Embrace and revel in the stories of the toughest cyclists of all time, told by The Velominati, originators of The Rules.  Read and get ready to ride . . .  In cycling, suffering brings glory: a rider's value can be judged by their results, but also by their panache and heroism. 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. . . B&W photographs throughout

The Hardmen: Legends of the Cycling Gods

The Velominati

Pursuit Books

The Olympic cycling sport of keirin was invented in Japan more than 70 years ago to raise money to rebuild the country after World War II. Now, fans bet billions of dollars a year on races, with the top riders earning huge sums. 
In each race, a pacemaker leads nine riders around a huge concrete velodrome, then leaves the track with around a lap and a half to go - the cue for a frantic finish as the competitors reach speeds of up to 70 kph. Along the way they block and shove each other, clash heads and often crash (the two Japanese characters used to write keirin mean "battle" and "wheel"). 
To prevent race fixing, the cyclists live in dorms, with no access to online technology. Their lives are ruled by ritual and fierce competition, from their rookie days at the Japan Keirin School near Mount Fuji to the annual Grand Prix final, whose winner takes home prize money of one million dollars. 
A small number of foreign riders are invited to compete in Japan every year and some, like Shane Perkins, have overcome culture shock to prosper in the home of keirin. 
The Olympic version - which has made stars of Chris Hoy, Jason Kenny and Victoria Pendleton - is being taken more seriously in Japan as Tokyo prepares to host the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics. 
In Keirin: War on Wheels, Justin McCurry, the Guardian's Japan and Korea correspondent, explores blue-collar Japan from a fascinating new perspective. His encounters with punters, pundits, veterans and rookies reveal parts of Japanese society and psyche rarely examined, learning lessons about country and culture that go far beyond the sporting realm.

Keirin: War on Wheels – Inside Japan’s Cycling Subculture

Sports & Outdoors

McCurry, Justin

Individual Sports

War on Wheels

Justin McCurry

Signs of Life: To the Ends of the Earth with a Doctor

Politics & Social Sciences

Fabes, Stephen

Social Sciences

They say that being a good doctor boils down to just four things: Shut up, listen, know something, care.\nThe same could be said for life on the road, too.\nWhen Stephen Fabes left his job as a junior doctor and set out to cycle around the world, frontline medicine quickly faded from his mind. Of more pressing concern were the daily challenges of life as an unfit rider on an overloaded bike, helplessly in thrall to pastries. But leaving medicine behind is not as easy as it seems.\nAs he roves continents, he finds people whose health has suffered through exile, stigma or circumstance, and others, whose lives have been saved through kindness and community. After encountering a frozen body of a monk in the Himalayas, he is drawn ever more to healthcare at the margins of the world, to crumbling sanitoriums and refugee camps, to city dumps and war-torn hospital wards. And as he learns the value of listening to lives - not just solving diagnostic puzzles - Stephen challenges us to see care for the sick as a duty born of our humanity, and our compassion.

A London cycle courier with a taste for adventure, Emily Chappell entered an extraordinary new race - The Transcontinental - in which riders must find their own way, entirely unassisted, across Europe in the shortest time possible. On her second attempt, she won the women's event, covering nearly 4,000 miles in 13 days and ten hours, sleeping in short bursts wherever exhaustion took her. 
In the aftermath of a win that troubled as much as pleased her she worked with Mike Hall, the founder of the race, until his tragic death on the road.
 Where There's a Will is a book about a normal person finding the capacity to do something extraordinary; the paradoxes of comradeship, competition, vulnerability and will and the shock of grief, combined in a beautifully written and very human story.

Where There's A Will: Discovering Endurance in a Race Across Europe

Chappell, Emily

"I ride to rest and to tire myself out; I ride to do myself good and to do myself harm"
... one of the many cycling paradoxes explored in this unique and delightful book.
"I've never got over this miracle"
 Starting with the childhood joy of learning to ride a bike, Need for the Bike goes on to relate the agony of climbing, the angst of crashing, and all the other universal moments and feelings which all cyclists will recognise.
"To get on a bike is to take possession of the landscape"
 The sounds, smells, pains and joys of riding with friends or alone, finding things on the road; getting lost, "re-reading" familiar routes; Paul Fournel's classic comes as close as any book has to an encapsulation of why we all need the bike ...

Need for the Bike

Fournel, Paul

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Pursuit Books publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Pursuit Books

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Pursuit Books publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Hardmen: Legends of the Cycling Gods

Keirin: War on Wheels – Inside Japan’s Cycling Subculture

War on Wheels

Signs of Life: To the Ends of the Earth with a Doctor

Signs of Life: To the Ends of the Earth with a Doctor

Where There's A Will: Discovering Endurance in a Race Across Europe

Need for the Bike