The Rider by Tim Krabbe

"The Rider a beautiful brute, as hard and fast as a thin wheel in a concrete road." - The Observer

"Its 148 pages will flash by in a blur of reckless, high-speed pleasure." - The Independent

"Nothing better is ever likely to be written on the subjective experience of cycle-racing" - Matt Seaton, the Guardian"

The Rider by Tim Krabbe is a book every sports fan and cyclist should read. Written in the late 1970s by Dutchman, Tim Krabbe. The author takes the reader through a fictional 150km race across 150 pages. This is not a history of road racing, a hagiography of the European greats or even a factual account of his own amateur cycling career. Instead, Krabbé allows us to race with him, inside his skull as it were, during a mythical Tour de Mont Aigoual. During the competition we battle with the bumbling Lebusque, the aesthete Barthélemy and the mysterious 'rider from Cycles Goff'. The Rider is unqiue, one of a kind and a must read.