Showing titles in Cycling

Eddy Merckx. Fausto Coppi. Jacques Anquetil. Bernard Hinault. Beryl Burton. Marianne Vos. A sole cyclist battling over a pass high in the mountains is one of the most romantic of sporting images. In the past 150 years road cycling has been dominated by a series of iconic people who have...

Picking up where his bestselling memoir left off 15 years ago, Ned Boulting’s love for the greatest cycling race on earth has deepened, his fascination has been sporadically rewarded, his fitness has slowly declined and his hairline has receded…Bringing the story up to the present day, Ned reflects on how the sport has somehow shrugged off the ghosts of its tainted past to reinvent itself. But his latest dispatches from the front line of road racing don’t stop at the finish line in Paris.

Road Captain immerses listeners in the team dynamics, tactical complexities and split-second decisions vital to success in professional cycling. It discloses the mental and physical battles taking place within a group of riders, and reveals how the biggest bike races are won.

'A glorious freewheel through the culinary quirks and delights of the USA – an unmissable treat!' – Tim Spector When the nation’s ‘taster-in-chief’ Felicity Cloake announced her dream to cycle across America, the reactions were… mixed: “You’ll get squashed,” warned a...

When Travis Nelson arrived in London, he expected to embark on a new life and a new job. Coming from California, he'd uprooted his wife and his cat, Sigrid, and planned to be here for the long haul. Then Covid-19 struck. Travis's new job vanished as the company cut staff. For two years, and through successive lockdowns, he was stuck in limbo in an unfamiliar city, trying to find his way.

On Valentine's day 2004, Marco Pantani was found dead in a cheap hotel. It defied belief: Pantani, having won the rare double of the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France in 1998, was regarded as the only cyclist capable of challenging Lance Armstrong's dominance. Only later did it emerge that Pantani had been addicted to cocaine since 1999. Drawing on his personal encounters with Pantani, as well as exclusive access to his psychoanalysts, and interviews with his family and friends, Matt Rendell has produced the definitive account of an iconic sporting figure.

Alejandro Valverde - the 'Green Bullet' - was a symbol of Spanish sport. Supremely talented, hard-working beyond belief, he was ranked no.1 in the world four times before retiring in 2022. He is a champion of undeniable charisma and immense achievement - and yet also a convicted doping cheat. Appearing in a list of encoded names, Valverde was one of many at the heart of a doping ring for elite sportsmen. Discovered by Spanish police in the infamous Operacion Puerto, the revelations contained in the operation threatened to rip cycling apart.

When, during the Pyrenean stages of the 1998 Tour de France, a journalist asked Marco Pantani why he rode so fast in the mountains, the elfin Italian, unmistakeable in the bandanna and hooped ear-rings that played up to his 'Pirate' nickname, replied: 'To shorten my agony.' Drawing on the fervour for these men of the mountains, Climbers looks at what sets these athletes apart within the world of bike racing, about why we love and cherish them, how they make cycling beautiful and how they see themselves and the feats they achieve.

It started with a cash drop by an English spy in occupied Paris in 1944. Reserved for Resistance groups during the war, the money reached Émilien Amaury, an advertising executive, who was tasked to help France return to a free press once liberated. He soon launched a newspaper empire that—unbeknown to him—would own the rights to run what would become one of the greatest sporting events in history.

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.

An exciting collection all about the Olympic games and the inspiring athletes who compete in them. Hours of audio fun to keep children entertained while on the move! Introduce your children to ten fascinating non-fiction books about the Olympics. From autobiographies from some of the top...

The Circuit des Champs de Bataille (the Tour of the Battlefields) was held in 1919, less than six months after the end of the First World War. It covered 2,000 kilometres and was raced in appalling conditions across the battlefields of the Western Front, otherwise known as the Zone Rouge. The race was so tough that only 21 riders finished, and it was never staged again. With one of the most demanding routes ever to feature in a bicycle race, and plagued by appalling weather conditions, the Circuit des Champs de Bataille was beyond gruelling, but today its story is largely forgotten.

“Bottom of the 33rd is chaw-chewing, sunflower-spitting, pine tar proof that too much baseball is never enough.” —Jane Leavy, author of The Last Boy and Sandy Koufax From Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Dan Barry comes the beautifully recounted story of the longest game in...

In November 2015 Sarah Outen completed her five-year, 25,000 mile journey looping the planet by cycling across Europe, Asia and North America and canoeing and kayaking across the North Pacific and most of the North Atlantic.

The definitive account of Lance Armstrong's spectacular rise and fall. In June 2013, when Lance Armstrong fled his palatial home in Texas, downsizing in the face of multimillion-dollar lawsuits, Juliet Macur was there—talking to his girlfriend and children and listening to Armstrong's version...

When Geoff Thomas struggled to play a friendly game of tennis while on holiday in Mallorca in May 2003, he thought little of it. Recently retired as a footballer, he believed it was a sign of ageing and perhaps a pulled muscle. But when the pain wouldn't go away, his wife Julie persuaded him to go to a doctor. He was diagnosed as having leukaemia. Riding Through the Storm focuses on his journey round the Tour de France in the summer of 2005.

The charming and joyful follow-up book from ‘the nation’s taster in chief,’ Felicity Cloake. If there’s one thing that truly unites Britain, from Aberdeen to Aberystwyth, St Ives to St Pancras, it’s an obsession with breakfast. We all have an opinion on the merits of brown sauce versus...

Fra Coppi og Bartali til Vingegaard og Pogacar fra 1940’erne til 2020’erne, fortæller Jørgen Leth de seneste firs års cykelhistorie. “Jeg lægger det ind i cykelløbene, som jeg ser. Det er min historie. Cykelrytterne kører på cykel. De kører fra et sted til et andet. De kører op, og de kører ned. Den, der kommer først, har vundet. Undervejs sker der nogle ting. Så enkelt er det. Ud af disse enkle hændelser træder personer, som ser direkte ud af billederne i et forsøg på at lave noget uventet. Vi er klar til at se det og indramme det. Det bliver billeder i en ramme."

In 2018, Leigh Timmis became the fastest person to cycle across Europe—in just 16 days, 10 hours and 45 minutes—breaking the previous world record by an astonishing 8 days and 17 hours. But when he set out to break the record, Leigh wasn't just trying to conquer the road. As he prepared his body for this ultra-endurance world record attempt, Leigh realized that he would have to confront deeper problems to make it to the finish line.

Das Abenteuer Atlantik sind zwei Reisen mit dem Rennrad und "schmalem Gepäck" entlang der Atlantikküste Europas: von Rotterdam (NL) über Belgien, den Pays du Nord und der Normandie in die Bretagne - Brest (F) (1350 km) ; von Huelva (ES) über die portugiesische Küste, Galicien, Asturien ins Baskenland weiter an der Küste nach Norden wieder in die Bretagne nach Brest (F) (2800 km). Die Bilder entstehen lebhaft im Kopf von den vielen Geschichten und Begegnungen mit den Menschen, den Kulturen und Landschaften.