The Rider - Tim Krabbe

The Rider is simply the best evocation of a cycle race ever written. It's not a history of road racing, a hagiography of the European greats or even a factual account of the author's own amateur cycling career, although all these things feature.

Instead Krabbe allows us to race with him, inside his skull, during a mythical Tour de Mont Aigoual. In the course of the race, we get to know the forceful, bumbling Lebusque, the aesthete Barthelemy, the young Turk Reilhan and the mysterious rider in the blue jersey of Cycles Goff. Krabbe battles with and against each of them, failing on the descents, shining on the climbs, suffering on the false flats as the race speds relentlessly to its final sprint.

Krabbe works such magic that whe you read the very last words you too will feel as if you had just raced 137 kilometres flat out, your heart ready to burst, and nothing left to give.