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    The Rider
    The Rider
    The Rider
    Ebook146 pages2 hours

    The Rider

    By Tim Krabbé

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    The instant cult classic about biking, road racing, and the bicyclists who love their sport.

    Originally published in Holland in 1978, The Rider went on to sell more than 100,000 copies. Brilliantly conceived and written at a break-neck pace, it is a loving, imaginative, and, above all, passionate tribute to the art of bicycle road racing.

    Tim Krabbé begins this story at the very start of the Tour de Mont Aigoual, ready to race his rivals through the mountains of Central France. Over the course of the 150 pages that follows, Krabbé takes his bike 150 kilometers, and pulls his readers into the life of the sport he loves.

    The Rider is beloved as a bicycle odyssey, a literary masterpiece, and the ultimate book for bike lovers as well as the arm-chair sports enthusiast.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateAug 16, 2018
    ISBN9781635574197
    The Rider
    Author

    Tim Krabbé

    Tim Krabbé is a chess as well as a cycling enthusiast and one of Holland's leading writers. His many books include the noir novels THE VANISHING and THE CAVE. He lives in Amsterdam. Sam Garrett, a former wire-service correspondent, is the translator of THE CAVE, also by Tim Krabbé, THE GATES OF DAMASCUS by Lieve Joris and SILENT EXTRAS by Arnon Grunberg.

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    Reviews for The Rider

    4/5

    196 ratings8 reviews

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    • 5/5
      You don't even need to like cycling to find this novella constantly interesting and nail biting (quite literally in my case) description of one mans amateur endurance race. I usually prefer watching paint dry to the Tour de France but I couldn't put this book down for anything.Tim Krabbe uses the superb device of breaking the race, and it's description, into kilometres, swathes of flat country pass by in a flash but crawling up mountains slows to mere metres and then to millometeres as he fights for his position. Although don't be put of it's not a mere description, we ride with Krabbe, in his head; his thoughts and feelings, his constant planning, his reminisemces, his hatred of losing, his psychological dismissal of competitors, his wildy meandering sudden thoughts. It all builds a vivid picture, one that seems to play out in real time, you can almost feel the mental and phsyical toll, taste his sheer force of will to win.Of course it helps that Krabbe doesn't come accross as a single minded, arrogant sportsman. He is a funny, engaging and dryly passionate author that writes prose that is so tight a crow bar couldnt find purchase. He pacing is masterful he knows when to break away to tell an amusing remenencse of his early sporting encounters, drop in a fact or two and then back in to the race. I cannot recommended it enough, if you want something different, quick and forceful go get a copy right now. I for one am going to track down the rest of the books forthwith.
    • 3/5
      Unless you're a cyclist you probably won't enjoy this. As a cyclist, it was a lot of fun to read.
    • 3/5
      Interesting account of bicycle road racing in Europe which involves strategy, suffering, etc. Sometimes the stream of thought goes into fantasy and into childhood memories. Not bad but I should have read it quicker. Probably better that way.
    • 5/5
      This was The Peregrine all over again except it was about cycling, competition cycling. Throughout the whole of the book you are on that bicycle sweating, pumping, calculating and grinding your way up those hills. To say this book is intense is a complete understatement, it is more like a mind swap. I could feel the rain on my face and feel the spray from the bicycles in front of me every step of the way. Even if, like me, you have no interest in cycling or indeed any other sport, this book should be read just for the sheer concentration and intensity that went into it.
    • 4/5
      I was a bike racer from 1963 till 1967 and I recognize a lot. It was my third read (June 2019) and I think it's the second best book on cycling after, joris van den bergh's book on Moeskops: temidden der kampioenen. It is a lot of fun reading this book, even if you read it on seven consecutive days. I think of these books when cycling longer distances.
    • 5/5
      Wonderful book. Dutch amateur road cyclist Tim Krabbé recounts how he raced the Tour de Mont Aigoual, known from Tour de France, interspersed with stories from his cycling career, Tour de France, and the nature of road racing. Recommended.
    • 4/5
      This is often referred to as the classic book about cycle racing, although no-one seems to be quite sure whether to describe it as a memoir, a novella, or a piece of journalism. On the surface it's simply a first-person account of a tough road race in the Cevennes in 1977 where Krabbé took part: although better known as a journalist and chess player, he was also a keen amateur racer in his day. It's a very literary kind of work. This is not a raw report of the race, but a carefully constructed analysis of what is going on in the rider's mind as we go through all the various elements of road racing: preparation, riding in the péloton, climbing, descent, making a démarrage, riding in a breakaway group, the sprint, the post-mortem. The course of the race is used to illustrate tactics, the way different personalities ride, the effects of weather and fatigue, and so on. Krabbé points out that the only rider whose pain he has ever experienced is Tim Krabbé: he's trying to get beyond that, to generalise and relativise his subjective experience and make it accessible to the reader. One way he does that is by punctuating the narrative with anecdotes from cycling history and from his own experience, as well as with passages in which he describes dreams and imagined meetings with great cyclists. Cyclists clearly like this book, but I think this is also a book about sport that works for people who aren't particularly interested in sport as a subject. A bit like "The loneliness of the long-distance runner" - Krabbé doesn't reduce this extreme sport to a metaphor for something else, but he does connect it to human experience in a way that perhaps doesn't explain it, but does give us a bit of insight into why someone would do something as crazy as entering a 150km race over four cols.
    • 4/5
      This is the best cycling book you can read in an afternoon. It’s the story of one man’s effort in a one-day race. Here you see the chess game that happens beneath the surface of a cycling race. The text is classic in its description of the interactions of the peloton with it’s opportunistic alliances, feints, and poker faces. The language translates well in the story of one rider’s will to win. This book is high on my list for both cyclists and armchair sports fans.

    Book preview

    The Rider - Tim Krabbé

    A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR

    TIM KRABBÉ is a cycling enthusiast and one of Holland's leading writers. Among his other books are The Vanishing, The Cave and Delay. He lives in Amsterdam.

    SAM GARRETT, a former wire-service correspondent, is the translator of The Cave by Tim Krabbé, The Gates of Damascus by Lieve Joris and Silent Extras by Arnon Grunberg.

    BY THE SAME AUTHOR

    The Vanishing

    The Cave

    Delay

    Contents

    A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR

    BY THE SAME AUTHOR

    The Rider

    The Rider

    Meyrueis, Lozère, June 26, 1977. Hot and overcast. I take my gear out of the car and put my bike together. Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafés. Non-racers. The emptiness of those lives shocks me.

    Everywhere cars are parked or driving by with antlers of wheels and frames. A few riders are already pedaling around. Smiling, waving. There are a few I don’t know. Good riders? Bad riders? You can tell good riders by their faces, bad riders by their faces too - but that only goes for riders you already know.

    I pick up my number at a café, shake a hand on the way back.

    ‘Good legs?’

    ‘We’ll see.’

    ‘Haha, right.’

    Between the bumper of his car and mine, a rider in a light-blue Cycles Goff jersey is sitting on the curb, deep in thought. Before him on the street lies a back wheel, beside him a wooden box full of sprockets. His gears: he still has to decide which ones to use. There are four cols today, no one knows exactly how steep. I do: I’ve been over the course.

    I don’t recognize this guy. We mumble greetings, he muses on. Behind my car I put on my riding gear. Racing shorts, sweatshirt, suspenders, jersey. I toss my street clothes onto the back seat, look at the folds they make when they land. They’ll stay that way until I put them on again, or until an official gathers them together after I’ve died in the race.

    Leaning against the fender I eat a banana and a sandwich. Starting time is in forty-five minutes. I want to win this race.

    The Tour de Mont Aigoual covers 137 kilometers and loops back twice through Meyrueis. Mont Aigoual is one of the highest peaks in the Cévennes, 1,567 meters. It’s on the second loop. The sky out that way is gray. The last descent into Meyrueis crosses the Col de Perjuret, made famous when Roger Rivière broke his back there in 1960.

    The Tour de Mont Aigoual is the sweetest, toughest race of the season.

    The rider from Cycles Goff picks out six cogs and fastens them to the hub. He nods to himself: the nod of someone closing his final book before an exam.

    I peel two oranges, eat half of one, put the rest in the back pocket of my jersey. I fill my bidon with Evian, rinse my hands and lock the car. The keys I give to Stephan, my spare wheels too. He’s driving the support car for my club, the club from Anduze.

    I wipe my tires clean and climb onto the bike. From the finish line I retrace the final straightaway. I count the strokes. Forty. That’s 250 meters, a long way to sprint out of the curve. Too long? What if I shift up during the sprint? Or is it too short for that?

    I cycle the last kilometer. Before the final straightaway are two ninety-degree turns, with only a little bridge in between. If I want to be first into the curves, I’ll have to take the lead no later than here. At that white sign: CULTE PROTESTANTE, services at ten-thirty every Sunday.

    I keep riding till I’m out of Meyrueis. Then I climb off and take a piss. I see two other riders doing the same, a little further along.

    No, three.

    I look towards Mont Aigoual, at the dark sky, wipe my tires and ride back. Here’s where I go to the front. Curve. Curve. Whooosh.

    And then one final shift? Maybe I’ll come in alone.

    Lebusque pulls up next to me in his blue and yellow jersey.

    ‘Muggy,’ he says.

    ‘Yeah,’ I say.

    ‘Still, it could rain,’ he says. He points up.

    ‘Yeah.’

    ‘What gears you using?’

    ‘Fourteen-fifteen-seventeen-eighteen-nineteen-twenty.’

    ‘Oh. I’ve got thirteen eighteen.’

    Lebusque is forty-two. He’s big and hulking, easily the strongest man I’ve ever found myself within arm’s reach of.

    He looks like the giant who was always throwing Chaplin out of restaurants.

    A few riders are already waiting at the start. I look straight into the thick lenses of Barthélemy. We don’t greet each other, we’re not on speaking terms. Barthélemy is one of the favorites, but put him in the Tour de France and he’d still have the face of a bad rider.

    He’s talking to Boutonnet, a slim, handsome fellow of thirty with a mean look in his eye. At the start of the season, when the papers reported that Merckx, Maertens and Thurau would be using a number twelve sprocket, Boutonnet rushed off to Italy to buy one. A twelve’s what he uses now in our races. He gets teased a little. ‘Allez, le douze.’

    There’s Reilhan in his green jersey, a nineteen-year-old boy whose soft face is filled with a sense of superiority. Last week I was with him in the decisive break. He took his three strokes out in front, but that was it. And he whipped me in the sprint. He’s a good climber too, and he can keep up a steady pace when necessary. What they call a golden boy. Hey there, Reilhan! Wheel-sucker.

    I forgot my figs.

    Goddamn it, I forgot my figs.

    I find Stéphan and ask him for my keys.

    ‘We’ll be starting any minute.’

    ‘Give me the keys.’

    I cycle over to the car and put three figs in my back pocket. Or should I make it four? Or five? Ballast, I never eat more than two during a race, the others will just end up glistening brown with sweat.

    Ballast? But if I think those few extra grams are going to get in my way, I can always eat them, can’t I?

    Jacques Anquetil, five-time winner of the Tour de France, used to take his water bottle out of its holder before every climb and stick it in the back pocket of his jersey. Ab Geldermans, his Dutch lieutenant, watched him do that for years, until finally he couldn’t stand it any more and asked him why. And Anquetil explained.

    A rider, said Anquetil, is made up of two parts, a person and a bike. The bike, of course, is the instrument the person uses to go faster, but its weight also slows him down. That really counts when the going gets tough, and in climbing the thing is to make sure the bike is as light as possible. A good way to do that is: take the bidon out of its holder.

    So, at the start of every climb, Anquetil moved his water bottle from its holder to his back pocket. Clear enough.

    Lebusque is from Normandy, just like Anquetil. He claims to have raced with him twenty-five years ago. And to have come in before him on occasion.

    I usually come in before Lebusque.

    Lebusque is really only a body. In fact, he’s not a good racer. People are made up of two parts: a mind and a body. Of the two, the mind, of course, is the rider. That this mind has recourse to two instruments, a body and a bicycle - both of which have to be as light as possible - doesn’t really matter. What Anquetil needed was faith. And nothing is better for a firm and solid faith than being in the wrong.

    Jean Graczyk used to cut a potato down the middle every evening and lie down with the two halves on his eyelids. Gabriël Poulain pounded his spokes flat. The Pélissier brothers only trained with the wind at their backs (it sometimes took years for them to get back home). Boutonnet uses a twelve. Coppi had himself carried up the steps of his hotel after every stage of the Tour. Rivière filled his tires with helium. Poulain’s wheels collapsed beneath him.

    If they’d forbidden Anquetil to put his bidon in his back pocket, he would never have won the Tour de France.

    I eat one fig and put four in my back pocket. I pedal up to the start. There are already almost forty riders waiting. Five minutes to starting time.

    ‘Good legs?’ the guy beside me asks.

    ‘We’ll see. And you?’

    He shrugs and starts telling me how little time he has to train. All riders say that, always. As if they’re afraid to be judged by that part of their ability they can actually take credit for. ‘Guys,’ I said one time in the dressing room, ‘I’ve been training my butt off.’ There was a shocked, giggly moment of silence, but I was afraid they’d think I was serious.

    In front of the start is the loudspeaker car which Roux, the race director, will drive in front of us. We hear the sound of accordions, then Roux’s amplified voice cuts in. He tells the crowd that the Tour de Mont Aigoual is an exceptionally hard race, covering 150 kilometers and five cols. He tells us that there are premiums to be won. One hundred, seventy-five and fifty francs for the first three riders making the first pass through Meyrueis, and two others, fifty francs, in Camprieu at the foot of Mont Aigoual.

    Kléber is standing in front of me. We greet each other. I point to his bars. ‘New tape?’

    He smiles apologetically. ‘For morale.’

    Kléber is my regular training buddy. The two of us checked out the course together. We both like long races with lots of cols. But he rides for Barthélemy’s team, and sticks strictly to that during the competition.

    I’m standing at the back, but it doesn’t matter. I used to think it never mattered. Until race number 145, on August 31, 1974. It was my first really long road race in the Netherlands, the Four-River Tour. A race over 175 kilometers, I figured, so there’s no hurry. We rode at a snail’s pace through the streets of Tiel, behind the race director’s car. Twenty-wide the riders rode, curb-to-curb, without a single gap to move up into. Strange, I thought.

    I didn’t have a clue.

    Outside Tiel the race director waved his flag, I heard the car accelerate, and before I knew what was happening the pack was sprinting as fast as it could. Within ten seconds I had to throw the bike into its highest gear, the one I’d wanted to save for the final hour. The road narrowed. Shouts, curses, scraping, the cracking of spokes. A curve, a rise, we must have been flying up a dyke. In a flash I saw a rider lying crumpled against a post. The world shrank to the pain in my chest and the wheel in front of me. And the wind. That lasted for a few minutes. I passed no one, no one passed me; only by sprinting as hard as I could was I able to stick to the wheel in front of me.

    When the pace became less killing for a moment, I looked up. Ten riders in front of me, a huge gap had opened. Twenty riders ahead of that, another. The group had exploded irreparably into three parts. After ten minutes, less than ten kilometers, the race was lost for 100 of the 120 contestants.

    Racing customs develop the way dialects do; it seems only Dutch amateur classics start like that.

    Do I still have time for a piss? Roux is reading off the names, there’s no time left. Fifty-three contestants. A rider is

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