Product Description

A broken heart and a moment of drunken bravado inspires middle-aged, and typically rather cautious, journalist Mike Carter to take off on a life-changing six month motorcycle trip around Europe. Never mind that he hadn't been on two wheels since an inglorious three-month teenage chapter involving a Lambretta, four crashes and an 18-month ban for drink-driving, a plan had begun to loosely form...And so, having completed a six day residential motorcycle course and hastily re-mortgaged his flat, Mike sets off alone, resolving to go wherever the road takes him and enjoy the adventure of heading off into the unknown. He ends up travelling almost 20,000 miles and reaching the four extremes of Europe: the Arctic Circle in the north, the Mediterranean coast in the south, the Portuguese Atlantic to the west and the Iraqi border of Turkey in the east. But really it's a journey inwards, as, on the way, Mike finds his post-divorce scars starting to heal and attempts to discover what he, as a man in his forties who hasn't quite found his place in the world, should be doing. Self-deprecating, poetic and utterly engaging, his is a heroic journey taken for the rest of us too scared to leave our 9 to 5 office-bound existence.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6289 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

The Observer
"Uneasy Rider is where emasculation and escapism meet...Carter is a genial companion on this road trip through the male ego, often funny and always unsparing on himself"

Charley Boorman, author of The Long Way Round
"A fantastic read"

Tim Moore
"As wise and witty travelling companion as you could wish for"

Customer Reviews

uneasy rider-great writer
A cracking read,funny and at times sad.Nice to go on a different journey from the others and visit new places.I've no intention of riding through Africa or South America but I could follow in Mike's tyre tracks (although I will avoid Romania lol ).

Uneasy about mid-life persona
It was partly good reviews here that made me buy this book and partly a holiday to Croatia (one of the places visted by the author). The holiday and the travelling (sleeping on benches at Gatwick) turned out to be tedious sadly so the book became a trusted and fond travel companion.

Others have said they laughed out loud at this book and I did too - at about 2am at Gatwick. I think the funniest parts are where the going is toughest - in Finland where we hear about the seductions of the Leprosy museum (or was that in Norway?) At first I was uneasy (to coin a phrase) at the mid-life stuff because it created one of those all-too-easy-to identify-with personas that in some ways can be unhelpful (like grumpy old men) but as we hear, near the end of the book, about another reason why the author visited some of these countries and some of these locations, I found myself very moved. I wouldn't be suprised if many readers of this book have experienced some of the same life events as the author and can identify with the desire to revisit locations that have, to put it simply, bad memories.

I really recommend this book. It is intelligent and hugely funny in places and has redoubled my determination to take my bike to some (definately not all) of the countries visited by Mike Carter.

Not quite what I'd hoped for...
This was an easy read that flowed from page to page, although as a biker myself I found it wanting. It's been said before in these pages and is very true that the transition from Corsica to London was a great disappointment; was there really nothing interesting to write about on the journey back home from there Mike?!
Also Mike is obviously a very educated and learned man, so whilst I took his quotes from some of the great names in literature in good humour, I suspect others may have seen this as arrogant and conceited on his part.
If you are into bikes and biking in general, don't expect a great detailed narrative, but as a light heartened and alternative read on the subject of men & the mid-life crisis, this a good read; took me just three days on the commute to finish it!