The Rider

"Meyrueis, Lozere, June 26, 1977. Hot and overcast. I take my gear out of the car and put my bike together. Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafes. Non-racers. The emptiness of those lives shocks me."

That line opens Tim Krabbe's book, The Rider, which is pretty much universally accepted as the greatest cycling novel of all time. If you ride and haven't read it yet, you need to. I have piles of cycling books littering my house, but that is the one that I always come back to. Tim Krabbe managed to capture the essence of a road race in writing, the way the mind wanders and finds abstract connections, the constant battle between mental will and the limtations of the body, and the ebb and flow of a bunch of people trying to grind the opposition into the ground while riding a child's toy. I don't think most people who haven't raced in some fashion will understand the deeper meaning behind the words, but I would hope most cyclists would.
 
Batüwü Griekgriek.

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