues: courage, perseverance and self-sacrifice – gives us, in fact, a glimpse of the higher reaches of the human spirit. There is a sense of this mythical realm in every pedal turn, for once astride a handbuilt lightweight we are put in touch with the greatest riders of all time. 
 
Bikie is the story of one man’s passionate involvement, but in its forthright sincerity it goes to the roots of what we all share.

Bikie

A Love Affair with the Racing Bicycle

Tim Moore completes his epic (and ill-advised) trilogy of cycling's Grand Tours. 
 
 Julian Berrendero's victory in the 1941 Vuelta a Espana was an extraordinary exercise in sporting redemption: the Spanish cyclist had just spent 18 months in Franco's concentration camps, punishment for expressing Republican sympathies during the civil war. Seventy nine years later, perennially over-ambitious cyclo-adventurer Tim Moore developed a fascination with Berrendero's story, and having borrowed an old road bike with the great man's name plastered all over it, set off to retrace the 4,409km route of his 1941 triumph - in the midst of a global pandemic. 
 
 What follows is a tale of brutal heat and lonely roads, of glory, humiliation, and then a bit more humiliation. Along the way Tim recounts the civil war's still-vivid tragedies, and finds the gregarious but impressively responsible locals torn between welcoming their nation's only foreign visitor, and bundling him and his filthy bike into a vat of antiviral gel.

Vuelta Skelter

Riding the Remarkable 1941 Tour of Spain

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

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

Jody Rosen

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2023** 
 
'Full of delightful anecdotes and interviews and fascinating historical tales' Mail on Sunday 
 
A panoramic portrait of the wonderous vehicle whose passenger is also its engine. 
 
A toy, a tool, a liberator, or complete nuisance: the bicycle has been many things to many people over the decades, yet it endures as the most popular form of transport in the world. How has such a simple machine achieved so much? 
 
Combining history, travelogue and memoir, Jody Rosen reshapes our understanding of this ubiquitous vehicle from its invention in 1817 to its present-day renaissance as a 'green machine'. Readers meet unforgettable characters: women's suffragists who steered bikes to the barricades in the 1890s, a Bhutanese king who races mountain bikes in the Himalayas, astronauts who ride a floating bicycle in zero gravity. 
 
By examining the bicycle's past and peering into its future, Two Wheels Good forms a joyful ode to an engineering marvel of global importance. 
 
'Funny, precise, surprising' Adam Gopnik 
 
'Love for two-wheeled transport runs through every sentence' Economist 
 
'Wry, rich, deeply researched' Patrick Radden Keefe

Two Wheels Good

The History and Mystery of the Bicycle (Shortlisted for the Sunday Times Sports Book Awards 2023)

David Millar

What is it really like to be a racer? 
 
What is it like to be swept along at 60kmh in the middle of the pack? What happens to the body during a high-speed chute? What tactics must teams employ to win the day, the jersey, the grand tour? What sacrifices must a cyclist make to reach the highest levels? What is it like on the bus? In the hotels? What camaraderie is built in the confines of a team? What rivalries? How does it feel to be constantly on the road, away from loved ones, tasting one more calorie-counted hotel breakfast? 
 
David Millar offers us a unique insight into the mind of a professional cyclist during his last year before retirement. Over the course of a season on the World Tour, Millar puts us in touch with the sights, smells and sounds of the sport. This is a book about youth and age, fresh-faced excitement and hard-earned experience. It is a love letter to cycling. 
 
'Cycling has always been about a great deal more than its winners, and The Racer is quite a ride' Spectator

The Racer

The Inside Story of Life on the Road

Life on the Road as a Pro Cyclist

Dominic Gill

When Dominic Gill set out from Alaska on his bicycle, it was to be no ordinary ride. His goal was to reach Ushuaia, the southernmost city in South America, and he was starting off far from confident and with barely enough food to last a week. But Dominic had a secret weapon: the spare seat. His bicycle was a tandem and he would invite strangers to join him on his long journey. 
 
Over 26 months, Dominic covered 18,449 miles down the west coast of the Americas, passed through 15 countries, was looked after by countless strangers, crashed into a banana truck and was attacked by a man with a rusty machete. But Dominic's journey wasn't just an endurance challenge full of derring-do. While sharing his bicycle with 270 strangers who wanted to help him on his way, Dominic discovered a world that differed dramatically from the scare stories and the sensationalist press reports that had shaped his preconceptions about life in the Americas. What started as a physically demanding road trip turned into the inspirational adventure of a lifetime.

Take a Seat

One Man, One Tandem and Twenty Thousand Miles of Possibilities

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