Cycling History

Volume 1 of The Story of the Giro d'Italia tells of Italy's most celebrated riders: Costante Girardengo, the first campionissimo, or “Champion of Champions”; Alfredo Binda, who so dominated the Giro that one year he was paid by the organizers not to enter; Gino Bartali, who looked to become the dominating rider of his era; and Fausto Coppi, a fascinating personality and Bartali's great rival, who became not only Italy's, but the world's finest rider.

In Polish: This is a story about the journey of two brothers who travelled through the largest river in the world on...bikes. But not ordinary bikes - they were "Amazonian” bikes. The story is as bodacious as the trip itself, which seemed like an unachievable madness, but turned out to be a great adventure and a valuable life lesson. For one of its heroes it was a dream come true, for another the last chance for salvation. The book is written by Piotr Chmieliński - the first person on Earth who sailed through the Amazon River in a kayak.

The Tour of Flanders is Belgium's most brutal day in the saddle. The bike-crazed Flemish don't just send riders over cobblestone roads. Nor are they content to break the racers' legs with nearly 20 steep hills. No, the worst of all cycling worlds meet in Flanders with narrow, vertical roads paved with slippery, dangerous cobbles. The hills are so steep they are called "muurs", or walls, and they come one after another, for hours, until the riders are shattered with exhaustion. The Tour of Flanders is so fiendishly difficult that the man who wins it earns everlasting fame.

When more than 100 men or women go racing down a road, inches away from each other, in all weather, over all kinds of roads, the opportunity for a brilliant win or a terrible accident is always there. For more than a century, bicycle racers have sought glory, but have often found only misery. There can be only one winner, and even that triumph can be mixed with terrible loss. Fausto Coppi, coached by a blind man, set the World Hour Record in Milan during the war while the city was being shattered by bombs.

Les Woodland climbed aboard his old Carlton bike to take a nostalgia trip across Belgium and Holland to visit some of cycling's greatest riders. Cycling Heroes: The Golden Years tells the story of that journey he took in the early 1990s and the time he spent with some of the finest riders from the 1950s, '60s, and '70s.

In 1939 British cyclist Tommy Godwin cycled 75,065 miles in a single year. Think about that for a second: it’s an average of over 200 miles each day. And it’s a mark that still stands after almost 80 years. In The Year, Dave Barter resurrects the legend of the year record - a challenge nearly as old as bicycles themselves - and the cyclists who pushed themselves to establish and break it. Barter uncovers the stories behind these riders who would routinely cycle over a hundred miles a day in the race to set new records. Americans such as John H.

Americans have been riding bikes for more than a century now. So why are most American cities still so ill-prepared to handle cyclists? James Longhurst, a historian and avid cyclist, tackles that question by tracing the contentious debates between American bike riders, motorists, and pedestrians over the shared road. Bike Battles explores the different ways that Americans have thought about the bicycle through popular songs, merit badge pamphlets, advertising, films, newspapers, and sitcoms.

Champion of the world! For a year the World Cycling Champion gets to wear a special white jersey with rainbow stripes. And then, for the rest of his career, he can wear a jersey with rainbow cuffs and collar. Unlike the Tour de France's Yellow Jersey, which can only be worn while leading the race, the rainbow is earned for life.