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Title: The Rider by Tim Krabbe ISBN: 1-58234-290-3 Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Pub. Date: 12 June, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (12 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Go, Timmy, Go!
Comment: An utterly engrossing book, "The Rider" by Tim Krabbé is a first-person account of a competitor in a French amateur cycling race. Kilometer by kilometer, the author describes, economically, but with plausible feeling, the range of emotions he goes through. It is clear that he rides for the love of cycling, but his writing reveals the mental calculations, often not very flattering, that go through the mind of a rider. A chess player, he is out on the road playing a form of chess with his opponents, considering their weaknesses, weighing their histories, examining his own position on the board, so to speak.
In this short book about a 150 km long race, Tim Krabbé also travels back in his mind, recalling legends of bike racing as well as his own dreams of sporting success in Holland. These include some wonderful absurdist episodes, including a brief "Little ABC of Road Racing" where he fantasizes about riding with Merckx and Anquetil and the other greats in a series of bizarre circumstances. And all through this one is conscious of the race going on, the change of scenery and weather and how the cyclist must constantly monitor his situation-now trying to make up for his downhill lack of skills, now attacking as the others weaken, now preparing for a sprint. One is struck by the fundamental cruelty of the sport, how one must endure pain and inflict it as well.
Anyone who has ridden fairly seriously will love this book, as will those who admire strong, clean writing. The author has brilliantly portrayed a concentrated moment. This is a world of intense focus and narrow but exhilarating boundaries.
Rating: 3
Summary: A tour de force of human neuroses
Comment: Cycling fanatics will find great pleasure in this literary cult classic. The author clearly knows what it's like to be a competitive cyclist, and he does an exceptional job of revealing what goes on inside the head of such a person. This book is as much about the athletic psyche as it is about a race. And that's what makes it so interesting. Anyone who has competed in any kind of race, especially a distance race, will be able to relate to the often bizarre, irrational thoughts that one's mind produces. Krabbe's anecdotes about inventing words in his head to keep himself amused during training rides, or telling himself repeatedly that his lowest climbing gear is clean as a whistle, are just two examples of the intimate psychological glimpses that readers will surely enjoy. I think the point of the story is that you have to be just a little bit crazy to be a professional cyclist, but at the same time, the cyclist's neuroses are completely human and natural.
Rating: 4
Summary: The Writer
Comment: Cycling holds a unique niche in the world of sports. It is a delicate balance between rider and machine, between strength and tactics, between the individual and the team, between man and the elements. Anyone who has ever ridden seriously knows that almost any serious ride is an epic journey, an endless series of choices and possibilities, of suffering and pleasure.
To date, I have read nothing that captures the real essence of that experience nearly as well as Tim Krabbé's The Rider, which was originally published in 1978 in Amsterdam and which appeared in English only in 2002. Like a racing bike that has been relieved off all excess weight and trimmed of anything that could increase resistance against the wind, The Rider is prose in its most basic and stripped down form. There is hardly a wasted or misplaced word here: the writing is crisp, powerful, efficient, and compelling.
The little book weighs in at just 148 pages, just a little more than one for each of the 137 kilometers of the Tour de Mont Aigoual, by all rights a nondescript semi-pro bicycle race through the rolling mountains of Cévennes, in south central France. It may not sound like much, but Mr. Krabbé breathes life into it by describing perfectly what goes on inside a racer's head: everything from relevant glimpses at strategy -- in addition to being a strong rider and an even better writer, Mr. Krabbé may be best known as a chess champion, and his eye for tactics and detail shows -- to interesting thoughts about his own athletic career, about philosophy, fantasy, his competitors, and fascinating memories from cycling history.
The book is set in the 1970s, a time that will seem quaint to riders who have become interested in the sport only over the last few years: a period when riders made decisions about strategy rather than have it radioed into their ear pieces, when leather straps and not titanium clips held the shoes to the pedals, and when riders packed half an orange and a few figs in their pockets to fuel the ride rather than the latest scientific miracle mix.
I found it all exhilarating. As I leafed through my copy of the book earlier in order to double check a few facts before writing this review, I found myself happily re-reading some of the more compelling passages. While I was doing so, two (non-cyclist) friends stopped by and I read out loud to them Mr. Krabbé's dramatic account of Charley Gaul's stunning victory in the 1956 Giro d'Italia ... and they were unimpressed.
Which brings me to why I withheld one star from what I think is an excellent book: its appeal is far from universal. Unless you are a rider -- or at the very least, a serious fan of the sport or very close to someone who is a rider -- then I think it will be difficult to appreciate the discussions of the nervousness that accompanies a rapid descent from the mountains or the thought that goes into choosing the right gears.
But if you are a serious (or semi- or formerly-serious) rider, I can't imagine that you wouldn't be as thrilled by this book as I was.
If you do get a copy, my one piece of "strategic" advice would be to keep careful track of the names Mr. Krabbé mentions, famous and otherwise: to an English speaker's ear, many may sound quite similar. In addition to Mr. Krabbé himself we meet riders called Kléber, Koblet, Coppi, Caput, Kübler, and Clemons. And don't even get me started on the mouthful that many Dutch names represent to non-natives. Not that that sort of thing would be much of a stumbling block for anyone accustomed to the rigors of cycling.
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Title: Bobke II by Bob Roll ISBN: 193138228X Publisher: Velo Press Pub. Date: October, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Long Season : One Year of Bicycle Road Racing in California by Bruno Schull ISBN: 1891369326 Publisher: Breakaway Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Off to the Races: 25 Years of Cycling Journalism by Samuel Abt, Graham Watson ISBN: 1931382069 Publisher: Velo Press Pub. Date: April, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: French Revolutions: Cycling the Tour de France by Tim Moore ISBN: 0312316127 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Every Second Counts by Lance Armstrong ISBN: 0385508719 Publisher: Broadway Pub. Date: 07 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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