With my troublesome knee restricting my already restricted riding opportunities, my thoughts have turned to one of my other favourite pastimes – reading. I’ve always been an unashamed book-worm, devouring Tolkien and Twain at an age when it was deemed deeply uncool to open anything other than a football (or cycling!) magazine.

The literature of the two-wheeled world apart from dry and precise training manuals which tend to be full of deeply unpleasant ways to hurt yourself followed by recipes for even more vile and unpleasant things to eat afterwards, tend to be in the most part biographical or autobiographical works which chronicle the careers of the great and sometimes not so great of cycling. There is a thriving sub-culture of travelogue books about people who seized by madness one day abandon their comfortable lives to cycle down the Amazon on a tandem they found in a skip, but as entertaining as some of these books are I found my list filled with books concerning road racing.

This most theatrical branch of the sport which of course in recent times has become notorious to a wider public due to its well documented struggles with drugs has produced some truly remarkable pieces of literature. This is a sport which can seem so complex and obtuse in its traditions and tactics to the uninitiated that sometimes I have found one of the best ways to explain its mysteries is to refer people to some of the books listed below.

This is not an exhaustive list, the opinions expressed are of course my own, but if you want a good bedtime read, or something a bit different to try the next time you find yourself trapped on an aircraft next to a boring but talkative pain, you could do worse than dip into one of these.

So in reverse order………………..

5/ Racing Through The dark – David Millar & A Rough Ride – Paul Kimmage  

Yes, I know that’s two books but I really couldn’t split them when compelling this list and trying to decide which wasn’t going to make the cut. Both these books are searingly honest accounts of their authors lives in the professional ranks, but leave a very different taste in the mouth when you get to the final  chapter.

Kimmage’s book which when published in 1990 was the first time a pro racer had broken the riders code of silence over what we now know was the widespread use of performance enhancing drugs in professional cycling. In writing the book Kimmage instantly became a vilified and hated figure amongst his former colleagues and teammates as the cycling world lined up to both discredit him and his claims. History has of course proved Kimmage right as doping scandal after doping scandal has rocked the sport he once loved, and this in some ways has made his book easier to read today.

I vividly remember reading A Rough Ride soon after its publication and being dismayed at both its revelations and its tone. Kimmage was and is an extremely angry and bitter man and this anger shines through both this book and his later writings and career as a journalist. Ironically at the time this made his assertions and accusations easier to dismiss as the bitter ramblings of a rider who had failed to fulfil his ambitions and potential, but now knowing he was right makes the book almost terribly poignant.

David Millar’s Racing Through The Dark is a much more straight forward book. It chronicles the authors rise to the top of his sport, his fall, and lastly his rehabilitation into the sport. As one of the most high-profile drug cheats to have been both caught and then fully admitted his guilt Millar’s story is an important first person account of the murky side life as a top continental pro. Beautifully written and vividly drawn it’s perhaps the only book which comes close to explaining the unbelievable pressures of life as a professional cyclist, and how those pressures could lead to even somebody as prodigiously talented as Millar having to resort to cheating to earn his living.

4/ A Dog In A Hat  – Joe Parkin

I’m betting you’ve never heard of Joe Parkin? I hadn’t and I followed pro cycling avidly during the period his career covered. A Dog in a Hat is a brilliant reminder that away from the glitz and publicity caravans of the Grand Tours and the famous one day classics such a Paris – Roubaix there exists a shadowy lower league world of constant racing in countries such as Belgium where cycling is the national sport. This world of second division races in which winning an intermediate sprint meant the difference between eating well that night or going hungry is the backdrop to Parkin’s story.

If you want to understand what 90% of professional cyclists lives are like read this book.

3/ The Hour – Michael Hutchinson 

Funny, engaging and well written this account of domestic time trial king Hutchinson’s tilt at cycling blue riband record is accessible to both cyclists and non-cyclists alike. It’s also a great insight into some of the detail and number crunching that goes into record attempts like this. Compared to some of the other books on this list its a light read, but Hutchinson is an intelligent and engaging writer who you can’t help but root for despite the fact you suspect he’s doomed to failure from the outset.

2/ Wide Eyed and Legless – Jeff Connor

In 1987 when cycling was still a niche sport in Britain, the then pre-eminent domestic team ANC-Halfords thinking they were ready for the step up obtained an entry to the Tour de France. It all went horribly wrong, and journalist Jeff Connor was imbedded with the team and witnessed the wheels coming off first hand. Connor, a newspaper writer who didn’t know much about cycling before the tour documents this very British attempt at glory in a very engaging way. As the team implodes under the stresses of the race with riders abandoning, team cars breaking down and the team manager going awol what comes through in spades is Connor’s awe and wonder at what the riders were being asked to do day after day.

It’s also in light of todays world which is dominated by the Sky Team ‘marginal gains’ philosophy a refreshing look back at what has now become a bygone age for British racing.

1/ The Escape Artist – Matt Seaton

The only cycling book on my shelf that my long-suffering cycle widow wife has read, and then reread at a later date. It’s a book with two deep strands to it which makes it uniquely accessible to both cyclists and non – cyclists alike. For anybody with a background or interest in UK amateur road racing this books descriptions of how Seaton discovers and becomes embroiled in the domestic scene will strike a chord. the tales of club runs,suffering on lone training rides and changing exhausted out of sweat incrusted lycra post race in grotty village halls will be familiar to many.

It is the human story however which runs in parallel to the cycling narrative which stays with the reader after the last page is turned. This story of how cycling in turn became the authors obsession, then saviour will resonate long after the book is finished.

I’ll say no more, it’s truly a beautiful book, read it for yourselves.