Tim Krabbe: The Rider

By MICHELE HEWITSON

Tim Krabbe, author of two beautifully written thrillers, The Vanishing and The Cave, writes about a bike race with the same dedication to pace and suspense he applies to the thriller genre.

The Rider is a slender little classic of sports writing, first published in Dutch in 1978 and now available in English.

For 137km of the Tour de Mont Aigoual we are inside Krabbe's race: he is a mind on a bicycle. Or he is a mindless body on a bicycle.

He wants to win. He wants to get off. We want him to win. We want him to get off.

Bike racing is stupid, painful and glorious. You don't ever have to have been in a bicycle race, or have the remotest of interests in bicycle racing, to love this.

Krabbe is also a chess nut. The Rider is like reading about a game of chess played out on two skinny wheels.

Bloomsbury

$24.95