With any luck, the upcoming Christmas break should mean a little more downtime than a typical week, and while you might look at the free time as an opportunity to see friends and family, tackle the Festive 500, or catch up on the DIY list you’ve been putting off since March, an equal number of us will use it as a chance to cosy up on the sofa with a good book.
If you’re in that last camp and you want to avoid wasting some of that precious time on a forgettable read that adds nothing to your festive period, you’re in the right place. Many of the team here at Cyclingnews are avid readers, and it should go without saying that we’re well plugged into the world of cycling literature.
As someone who has torn through many, many cycling books, picking just one to recommend feels like choosing a favourite child, but I’ll settle on one that has stuck with me because it’s truly affecting. The Descent by Thomas Dekker tells the story of a very dark period in cycling, with Dekker chronicling his own downfall into doping and other questionable behaviour in very raw and often unflattering terms.
Even more so than the headline books from that time like Tyler Hamilton’s The Secret Race, this book really opened my eyes to just how ugly cycling’s past was, not just the doping but the recreational drug use and hedonistic partying in an era where cyclists were really celebrities. Be warned, this is not a cosy read.
If you’re buying for someone who has read a lot about cycling and wants to go deeper than the latest big-name biography, I can’t recommend this enough.
The Descent by Thomas Dekker
USA: $9.77 at Amazon
UK: £4.99 at Amazon
If, like me, you prefer looking at pretty pictures than reading words then I heartily suggest you go for The Rough Stuff Fellowship Archive, a collection of beautiful photos amassed from the oldest off-road cycling club in the world.
In the days before gravel,…
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