At the Tour de France, he has taken the coveted green jersey three times. He spent his teen years winning just about every possible title for his age group at BMX, before discovering road cycling at 18. McEwen soon established himself as one of the foremost road sprinters of his generation. He took his first ever stage win at the Tour de France in the celebrated final stage of the race in 1999, on the Champs Elyseés. But it was between 2002 and 2007 that he had claim to being the fastest sprinter in the world. McEwen is renowned for being a forthright character, a favorite among fans, and respected by his competitors. Few cyclists have ever approached the sport in such a detailed way, and few have been as competitive. He now rides for Lance Armstrong's RadioShack team, still competing at the very highest level.

    

    Having spent 10 years scaling the lower echelons of the sport, the time has come for Martyn Brunt, one of Britain's least successful athletes, to reveal all about how he got involved in all this nonsense in the first place.

    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.

    Soon wielding syringes, this forty-something husband and father of two children becomes the doper next door.During his yearlong odyssey, Tilin is transformed. He becomes stronger, hornier, and aggressive. He wades into a subculture of doping physicians, real estate agents, and aging women who believe that Tilin’s type of legal “hormone replacement therapy” is the key to staying young—and he often agrees. He also lives with the price paid for renewed vitality, worrying about his health, marriage, and cheating ways as an amateur bike racer. And all along the way, he tells us what doping is really like—empowering and scary.

    The contrast could not have been greater - as Lance Armstrong, a fraudster backed by many corporate sponsors and feted by presidents, was about to deliver a stage-managed confession to Oprah, so a young woman from a small village in Wales took aim.      She too had been a cyclist, the only rider ever to have become World and Olympic champion in the same year, and the first British cyclist to have been ranked World No.1, but as a woman in a man's sport, her exploits gained little recognition and brought no riches. She too had ridden through this dark period for the sport when drug-taking was everywhere. Nicole Cooke spoke up for those who had taken a very different path to Lance and his team-mates.      In her frank and outspoken autobiography, Cooke reveals the real story behind British cycling's rise to global dominance. With a child's dreams of success, she left home at 18 to pursue her goals in Italy. Broken contracts, unpaid wages, a horrendous injury and drugs cheats were just some of the challenges she faced, even before she lined up to take on her opponents. The Breakaway is a book that will not only inspire all those who read it, but which also asks some serious questions about the way society regards women's sport.

    . . . An underground classic. . . . A bicycling book that follows a different course—one with characters you can relate to, whose actions raise questions about life on and off the bicycle. . . . The heart of The Yellow Jersey is the Tour de France itself, which serves as a metaphor for life.—Bicycling Magazine"This is sports fiction at its very best. Mr. Hurne has a cool, downbeat style descended from Lardner and Hemingway, and a fine hand with the hairpins turns of suspense."—The New York Times Book Review"Full of wit, charm, excitement, and intelligence."—Publishers WeeklyAn excerpt from the novel:It's a funny sort of stage. Everyone seems to be waiting for Romain to attack. Van Faignaert, as I expected, is taking things easy and trying to keep the bunch together. Butch Cassidy's not a bad climber and on the Col de Foreyssasse he has a go, but the Belgian team swoops and soon has him under control. I can see on the faces of the spectators that they are disappointed. They've turned out in their thousands expecting this to be It; I feel like shouting to them to go home and come back tomorrow. We get strung out a bit coming down the Foreyssasse but regroup at the bottom. The ominous threat of Romain taking off, coupled with the strong control of the race by the Belgian team, who're doing their damnedest to keep everyone in one lump, has really put the mockers on things.I'm just beginning to think that the worst of the stage has passed when the rider directly in front of me punctures, loses control and goes sliding along the loose surface on his side. It's on a sharp descent and the bunch is moving. Although it all happens in a split second, I'm unable to go either to the left or right of the fallen man and I jam on my brakes. With both wheels locked solid I pile into him at about thirty miles per hour. Normally I would have been flung over the handlebars, but my toe straps are sufficiently tight for me to do several cartwheels with the bike still attached to me. For a second everything seems upside down; then pain. I lie there feeling as if I'll never move again. From the front of the group I see v

    Matt Rendell's vivid and entertaining narrative of the Tour de France combines the Tour's golden legends with tales from its dark side, capturing the true and often surreal spirit of the world's most arduous race.

    It's the only cycling record that matters: one man and his bike against the clock in a quest for pure speed. No teammates, no rivals, no tactics, no gears, no brakes. Just one simple question - in sixty minutes, how far can you go?Michael Hutchinson had a plan. He was going to add his name to the list of record-holders, cycling's supermen. But how does a man who became a professional athlete by accident achieve sporting immortality? It didn't sound too hard. All he needed was a couple of hand-tooled bike frames, the most expensive wheels money could buy, a support team of crack professionals, a small pot of glue, and a credit card wired to someone else's bank account. Still, getting the glue wasn't a problem...Michael Hutchinson became a full-time cyclist in 2000 after becoming disillusioned with an academic career. Over the following six years he has won more than twenty national titles, and the gold medal in the Masters' Pursuit World Championships. He is now a writer and journalist (and cyclist) and lives in south London.

    Now take those events and transfer them to a volcanic rock with cruel winds, searing sun, rough seas and nosebleed-inducing hills, and you have Ironman Lanzarote. Why, then, would Andy Holgate – who admittedly has never swum in the sea, who can’t cope with the wind, sun or even stairs – take on such an extreme challenge? Simple: Because he can. Can’t Sleep, Can’t Train, Can’t Stop! continues Andy’s inspirational journey from where Can’t Swim, Can’t Ride, Can’t Run left off, chronicling his attempt to complete two Ironman triathlons six weeks apart. Already in his fortieth year, would Andy make it to his forty-first? Would Lanzarote prove one triathlon too far – or will Andy succeed against the odds and live to swim, ride and run another day?

    These were the athletes in the Olympic marathon. So how did he end up with a bronze medal? How did he win the London marathon? And why does he still hold the English record for the distance?In this remarkable autobiography, he explains how -- how someone who was almost the bottom of the class when he first went to school, and even worse at sport, eventually turned himself into a world-class athlete, competing in top marathons all over the world, and genuinely going from last to first.As well as the enthralling life story of one of our finest distance runners, this book is a wonderfully clear and inspiring piece of life coaching for anyone who wants to make the most of their talents. But more than this, as Spedding says at the start, 'I believe that on occasions you can create the circumstances in which you can perform at a higher level than your talent says you can.' Spedding's own story, and his chronicle of the big races he excelled in, proves it's trueFor anyone aspiring to run a marathon, or indeed anyone who wants to set themselves a goal they think beyond their reach -- and achieve it -- this is an essential book.

    The twisting Mediterranean roads, the jerseys, the peloton in full flight - these have become as familiar to him as the lines around his eyes. And then there are the riders: men of almost superhuman capabilities, men who have become his friends, men whose stories he has written day in day out for the past decade. But even the biggest fan can one day wake up to find that he has lost his faith.We all want to believe in our heroes. That's why Jeremy got into cycling. But what happens when you can't? When you've seen too many positive dope tests, when you've been lied to too many times, when your sport is destroying itself from within?Bad Blood is the story of Jeremy Whittle's journey from unquestioning fan to Tour de France insider and confirmed sceptic. It's about broken friendships and a sport divided; about having to choose sides in the war against doping; about how galloping greed and corporate opportunism have led the Tour de France to the brink of destruction. Part personal memoir, part devastating exposé of a sport torn apart by drugs and scandal, Bad Blood is a love letter to one man's past, and a warning to cycling's future.

    This work features Europe's 50 greatest cycling climbs specially selected as scenes of sporting heroism, marvels of nature, spiritual places of pilgrimage that every bike rider or fan wishes to one day visit and conquer.

    The last five days were filled with endless mountain passes, inclement weather, physical ailments, extremely limited sleep, and mental breakdowns. At this moment, however, I sat at the top of a spectacular, remote Montana mountain pass with the sun setting over the western horizon. The waning light offered magnificent vistas in every direction with rich greens, whites, purples, and yellows soaking up the last rays of the day. The faint smell of a previous storm and the wet tundra provided an unbelievable soothing sensation. The moment was perfect. I was at peace. Everything was right, and I was reminded why I chose to attempt this incredible and crazy adventure. The Tour Divide, a 2,725-mile mountain bike race along the Continental Divide from Banff, Alberta, Canada to the Mexican border crossing at Antelope Wells, New Mexico, demanded will-breaking efforts day after day, but the race also returned brief moments of euphoria. Most of the time the race felt impossible, and I loved it! Just Ride is an adventure story of the 2018 Tour Divide. The book details the resilience and amazing adaptability of the human body and mind, and it gives a realistic and often raw account of the physical and mental toll required to finish the race in less than 17 days. The route, the conditions, the gear, the strategy, the training, the mental struggles, the embarrassing moments, and the physical battle are all described throughout a story that offers a genuine look into what was experienced and felt throughout the ultimate test of mountain bike endurance. In addition, Just Ride summarizes data that were collected before, during, and following the race. The huge amount of collected data tell a story of how the body broke down and how it remarkably adapted to the 2,725-mile ordeal. The book also details how the mind was central to creating and breaking down the barriers that impeded progress each day. The Tour Divide was an incredible adventure that offered the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. In the end, the race boiled down to one simple task: Just Ride.

    We learn of stage winners and former yellow jerseys who tasted life at the other end of the bunch; the breakaway leader who stopped for a bottle of wine and then took a wrong turn; the doper whose drug cocktail accidentally slowed him down and the rider who was recognized as the most combative despite finishing at the back.Max Leonard flips the Tour de France on its head and examines what these stories tell us about ourselves, the 99% who don't win the trophy, and forces us to re-examine the meaning of success, failure and the very nature of sport.