Best Cycling Books

“The holy grail for disillusioned cycling fans . . . The book’s power is in the collective details, all strung together in a story that is told with such clear-eyed conviction that you never doubt its veracity. . . . The Secret Race isn’t just a game changer for the Lance Armstrong myth. It’s the game ender.”—Outside  NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WI...

A literary sports classic, finally available in the U.S. Originally published in the Netherlands in 1978, The Rider became an instant cult classic, selling over 100,000 copies. Brilliantly conceived and written at a breakneck pace, it is a loving, imaginative, and, above all, passionate tribute to the art of bicycle road racing. Not a dry history o...

Bernard Hinault is "Le Blaireau," the Badger. Tough as old boots, he is the old warrior of the French peloton, as revered as he is feared for his ferocious attacks. He has won 5 Tours de France, marking his name into the history books as a member of cycling's most exclusive club. Yet as the 1986 Tour de France ascends into the mountains, a boyish a...

Phil Gaimon has no business being a professional cyclist. Inexplicably forsaking his former life as a couch potato and gamer, Gaimon begin riding in 2004 with the grand ambition of shedding a few pounds. By sheer accident, he discovered he was a natural, advancing so rapidly through the amateur ranks that he entered the pro peloton utterly ignorant...

The 1914 Giro d’Italia: The hardest bike race in history. Eighty-one riders started and only eight finished after enduring cataclysmic storms, roads strewn with nails, and even the loss of an eye by one competitor. And now Tim Moore is going to ride it. And he’s committed to total authenticity. . .Twelve years after Tim Moore toiled around the rout...

Based on her daily diary, this is Dervla Murphy’s account of her ride, in 1963, across frozen Europe and through Persia and Afghanistan, over the Himalayas to Pakistan and into India, during one of the worst winters in memory. She has written other travel books, including In Ethiopia with a Mule....

Robert Penn has saddled up nearly every day of his adult life. He rides to get to work, to bathe in air and sunshine, to travel, to go shopping, and to stay sane. He's no Sunday pedal pusher. So when the time came for a new bike, he decided to pull out all the stops and build his dream machine.It's All About the Bike follows Penn's journey, but thi...

Not only is it the world's largest and most watched sporting event, but also the most fearsome physical challenge ever conceived by man, demanding every last ounce of will and strength, every last drop of blood, sweat, and tears. If ever there was an athletic exploit specifically not for the faint of heart and feeble of limb, this is it. So you mig...

WORLD-CLASS CYCLIST , Tour de France stage winner, and time trial specialist David Millar offers a vivid portrait of his life in professional cycling—including his soul-searing detour into performance-enhancing drugs, his dramatic arrest and two-year ban, and his ultimate decision to return to the sport he loves to race clean—in this arrestingly ca...

The Climb by Chris Froome - the inspirational memoir from the British winner of the 100th edition of the Tour de France The Climb tells the extraordinary story of Chris Froome's journey from a young boy in Kenya, riding through townships and past wild animals, and with few opportunities for an aspiring cyclist, to his unforgettable yellow jersey vi...

A true American hero, Greg LeMond's career was punctuated by dramatic fame, devastation, and ultimately redemption. In July 1986, LeMond stunned the sporting world by becoming the first American to win the Tour de France, the world's pre-eminent bicycle race, defeating French cycling legend Bernard Hinault. Nine months later, LeMond lay in a hospit...