Product details
- ISBN 9781805460480
- Dimensions: 129 x 198mm
- Publication Date: 02 Jul 2026
- Publisher: Atlantic Books
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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'A unique and funny writer with a true understanding of what it takes to make it as an elite cyclist' Chris Boardman
'As if Bill Bryson had taken to two wheels' Financial Times
'Hutchinson proves as good a writer as he is rider - congenial, funny and insightful' Guardian
'Michael Hutchinson takes an inhuman sport and makes it deliciously, wonderfully, wickedly human' Ned Boulting
Further sees former professional cyclist Michael Hutchinson immerse himself in the world of ultra-distance bike racing. Speaking to some of the best athletes in the world, as well as sports scientists, psychologists and nutritionists, he discovers what some of the toughest events in sport demand - both physically and mentally.
He experiences hallucinations, emotional meltdowns and a depth of physical exhaustion he never thought possible. But he also bears witness to the profound pleasures of the long ride - the joy of crossing a continent under your own power, and the wonders of discovering what you're truly capable of. And as he takes on one of the hardest events in the cycling calendar, he might just find out for himself the miseries and the glories of going all the way to the edge, and maybe just a little bit further...
Michael Hutchinson is a writer, journalist and former professional cyclist. As a rider he won multiple national titles in both Britain and Ireland and competed at the World Championships and the Commonwealth Games. He was a three-time Brompton folding-bike World Champion, and once hit 73mph riding down a hill in Wales.
As a writer, he wrote the award-winning The Hour about his attempt on the sport's most famous and sought-after record. He followed that up with Faster, about the training, the science, the genetics and the luck behind the world's fastest riders, and Re:Cyclists, a history of cyclists from 1816 to the present day.
He is a columnist for Cycling Weekly magazine, and his writing has appeared in the Guardian, the Observer, Financial Times, The New York Times and The New York Review of Books. He has presented cycling TV and radio shows for the BBC and others and has appeared as a pundit and commentator for Eurosport, the BBC, Channel 4 and Sky Sports.
And before he did any of that he was a legal academic at Cambridge and Sussex universities. He now lives with far too many bicycles in London and Cambridgeshire.
