10 Of The Best Books About Cycling

Presented as a Canterbury Tales-style exposé of the stories of different people involved in the Tour de France (The Sprinter, The Doctor, The Journalist, the Lanterne Rouge) David Walsh's book from 1993 is one of the best insights behind the scenes at the race. One of the characters, The Rookie, was Lance Armstrong – the crusading journalist admired the neo-pro, whom he was meeting for the first time, which made his subsequent disillusionment all the more bitter

Paul Fournel is one of cycling's philosophers and this collection of vignettes, drawn from a lifetime of watching racing and riding his bike, are deceptively simple: in understated language he captures something ineffable and essential about cycling. Originally published in English as 'Need for the Bike', the Rouleur edition is entitled 'Vélo' and has beautiful illustrations by Jo Burt.

Bring together one disgraced ex-racer, one bike-industry legend having a mid-life crisis and a renascent African nation looking to banish the memory of genocide and you have the story of the Rwandan national cycling team. Lewis's handling of these disparate elements is sensitive, and avoids any easy conclusions to be drawn from it – cycling can be a force for social change, and sport can bring together a nation, but there is no Hollywood-style happy ending just yet.

A lyrical description of the life of a pro over the four seasons of one year, from training alone in the Catalonian Pyrenees through the winter, to the excitement of the spring races, the crashes and the Grand Tours, and then to the relief of finishing and preparing to do it all over again. Camille McMillan's photos beautifully complement Barry's meditative writing.

A controversial choice, given that Lance's autobiographies may as well be filed on the bookshop's 'Fiction' shelf, but Daniel Coyle makes Lance's 2005 Tour de France campaign riveting reading. It's a rollercoaster ride that gets beneath the skin of pro racing of the era, but is also humorous and nuanced. OK, there's no mention of Lance's (or anyone else's) drugs, but the book achieves the difficult journalistic feat of painting unflattering portraits of its main characters (including Lance, Tyler Hamilton and Jan Ullrich) while still retaining your interest and their respect.

The premise of the hour record is as easy to grasp – riding as far as you can in 60 minutes – as actually attempting it is horrendously painful and exhausting. Michael Hutchinson, one of the UK's top time-triallists and also a brilliant writer, gave what is perhaps the purest test of willpower and cycling ability a shot. His account of it, and the Hour's glorious history, is by turns hilarious, excruciating and revealing of the determination, suffering and spirit that led him almost to succeed.

It's ten years since great climber Marco Pantani overdosed on cocaine but, as Rendell says, Pantani had been 'dying a long time'. At times an almost gruelling read, Rendell's book accumulates a weight of research and testimony to show how a gifted, troubled boy was sucked into a world of drugs, corruption and fame, with tragic results.

Kimmage's book recounts his brief career as a top-level pro in the '80s, a time when Irish riders such as Sean Kelly and Stephen Roche were in the ascendant. He never reached those heights, and when he retired he broke cycling's code of silence, the omertà that kept the rampant drug use out of the public eye. His courage in doing so, and his description of the double dealings, the politics and the harsh realities at the wrong end of the peloton, mean this is still a compelling read.

When Laurent Fignon died of cancer in 2010 a certain spirit left cycling forever. By his own admission he will be best remembered around the world as the guy who lost the 1989 Tour by eight seconds to Greg LeMond, but he was a giant of his era, a time in which men were men, cycling was an art and, despite everything, a certain innocence reigned. Looking back at the fun and insouciance, it's difficult not to regret the passing of what now seems like a lost world. The writing manages to be both trenchant and poetic at the same time.

Quite simply the most compelling introduction there is to the history and lore, glory and suffering of bike racing. Krabbé is a novelist (best known the UK for The Vanishing, which was made into two films), a master chess player and a dedicated cyclist; The Rider comprises 136 kilometres of literal and emotional ups and downs as its central character, also called Tim Krabbé, valiantly attempts to win the fictional Tour du Mont Aigoual bike race. Krabbé brilliantly captures the bizarre thoughts that skip across consciousness while riding, as well as the tactics, elation and pain of racing.

Out now (Yellow Jersey).