THE RIDER describes one 150-kilometre race in just 150 pages. In the course of the narrative, we get to know the forceful, bumbling Lebusque, the aesthete Barthelemy, the young Turk Reilhan and the mysterious 'rider from Cycles Goff'. Krabbe battles with and against each of them in turn, failing on the descents, shining on the climbs, suffering on the (false) flats. The outcome of the race is, in fact, merely the last stanza of an exciting and too-brief paean to stamina, suffering and the redeeming power of humour. This is not a history of road racing, a hagiography of the European greats or even a factual account of his own amateur cycling career. Instead, Krabbe allows us to race with him, inside his skull as it were, during a mythical Tour de Mont Aigoual.
| ISBN | 0747559414 | | Pages | 160 | | ISBN13 | 9780747559412
(What's this?) | | Weight (grammes) | 181 | | Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing PLC | | Published in | London | | Imprint | Bloomsbury Publishing PLC | | Previous ISBN | 9780747556381 | | Format | Paperback | | Height (mm) | 198 | | Publication date | 03 Jun 2002 | | Width (mm) | 129 | | Translator | Sam Garrett | | Spine width (mm) | 10 | | DEWEY | 839.31364 | | Academic level | General | | DEWEY edition | DC21 | |
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'On the one hand it is a literary masterpiece that will still be read a hundred years from now; on the other, it is the best book on sports in the Dutch language' Leeuwarder Courant 'Whenever I hit rock bottom I always think of those immortal words from The Rider by Tim Krabbe - Battoowoo Creakcreak - and everything seems just fine again' Maarten Ducroit, racing cyclist 'Classic account of the fictional Tour de Mont Aigoual. Like all the best sports writing, The Rider manages to convey the excitement, determination and skill of the competitors even to readers who have little or no knowledge of the sport. Above all, he evokes the heightened focus of the cyclists, for whom nothing seems real apart from the race' London Review of Books
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