Anyone who has popped in to peruse the cycling section in Waterstones over the last decade will have seen it grow from an armful of books to almost its own nook.
As such, we have selected some of the best cycling books around for you to peruse over a transitional Grand Tour stage or a rainy weekend.
This literary expansion means there is something for everyone, from ghost-written biographies, rigorously researched histories, how-to books, training guides and memoirs.
It goes arm-in-arm (or insert bike-related metaphor here) with our article on the best cycling books by women, which has even more great books than the ones featured here
Best books about cycling
- The Road Book
- The Monuments by Peter Cossins
- Endless Perfect Circles by Ian Walker
- The Death of Marco Pantani by Matt Rendell
- Revolutions: How Women Changed the World on Two Wheels by Hannah Ross
- Put Me Back on My Bike by William Fotheringham
- Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle by Dervla Murphy
- 1923: The Mystery of Lot 212 and a Tour de France Obsession by Ned Boulting
- 1001 Cycling Tips by Hannah Reynolds
- The Rider by Tim Krabbé
- God is Dead by Andy McGrath
- The Race Against The Stasi by Herbie Sykes
- Wide-Eyed and Legless by Jeff Connor
- The Secret Race by Daniel Coyle and Tyler Hamilton
- The Descent by Thomas Dekker
- Racing Through the Dark by David Millar
- French Revolutions by Tim Moore
- Climb by Cyclist
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Why trust Cyclist’s recommendations?
Here at Cyclist, we’re dedicated to bringing you the best of cycling, with our magazine and online coverage of the best riding destinations in the world, the latest tech and all the news on the top races and racers.
We don’t stop when we get off the bike either and are avid readers of the best and the newest cycling literature. Cycling’s rich heritage is fertile ground for writers and over the years we’ve reviewed a huge selection of cycling books, so you can be sure that our picks will be page-turners.
Best cycling books: our picks
The Road Book
It’s unclear quite how Ned Boulting finds the time to compile and edit an almost thousand-page cycling almanack every year – not to mention the historical editions that are also now being produced, admittedly under a different editor – but find it he does. The Road Book series is the result.
These beautifully designed red hardbacks (the historical ones are blue) don’t just catalogue everything that happened in a given season. They pick out stories and interesting titbits from different races, interspersing them with essays and contributions from big name riders, commentators, and journalists. Together they unveil the rich and nuanced landscape of a season in professional cycling.
It’s not the cheapest book you can buy, but this hulking tome – that features lovely illustrations and photography too – is a library addition that will probably outlive you.
- Buy them at theroadbook.co.uk
The Monuments 2nd edition: The Grit and the Glory of Cycling’s Greatest One-Day Races, Peter Cossins
An entirely different beast to the Grand Tours of cycling, the Monuments represent – or at least they used to – a chance for different kinds of riders to taste glory, often along filthy, manure strewn pig tracks rather than the pristine grey tarmac of the high mountains.
Peter Cossins, in this updated version from 2023, catalogues the rollercoaster history of every monument, taking in these famous one-day races that wind through Italy, Belgium and France.
Rather than being just a tiresome roundup of every result, Cossins, an expert in the field, cherry picks certain gems to focus on, weaving them together with very readable elan. You’re in safe hands here.
Endless Perfect Circles, Ian Walker
Ultradistance cycling memoirs are ten a penny. It’s not that hard to string together a few thousands sentences about how many ice creams you ate or how hard to floor is. But to do it in a readable, non-self indulgent way that’s also informative and borderline mesmerising – well you’ve got yourself a good read there.
Ian Walker, a professional psychologist by day, took the couch to 5km and put it in a nuclear reactor. Having led a largely sedentary life, in his forties he rode the Transcontinental Race and then broke an ultra world record. Take that everyone else.
Luckily he has a delightful way with words. For some reason it hasn’t been picked up by a mainstream publisher, so the editions aesthetics are a little thin, but perhaps that adds to the book’s charm. A riveting read.
The Death of Marco Pantani, Matt Rendell
Rendell has written several excellent books, including the biography Olympic Gangster: The Legend Of Jose Beyaert and Kings of the Mountains about Colombia’s unique racing culture.
We’ve gone with this portrait of cycling’s archetypal lost boy Marco Pantani. Doping, celebrity, and the complicity of the viewing public.
This tale of the flawed but supremely gifted Pantani synthesises the ambiguities of its protagonist and his era to uncomfortable effect.
Revolutions: How Women Changed the World on Two Wheels, Hannah Ross
One of the most comprehensive cycling books we’ve read, Hannah Ross’ Revolutions details women’s relationships with bikes throughout history.
She discusses its coinciding with movements like the New Woman, how the bike was used as a tool for protest and the backlash women persevered through.
Even the Dutch resistance during Nazi occupation is included, with a tale of two sisters – Freddie and Truus Oversteegen – shooting targets as they rode past and transporting Jewish children to safe houses.
The sisters evaded capture throughout the war despite being on the Nazis ‘most-wanted list’ and were awarded the Mobilisation War Cross in 2014.
Put Me Back on My Bike, William Fotheringham
Tom Simpson was a complicated rider, freely admitting to the presence of doping during an era when almost the entire peloton rolled on amphetamines and brandy.
Heading to make his way in France, he was also the first English rider to fully understand the game, both in terms of racing, and how to play the media.
Yet it was the pressure to continue performing at the top level that led an ill Simpson to push himself to the point of collapse on Mont Ventoux.
Fotheringham is studious, objective, and affectionate in his portrait of the man and his times.
Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle, Dervla Murphy
Travelling solo across parts of the world now almost inaccessible through war, in 1963 Dervla Murphy set off on her bicycle armed with a small revolver and the intention of riding to India.
Eschewing hotels she manages largely on the hospitality of the people she meets.
Crossing France, Italy, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan and Pakistan, her impressions of these countries, often in a state of flux, makes for fascinating reading, while her faith in people locates her in the society of each.
Always practical, several extremely dicey moments are navigated with unflappable pragmatism. A great manual for adventure.
1923: The Mystery of Lot 212 and a Tour de France Obsession by Ned Boulting
For something that’s kind of not cycling but also as deep in the cycling bubble as it’s possible to go. Ned Boulting’s 1923 tells the story of Boulting’s personal journey trying to squeeze every possible drop of information out of a very short film reel from the 1923 Tour de France.
The investigation takes him in all kinds of directions and packs in history, geography, politics and even some genealogy – as well as cycling of course – and it’s all set against the backdrop of the heights of the Covid pandemic.
It’s an incredibly gripping read that is a struggle to put down.
1001 Cycling Tips, Hannah Reynolds
A book of 1,001 cycling tips understandably means there’s something for everyone in this book from Hannah Reynolds, labelled the ‘essential cyclists’ guide’.
From fitness to navigation, maintenance and pregnancy, everything you could ever need has been condensed into a few pages of information.
The Rider, Tim Krabbé
Apparently championship chess player and novelist Tim Krabbé didn’t intend The Rider as an allegory. Still, it’s hard to read this perfectly self-contained novella about the fictional Tour de Mont Aigoual without looking for some deeper meaning.
Perhaps that’s just the nature of bike racing, of which this book is one of the best ever accounts.
God is Dead, Andy McGrath
Not every book surrounding a cyclist taking drugs is included in this list. But McGrath covers the rise and fall of Frank Vandenbroucke with sensitivity and not sensationalism.
The good, the bad and the ugly is included in the latest cycling biography in the market.
From winning Liège-Bastogne-Liège to doping and addiction, suicide attempts, court appearances and his death, no stone is left unturned when delivering the truth about ‘cycling’s great wasted talent’.
The Race Against The Stasi, Herbie Sykes
Life and bike racing behind the Iron Curtain and the brutal compromises it required.
Thoroughly researched, this history excavates the life of Dieter Wiedemann from the Stasi’s secret files.
An East German rider who rode in the Peace Race, Wiedemann falls in love with a West German woman. Fleeing the GDR allows him to compete in the Tour de France.
However, his friends and relatives left behind the wall pay an awful price for Wiedemann’s freedom. A glimpse into a strange and parallel world.
Wide-Eyed and Legless, Jeff Connor
In 1987 the Daily Star’s Jeff Connor set off to cover the Tour de France with the first British squad to compete there for twenty years.
Dumped into a race populated by riders wired to high heaven the results for the underprepared ANC-Halfords team were not good.
With funding as non-existent as their time-trial bicycles, only four of the riders would make it to Paris. Connor fares similarly well at reporting, with most of the race’s star turns telling him to jog-on.
Still, the inside scoop on all the tricks and oddities of Grand Tour racing and Connor’s own style make this a classic of bike race reportage against the odds.
- Buy now from World of Books (£3.60)
The Secret Race, Daniel Coyle and Tyler Hamilton
The final stick in the ribs for Lance Armstrong by his former teammate Tyler Hamilton. This account of cycling’s filthiest period is grim and compelling.
Blood bags, glow-time, and playing hide-and-seek with the dope testers, Hamilton lays it all out.
While the journalistic credit for bringing down Armstrong is due to David Walsh and Paul Kimmage, this insider account is perhaps the most readable book on the subject.
The Descent, Thomas Dekker
Once touted to be a generational talent, Thomas Dekker was a Dutch cyclist who let sex, drugs and rock and roll get in the way of his career.
In one of the most candid accounts of cycling’s darkest period, Dekker bares all as he recalls the tales of excess and doping that eventually led to his premature downfall.
Racing Through the Dark, David Millar
The rise, fall, and afterlife of one of British cycling’s great talents. From wearing the yellow jersey to finding himself in a French jail, Millar is self-aware enough to make this story of young optimism turned to despair excellent reading.
Coming up during the Armstrong era it’s also a fascinating portrait of that time and its riders. Both a young Mark Cavendish and Bradley Wiggins make appearances.
His sometime teammate Thomas Dekker’s book The Descent above is a good companion piece, almost making Millar’s wild years look tame in comparison.
French Revolutions, Tim Moore
A man with no cycling experience tries to ride the Tour de France. A bit like an updated Jerome K. Jerome, Moore gets a lot of mileage out of mildly risque jokes and complaining about the habits of the natives.
If that sounds naff, it isn’t.
Climb, Cyclist
This entry is a bit different. Notably because it comes from us.
The book from Cyclist features 35 of the most spectacular (and gruelling) cycling climbs around the world.
Containing route maps, altitude charts, first-hand ride reports and stunning imagery, the book serves as a tribute to the peaks, hills and ascents across France, Italy, eastern Europe and the US that every cyclist should try if possible.
- Buy now from WH Smith (£30)
Happy reading.
