Cycling Travel

In the late 1880s, Frank Lenz of Pittsburgh, a renowned high-wheel racer and long-distance tourist, dreamed of cycling around the world. He finally got his chance by recasting himself as a champion of the downsized "safety-bicycle" with inflatable tires, the forerunner of the modern road bike that was about to become wildly popular. In the spring of 1892 he quit his accounting job and gamely set out west to cover 20,000 miles over three continents as a correspondent for Outing magazine. Two years later, after having survived countless near disasters and unimaginable hardships, he approached Europe for the final leg. He never made it....

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 10 hours, sleeping in short bursts wherever exhaustion took her.

In Birding Under the Influence, Dorian Anderson, a neuroscience researcher on a pressure-filled life trajectory, walks away from the world of elite institutions, research labs, and academic publishing. In doing so, he falls in love and discovers he has freed himself to embrace his lifelong passion for birding.

Committed Belgophile and road cycling obsessive Harry Pearson takes you on a journey across Flanders - through the lumpy horizontal rain, up the elbow-juddering cobbled inclines, past the fans dressed as chickens and the shop window displays of constipation medicines as he follows races big, small and even smaller, through one glorious, muddy spring. Ranging over 500 years of Flemish and European history, Pearson examines the characters, the myths and the rivalries that make Flanders a place where cycling is a religion and the riders its Lycra-clad priests.

Despite never having learned to ride a bike, Jackie Winter has pedalled over 100,000 miles - on the back of a tandem. For almost 40 years, Jackie and her husband Allan have enjoyed cycling in Dorset and Jackie describes many favorite bike rides. Life in Tandem recounts travellers' tales gleaned from a lifetime of cycle touring holidays in the UK. The couple love cycling in the Yorkshire Dales, which is where they headed in 1976, the year of the drought. A few years later, a cycling holiday in the Lake District presented a whole new set of challenges.

Biking from Oregon to Maine is no small feat, especially for two newly retired women who carry everything they need for three months, powered only by the strength of their legs and a desire for adventure. Alice Honeywell and Bobbi Montgomery invite listeners to follow their ride by bicycle across the United States, as they face scorching sun, driving rain, buffeting winds, equipment failures, killer hills, wild fires, and even a plague of grasshoppers.

In this highly original history of the world's most famous bicycle race, Christopher S. Thompson, mining previously neglected sources and writing with infectious enthusiasm for his subject, tells the compelling story of the Tour de France from its creation in 1903 to the present.

As Ellie’s 50th birthday approaches and her ambitions of a steady income, a successful career and an ascent of Everest seem as far away as ever, she begins to doubt she’s capable of achieving anything at all. So when her best friend Mick suggests a gruelling cycle ride from Land’s End to John o’Groats, she takes up the challenge. They opt for the scenic route which takes them along cycle paths, towpaths and the back roads and byways of Britain, unable to resist sampling beers in the pubs they pass along the way.

Winner of the 2021 National Outdoor Book Award Sara Dykman made history when she became the first person to bicycle alongside monarch butterflies on their storied annual migration—a round-trip adventure that included three countries and more than 10,000 miles. Equally remarkable, she did it...

New on audio from Stephen King...an unabridged novella"as artful as anything he has ever written." (Booklist) Climb aboard Stationary Bike -- a streamlined fever dream of a tale, in which an ordinary household object assumes otherworldly powers and a familiar journey takes a terrifying twist...

Edward Enfield sets off on his latest cycling trip, carrying few preconceptions but plenty of wit. Determining the route he should take from recommendations scrawled on a napkin, he starts by following the 'Romantic Street' along the banks of the Danube from Passau to Vienna, taking in castles, churches and good food along the way. And, as Edward amply reveals in this charming book, there is no place from which to see a country that is nearly as good as the saddle of a bicycle.

Ishbel Rose Holmes was adrift and alone when she set out to bicycle across the world. She was pedaling across Turkey when a street dog, Lucy, crossed her path and changed her life forever. Ishbel did not want anything or anyone to slow her down, but when she witnessed Lucy attacked by other dogs, Ishbel rescued her - forming a deep bond between the pair. Ishbel recognized her own vulnerability in her new canine friend and launched a heartfelt mission to find Lucy a home and give her a happy life.

In November 2015 Sarah Outen completed her five-year, 25,000 mile journey looping the planet by cycling across Europe, Asia and North America and canoeing and kayaking across the North Pacific and most of the North Atlantic.

Tour Aotearoa A Gonzo Cycling Guide is a plunge into the world of bike-packing the length of New Zealand. The TA (Tour Aotearoa) is a bicycle trail running the length of NZ but with kinks and kinkiness in it. The result: 3000 kilometres of trail.

At the age of 69, Jonas Barter embarks on an inspiring adventure to celebrate retirement and reassure himself that the old body in the mirror is still friends with the younger guy in the head. This quest becomes the story of a 2,000 km bicycle trip in Northern Africa.

"You'll never make it!" With encouragement like that, author Mickey Thomas, in a fit of youthful testosterone, and with meticulous inattention to detail, decided to embark on a once-in-a lifetime 3,400-mile bicycle trek from Montana to Alaska. While riding through knee problems, illness, homesickness, infatuation, bad weather, and meeting a host of quirky and hilarious characters, Mickey, and his group rides over some of the roughest roads and most desolate scenery in North America. Along the way, he discovers an inner strength as well as a new physical stamina he never had.

Brian has a million vague life plans but zero sense of direction. So when he meets Rachel, a self-possessed woman who daydreams of bicycling across the States, he decides to follow her wherever she’ll take him. Brian and Rachel soon embark on a ride from northern Wisconsin to Somewhere West, infatuated with the promise of adventure and each other. But as the pair progress from the Northwoods into the bleak western plains, they begin to discover the messy realities of life on the road.

Part sporting travelogue, part political history, (Just as Well) It's Not About the Bike follows journalist Chris Atkin's 1,300 km cycle from Valencia to Gibraltar. En route, he travels through Spain’s most picturesque towns. And Benidorm. Along the way, he learns about the region’s history, from the time four hydrogen bombs fell over Spain to the politician who shot General Franco’s daughter in the bottom yet rose to become one of the country’s most powerful men. While riding across Spain, Chris also meets an array of eccentric characters.

If bikepacking is on your bucket list, then combine Live Your Bucket List with Cycling King Alfred's Way in this box set. What’s it really like to cycle King Alfred’s Way? Is it a piece of cake, or rather harder than that?

Sticky Buns Across America is the story of one of the four continents and one of the countries Woodland has crossed by bike, this time with patient wife Steph: a tale of riding across small-town America (and occasional bits of Canada, although to Americans that doesn't count). It's not a tale of heroic battling with storms, riots, poison ivy, Americans, and other problems. Instead, sit back and enjoy an eccentric account of encounters made and experiences lived. Plus, it has to be admitted, a lot of sticky buns eaten.