Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #55791 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-06
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Sunday Telegraph
'this beguiling blend of personal anecdote and serious history...the fun and freedom of life on wheels.'

Telegraph
'Hilton's own unusual life in cycling is beautifully woven into a history of English and continental racing.'

Financial Times
'A moving and funny memoir...connoisseurial pages about the Tour de France give Hilton's story its thumping heart.'

Customer Reviews

Accessible for the tourist/randonneur/audaxer
An unexpected wellspring for such a book; all the better for it. Tim Hilton writes very well. His enthusiasm for and experience of cycle racing/time trialling gives a great flavour to reminiscence which didn't bore me at all. I particularly liked the tangential observations on well known names like Beryl Burton and Frank Patterson. The first book on cycle racing that I've enjoyed completing; others I remember as rather dour.

Sepia toned pleasure
What an unusual cycling book. As a cyclist who has never raced - dawdling is more my scene - I found this a captivating view of a world I have never tasted. Tim Hilton writes with fondness of his cycling days after the war, adding vignettes of the greats of British and continental cycling. You're not likely to read the book in one sitting, but you will find it a perfect companion for a wild winter's afternoon.

three tales in one, highly readable, though not sure why
A very interesting book for a number of reasons. Firstly, its not a typical contemporary cycling book - its quite interesting to hear about Hilton's youth, how he was brought up in a Midlands Communist party household and cycling being part of his escape to all sorts of places and people. Second, the history of club cycling in Britain - the racers, races and politics / organisation. Finally, he covers the history and characters of the classic races in Europe (but not through to latter day - he certainly gives the impression that he doesnt like the commercial modern ways of big races like the TdF). All of which is sometimes a bit hard going (personally I would have liked to learn more about Fausto Coppi and Eddie Merx than so many of the British riders and club politics) and occasionally mixed in with bouts of poetry and other literary pieces.

The book can sometime be a little pretentious in the ways it views the 'golden era' of cycling, traditions, French verses without translation for people like me... and so on

But the bottom line is it is hard to put down and before I knew where I was, I was at the end. I would summarise this as a worthwhile read from many different dimensions, I enjoyed it.