But Max Leonard, himself an accomplished amateur cyclist, does not forget the pain, the glory, the sweat, and the tears that go into these grueling climbs.  After all, cycling up a mountain is hard.  So hard that, to many, it can seem absurd. But for others, climbing a mountain gracefully (and beating your competitors up the slope) represents the pinnacle of cycling achievement. It is where legends are forged.Many books tell you where the mountains are, or how long and how high. None of them ask why. Why are mountain ranges professional cycling’s Coliseum? Why do amateurs also make pilgrimages to these high, remote roads? Why are the roads even there in the first place to lure us on to these obsession inducing climbs?   Just why are mountains so enthralling? “This is real cycling, where the glory is and where dreams come true,” according to Bradley Wiggins. Mountains are where cycling's greatest heroes have made their names. Every amateur rider wishes they could climb better, too.  Are all these people addicted to the pain? To the achievement? Or to the allure of the peaks? Some spend their weekends and holidays cycling up mountains from start to finish. But how does a rider push themselves beyond their limits to get up a 10% gradient on pedal power alone? What is happening when they do?A Higher Calling explores the central place of mountains in the folklore of road cycling. Blending adventure and travel writing with the rich narrative of racing, Max Leonard takes the reader from the battles that created the Alpine roads to the shepherds tending their flocks on the peaks, and to a Grand Tour climax on the “highest road in Europe.” And he tells stories of courage and sacrifice, war and love, obsession and even elephants, along the way.

    This is the account of Chris, an Australian, who took up cycling in order to win over his Belgian girlfriend and her cycling obsessed father, and Neil, a Briton, who took up cycling when he realised it was the last sport left for him to try. Together they are two friends entering their midlife crisis years in a hurry, on bikes. Although living thousands of miles apart on different continents, Neil and Chris join forces through this addiction to cycling and play out an unforgettable and funny path to cycling greatness on the fields of Hong Kong, Sydney, England, Flanders and the French Alps. They lay it all out here; the training, the kit buying, the crashes, the clashes between family time, work time and cycling time, and the harsh realities of cycling together on the European continent alongside experienced club riders. This is a wonderfully humorous tale exposing the light-hearted determination of midlife cyclists everywhere.

    He won two stages at the Tour de France and an Olympic medal. But after years of feeling off, he was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s. The body that had been his ally was now something else: a prison. The Happiness of Pursuit is the story of how Davis sought to overcome his Parkinson’s by reaching back to what had made him so successful on the bike and adjusting his perspective on what counted as a win. The news of his diagnosis began a dark period for this vibrant athlete, but there was also light. His son Taylor’s own bike-racing career was taking off. Determined to beat the Body Snatcher, Davis underwent a procedure called deep brain stimulation. Although not cured, his symptoms abated enough for him to see Taylor compete in the Beijing Olympics. Davis Phinney had won another stage. But the joy, he discovered, was in the pursuit. With humor and grace, Phinney weaves the narrative of his battle with Parkinson’s with tales from his cycling career and from his son’s emerging career. The Happiness of Pursuit is a remarkable story of fathers and sons and bikes, of victories large and small.

    Ultrafit coach Thomas Chapple shows how with this practical guide. Based on the idea that success depends on the extent to which cyclists build their foundation of aerobic fitness, or their "base," for the road ahead, the book explains step-by-step how to build a bigger aerobic engine, work up to higher volumes, and make significant improvements in strength, endurance, and speed.

    He saw the Tour for the first time in 1984, avidly following that year's race on television in the Normandy village where he lived. Since joining the Guardian in 1989, William Fotheringham has been at the forefront of British cycling journalism. Here he reflects on the events of the last twenty-three years - the triumphs, the tragedies and the scandals that have engulfed the world's most demanding sport. Key articles from his career are annotated with notes and reflections. What would he have said if he'd known then what we all know now about Lance Armstrong? Which cyclists and teams were not all they seemed? And which victories still rank as the greatest of all time?This is the definitive collection of cycling reporting.

    Victory at the World Cycling Championship in Austria completed a near-unprecedented ‘triple crown’ that included triumphs in the same year at the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia. In April, against all odds, he fought his own team and an angry, partisan Italian crowd who spat at him on his way to taking the Giro. In July a superhuman effort at La Plagne saw him secure the yellow jersey just before he blacked out. Roche’s victory in Austria confirmed his virtuosity.Born to Ride, Stephen Roche’s first full autobiography, uses his best year as the starting point to explore the rest of his life. He doesn’t hold back as he examines the many ups and downs of his time on and off the bike, scrutinising victories, defeats, rivals, serious injury, doping allegations and agonizing family breakdown. At the heart of the book lies an enigma. For all his charm and rare, natural talent, beneath the surface lies an incredible tenacity and determination. Roche finally reveals himself as a smiling assassin; a master-strategist who lives to attack.

    

    Prepared to be awed and inspired by Chris Froome riding on at the Tour de France with a broken wrist or Geraint Thomas finishing it with a broken pelvis.In The Hardmen the writers behind cycling superblog Velominati.com and The Rules will tell the stories and illuminate the myths of not just the greatest cyclists ever, but the toughest. From Eddy Merckx to Beryl Burton, and from Marianne Vos to Edwig Van Hooydonk, the book will lay bare the secrets of their extraordinary and inspirational endurance in the face of pain, danger and disaster. After all, suffering is one of the joys of being a cyclist. Embrace climbs, relish the descents, and get ready to harden up. . .

    

    I could not see how it could happen' - Laurent Fignon'I didn't think. I just rode' - Greg LeMond'The finest cycle race I've ever seen' - Phil LiggettVeteran TV commentator Phil Liggett is right. The 1989 Tour de France is surely the greatest ever, a race that saw Greg LeMond overturn a 50-second deficit to Laurent Fignon on the final stage on the Champs Elysees to snatch the title by a mere eight seconds. After three weeks and more than 2,000 miles in the saddle, this remains the smallest margin of victory in the Tour's 100+ year history. But as dramatic as that Sunday afternoon on the streets of Paris was, the race wasn't just about that one time-trial. During the previous fortnight, the leader's yellow jersey had swapped back and forth between LeMond and Fignon in a titanic struggle for supremacy, a battle with more twists and turns than the maziest Alpine mountain pass. At no point during the entire three weeks were the pair separated by more than 53 seconds. And all this despite LeMond's body still carrying more than 30 shotgun pellets after a shooting accident two years previously. In Three Weeks, Eight Seconds, Nige Tassell brings one of cycling's most astonishing stories to life, examining that extraordinary race in all its multifaceted glory, with fresh first-hand testimony from riders, team bosses, commentators, journalists and family members. Among those offering exclusive new insight are Team LeMond, Pedro Delgado, Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche, Bjarne Riis, Andy Hampsten, Raul Alcala, Charly Mottet, Sean Yates and many more. Adrenaline and agony. Controversy and conflict. Torment and triumph.All human life is here.

    Born in Otley, West Yorkshire, in 1988, Lizzie won her first medal in the Junior World Track Championships in 2005 after being talent spotted at school, before going on to win silver at the 2012 Olympics Games in London. Three years later she was World Road Race Champion and began 2016 as one of the favorites for a medal at the Rio Olympic Games. From the rolling hills of Yorkshire through to the treacherous climbs of the Vista Circuit in Rio de Janeiro - through setbacks, life lessons and ups and downs of a professional life in cycling - Steadfast is an intense and inspiring story of sporting triumph.

    In this book, he gives riders of all abilities an insider's guide to getting fitter, faster, and on to the champion's platform. With photographs and illustrated exercises, The Ultimate Ride helps build a strong foundation for incremental leaps in fitness, times, and techniques. Nutritional advice, goal-setting methods, and mental exercises complement the physical training tips, to make this the only cycling fitness book an enthusiast will ever need.

    Weeks later he testified against his former team mate Lance Armstrong, as part of the USADA investigation.In a stunning piece of writing, Barry explores the dreams and passion of a young, idealistic cycling fan from Toronto - what it was then like to ride as a teammate alongside such giants of the sport as Lance Armstrong, Mark Cavendish, Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome, and how those dreams were tainted early on in his career by a sport in crisis.But it's also the story of his eleven years riding clean, before and after his time in the notorious American Postal Team. What was it like to head for Europe at such a young age, and what was it like to escape the environment of doping, to try and start again, all the time aware that past actions may one day catch up with him?Offering a unique and elegiac insight into the life and mind of a professional sportsman - the pressures, sacrifices, fears, crashes, injuries and neuroses - Cycles of the Heart is a classic, must-read book for cycling and sports fans alike.

    This is the remarkable story of a man who triumphed over all the odds -- a behind-the-scenes record of the 2004 professional cycling season and the manner in which Armstrong landed his sixth Tour de France victory. What makes the book particularly inspiring is the fact that Armstrong is no superman -- he talks about the many strikes against him (his age, the dissolving of his team and -- most of all -- his triumph over potentially lethal illness (his struggle against cancer is, of course, well-known).Coyle takes us from the cyclist's turbulent youth in Texas through his many achievements in the cycling field (notably his near loss in the 2003 tour), and his massive struggles against a series of disasters that would have floored most of us: his difficult divorce and subsequent separation from his children and, finally, the terrifying revelation of his cancer. The section on the various solutions that Armstrong tried (including new age healers and radical Italian sports doctors) makes for particularly fascinating reading: as Armstrong realised that his solutions lay elsewhere, there is a genuinely inspirational note here. Equally fascinating are the descriptions of his obsessive fans, the mind games he was forced to play (both with his opponents and corporate heavyweights), and, of course, his much-publicised relationship with rock star Sheryl Crow. The climax, his victory in the 2004 Tour de France, rounds out one of the best sport biographies in years. --Barry Forshaw

    In these pages both everyday riders and pros tell their stories of freak accidents, animal attacks, sabotage, idiotic decisions, eerie or unexplained incidents, and other jaw dropping, adrenalin-pumping calamities. These stories bring to life the strange things possibilities that await, once we step on the pedals of our road, mountain, or commuter bikes. A sampling of misadventures in this collection includes the stories of: the mountain biker who follows a bull and then gets gored by it; the twenty African Americans who pioneered cycle touring by completing a Transamerica ride in 1897, but wait - this story gets strange...; the large rat that leapt on top of a woman's bike and slapped her repeatedly with its tail; an inside-the-head narration by a professional racer as he rides a brutal race, and then gets humiliated in changing room afterwards; the recreational cyclist who accidentally rides deep into a prison yard; the computer programmer who crashes a stationary bike during his first spin class; the bike messenger who can't call it quits even after getting hit by eight cars; and, the man who carefully spreads out tacks on the route of an all female race in an attempt to get a date. These stories will make you wonder, drop you to the floor laughing and leave you shaking your head with disbelief.