Motorcycle Memoirs

I grew up in Normal, Illinois, but had lived in New Jersey for more than 30 years when my father died at the age of 84. I was 54 at the time and soon learned that family secrets had been kept from me. Strange deaths, tragedies, indiscretions, and relationships lay in my past, totally hidden. It took me seven years to uncover these secrets from personal interviews, genealogical studies, public records, and cutting-edge scientific work done by worldwide experts. Along the way, I trace my own life path from wanting to be a mechanic to gaining a master's degree at MIT.

Graham Jarvis has been at the top of off-road motorcycling for the best part of 25 years and has competed in hundreds of competitions and races all over the world, from TV's Junior Kick Start in the early 1990s to the fabled and ridiculously perilous two-day Italian event Hell's Gate, which he has dominated in recent years and which is one of motorsport's most feared events. Having excelled at trials and enduro, Graham moved into the high-octane world of extreme enduro, one of the most exhilarating sports on two wheels, in 2011.

John McGuinness is one of the all-time giants of road racing, with a huge host of victories to his name. But his easy humour and down-to-earth attitude off the bike have always kept people guessing: what's the truth about the man inside the helmet that has kept him at the top of such a sport for over 20 years? His autobiography tells the whole story, from his humble beginnings in Morecambe and getting his first bike at the age of three, to working as a bricklayer and cockle fisherman before deciding to follow his dream, and finally to his many victories in the most dangerous sporting event on the planet.

"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.

An epic motorcycle ride through 15 countries took Jack Monig across as many internal as political borders. Hurled headfirst into a career block, she decided at middle age to go full throttle on an adventure of self-discovery while circumnavigating the globe in four months. This book shares the wisdom you can only get by crossing 37,350 kilometers by bike as the only woman in a group of male riders.

هذه اليوميات التي كتبها غيفارا خلال رحلة في أرجاء أميركا اللاتينية سنة 1952 قطع خلالها مع صديقه ألبرتو غرانادو على دراجة نارية 4500 كليومتر، كانت البوابة التي ولج منها الطبيب الأرجنتيني الشاب غيفارا إلى فضاء أميركا اللاتينية، وصولاً إلى "سرة العالم"، عاصمة الأنكا، ليعود من هناك بالشعلة التي صهرت روحه النقية ومزجتها بآلام شعوب القارة المنهوبة، بدءاً من تاريخ الإبادات الجماعية التي ارتكبتها غزوات الرجل الأبيض، وانتهاء بالأمل الإنساني المعذب.

Living by his own rules has always been the way of Phil 'Ugly' Mawson. A boxer, a soldier, a bikie, a killer, he has played many roles in his life. After a yearlong stint in Vietnam, he returned to Australia feeling let down by the military and society at large. Seeking brotherhood and belonging, he found what he was looking for when he founded the first Australian chapter of the Gypsy Jokers motorcycle club. In his own words, Ugly explores the ups and downs of a life lived on the fringe and spent chasing the freedom of the open road.

In her 20s Rachel Kushner went to Mexico in pursuit of her first love - motorbikes - to compete in the notorious and deadly race, Cabo 1000. As fellow racers died on the roadside, bikes were stolen and friends abandoned one another in the heat of the chase, she crashed at 130mph and miraculously survived; soon after, she decided to leave her controlling boyfriend and manoeuvred her way into a freer new life.

Mick Walker - leading authority on all forms of motorcycle sport - examines the long career of the quickest and most determined competitors of all time in this enthralling biography. In the late 1950's John Surtees was the dominant rider in top-level British and European motorcycle racing. A precocious talent, he began riding competitively on Vincents in the early 1950's, then REGs and NSUs and Nortons. He swiftly established himself as one of the quickest and most determined competitors.

Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne knows what it is like to live on the edge. The most successful rider in British Superbike history, he is the only person to have won the championship six times. Shakey is a living motorbike legend, with legions of fans across the country. For the first time Shakey tells his life story, from being abandoned as a newborn baby in a London hospital, to multiple brushes with the law and working night shifts on the London Underground to fund his early racing career.

Australia has a unique place in the history of outlaw motorcycle gangs. From the clubs' beginnings in the swinging '60s, their entry into the amphetamine market in the 1970s, through to the 1984 Milperra Massacre that made world headlines, to the Sydney airport brawl between the Hell's Angels and Comancheros and the brutal murder of Anthony Zervas, Outlaw Bikers in Australia tells how these 'one per cent deviants' grew to dominate the recreational drug market and became major players in the international outlaw biker scene.