Shortlisted for the Sports Book Awards 2018 for Biography of the Year and Cycling Book of the Year There are things he does alone, and things that he alone does. Jacques Anquetil was a cyclist with an aristocratic demeanor and a relaxed attitude to rules and morals. His womanising and frank admissions of doping appalled 1960s French society, even as his five Tour de France wins enthralled it. Paul Fournel was besotted with him from the start ("Too young to understand, I was nevertheless old enough to admire") and followed Anquetil's career with the passion of a fan and the eye of a...

A TRUE CLASSIC OF CYCLING LITERATURE 'Nobody evokes the transformative joy of cycling the way Fournel does here ... magical' - Herbie Sykes "I ride to rest and to tire myself out; I ride to do myself good and to do myself harm" ... one of the many cycling paradoxes explored in this unique and delightful book. "I've never got over this miracle" Starting with the childhood joy of learning to ride a bike, Need for the Bike goes on to relate the agony of climbing, the angst of crashing, and all the other universal moments and feelings which all cyclists will recognise. ...