Cycling Memoirs

One More Croissant for the Road sees ‘the nation’s taster in chief’ Felicity Cloake embark on the trip of a lifetime, cycling 3,500km across France in search of the definitive versions of classic French dishes. Felicity has long established herself as an absolute authority on everything that is important about food. This lively and charming account of her search for the ultimate Quiche Lorraine, la meilleure Tarte Tatin and a Cassoulet par excellence culminates in a triumphant two-wheeled tour of Paris’ boulangeries in pursuit of France’s finest croissant.

The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is one of the biggest rallies (and most important cultural touchstones) in the American West. Diagnosing Sturgis looks at it through the eyes of a biker-MD. The event lain bare in the way only an insider and a doctor can. The people that visit the event come from all walks of life and their passion for motorcycles brings them together to push aside differences and embrace another life, even if only for a short period. This is the definitive diagnosis of what Sturgis is and its place in the American psyche.

In the late 1880s, Frank Lenz of Pittsburgh, a renowned high-wheel racer and long-distance tourist, dreamed of cycling around the world. He finally got his chance by recasting himself as a champion of the downsized "safety-bicycle" with inflatable tires, the forerunner of the modern road bike that was about to become wildly popular. In the spring of 1892 he quit his accounting job and gamely set out west to cover 20,000 miles over three continents as a correspondent for Outing magazine. Two years later, after having survived countless near disasters and unimaginable hardships, he approached Europe for the final leg. He never made it....

Raised in the extreme religious cult called the Children of God, Juliana Buhring was frequently punished for being a rebel and finally broke away. Her soul mate was an explorer seeking the source of unmapped rivers in Africa. When he was killed by a crocodile, her world went dark. To escape paralyzing grief, Buhring set herself a goal. Never having seriously ridden a bike, she set out to ride one around the world.

Lightweight, compact, distinctively styled, and now, electric: The Brompton isn't the only folding bicycle—or even the first. But everyone who has been on one will enthusiastically testify to its marvelous design (virtually unchanged over decades) and the particular joy of riding it. Will Butler-Adams, CEO of Brompton Bicycles, has been at the company for twenty years. Initially, he worked as an engineer for Andrew Ritchie, the bike's brilliant inventor and the business's founder, before taking the helm in 2008.

In the tradition of The Boys in the Boat and Seabiscuit, a fascinating portrait of a groundbreaking but forgotten figure - the remarkable Major Taylor, the Black man who broke racial barriers by becoming the world’s fastest and most famous bicyclist at the height of the Jim Crow era.

In 1968, Robert Pirsig and his son, Chris, made the cross-country motorcycle trip that was the basis for Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a book that has inspired generations with its searching personal and philosophical narrative. After rereading the book at the onset of middle age, reporter Mark Richardson tuned up his old Suzuki dirt bike and became a "Pirsig Pilgrim".

Just why exactly hadn't anyone attempted to motorcycle from India to Burma before, and how hard could it actually be? Against his better judgment, woefully unprepared, and desperately trying to impress his new aristocratic girlfriend, Andrew Benfield decides to find out.

THE MAN WHO STAYED AT HOME is the entertaining, informative account of one Yorkshireman’s transition from a middlingly motivated worker to a satisfyingly occupied retiree. When Brian Durkin’s long-established plan to retire to the sunny Algarve falls through, he hopes that by developing his existing leisure pursuits he’ll be able to fill his days in a satisfying way. On being grounded only moments after leaving work for the last time, however, a sense of impotence sets in, and he realises that he’ll have to expand his horizons if he doesn’t wish to succumb to loneliness. Among ...

Jill Homer, a newspaper editor in Alaska, has an outlandish ambition: a 2,740-mile mountain bike race along the rugged Continental Divide. But Jill's dream starts to unravel the minute she sets it in motion. An accident during a race on the Iditarod Trail results in serious frostbite. As she struggles with painful recovery and uncertainties about leaving a good job to pursue a seemingly impossible pipe dream, her employer hands down an offer she can't refuse.

One man and his home-built, two-wheeled machine competing in an illegal, outlaw chopper motorcycle road race across America known as The Stampede. His motorcycle is a true ugly, unpopular style of chopper with no frills, chrome, or shocks running hard from west to east as fast as possible - without stopping. Middle age is approaching. His life has taken a dramatic turn lately with his wife divorcing him, children scattering, a new younger girlfriend in the picture, and a mistress that fills his mind. Time in the saddle running on his own road is just what he needs.

When Carl Coulton is finally released from prison his kindly probation officer suggests cycling as a form of therapy. Carl needs to let off steam, and how better to do it than by pounding the pedals on the leafy Lancashire lanes close to his home? Therapy it proves to be, but of a kind that no-one but Carl could have imagined. In a story which will cause motorists to give those dratted bikes a wider berth and allow harassed cyclists to live out their wildest fantasies, we follow Carl’s progress from rehabilitated ex-con to the most perilous man on two wheels in living memory. With ...

Rebecca Rusch has run the gauntlet of endurance sports over her career as a professional athlete—climbing, adventure racing, whitewater rafting, cross-country skiing, and mountain biking—racking up accolades and world championships along the way.

In this raw and poignant memoir filled with gorgeous insights, Leslie Reyes bares her highest highs and lowest lows on the long highway of humanity. And by applying the wisdom she gained in learning to ride a motorbike to her lifelong quest to conquer fear, she offers a guiding hand along the hills and valleys of an unpredictable life.

"The Road Taken" is a coming-of-age memoir in which a woman discovers her independence on the wheels of a motorcycle traveling the world and competing in the Peking to Paris Car Rally. She also draws upon her training as an artist to create an Australian homestead for herself in Sonoma, California.

On 22 July 2012 Bradley Wiggins became the first British man ever to win the Tour de France. In an instant, 'Wiggo' became a national hero. Ten days later, having swapped his yellow jersey for the colours of Team GB, he won Olympic gold in the time trial, adding to his previous six medals to become the nation's most decorated Olympian of all time. Outspoken, honest, intelligent and fearless, Wiggins has been hailed as the people’s champion.

So rapid has this national transformation been that it has taken place within the lifetimes of these remarkable young sportsmen. Colombia Es Pasión! How a New Generation of Cyclists Changed a Nation explores the lives and dreams of each of Colombia's leading cyclists. Theirs are inspiring stories of overcoming poverty and violence, sickness and corruption - of the emergence of the indigenous to global sporting glory.

Follow a caring woman's unrelenting journey from the valleys of addiction, homelessness, jail, institutions, and near death experience -to the mountaintop of redemption. This memoir provides the listener with practical and proven tools, like the 4C Formula, that supports the listener in developing a voice and vision for their life.

In the summer of 2020 sportswriter David Walsh asked Pippa York if she’d be interested to be his travelling companion for the Tour de France. The deal was that he would sort out the logistics beforehand, the hotels, the transport details and she would do the day to day tasks of getting them about and adding her insight occasionally. It would also mean she would return to the race she had ridden eleven times as Robert Millar. This is the resulting book: a unique and entertaining sporting odyssey, The Escape uses the minutiae of Pippa and David’s trip.

For more than a decade, Mahendra Singh Dhoni has captivated the world of cricket and more than a billion Indians with his incredible ingenuity as captain, wicketkeeper, and batsman. Bharat Sundaresan tracks down the cricketer's closest friends in Ranchi and artfully presents the different shades of Dhoni - the Ranchi boy, the fauji, the diplomat, Chennai's beloved Thala, the wicketkeeping Pythagoras - and lays bare the man underneath. He discovers a certain je ne sais quoi about the man who has a magical ability to transform and elevate everything that comes into his orbit.