The Rider

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What to expect

Bloomsbury presents The Rider by Tim Krabbé, read by Mark Meadows.

At the start of the 137-kilometre Tour de Mont Aigoual, Tim Krabbé glances up from his bike to assess the crowd of spectators. ‘Non-racers,’ he writes. ‘The emptiness of those lives shocks me.’ Immediate and gripping from the first page, we race with the author as he struggles up the hills and clings on during descents in the unforgiving French mountains.

Originally published in 1978, The Rider is a modern-day classic that is recognised as one of the best books ever written about the sport. Brilliantly conceived and best read at a break-neck pace, it is a loving, imaginative and passionate tribute to the art of cycle racing.

Critics Review

A beautiful, quiet piece of work: unusual, plausible, moving and poignant
Daily Telegraph, The Best Sports Books of All Time
A classic. Like all the best sports writing, The Rider manages to convey the excitement, determination and skill of the competitors even to readers who have little or no knowledge of the sport
London Review of Books
He lays bare the athlete's peculiar mixture of arrogance and terror, viciousness and camaraderie, and the result is one of the more convincing love stories of recent memory
New Yorker
The Rider is a beautiful brute, as hard and fast as a thin wheel in a concrete road
Observer
Its 148 pages will flash by in a blur of reckless, high-speed pleasure
Independent
The Rider perfectly captures the grim satisfaction and endorphin-thrill that comes from riding a bike faster than you did the time before. It's also a reminder of the pure pleasure of reading
Jon McGregor

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