I picked this up having read Fournel's part-biography, part-
poetic character study of Anquetil earlier in the year having been
engrossed and enchanted by the richness of language and the deep
understanding of Maitre Jacques. So I was keen to see how he would
follow this up, and I was not to be disappointed.
This book is made up of short (often between 2 and 4 pages long) reflections on what it is to be a cyclist and the experience of riding a bike whether in a race, a Sunday morning group ride or a solitary commute around Paris and everything in between. It is no surprise that, taking Fournel's role as a philosopher, writer and poet, the descriptions are beautifully realised, but really it is his role- or his actual identity- as a cyclist that overrides (no pun intended) all. My favourite writing on cycling all seems to stem from France (Jean Bobet's "Tomorrow We Ride" for example) and this is another beautiful combination of French literary panache and the nation's deeply embedded love of the bike. Time and again, reading through the book, I was struck by how Fournel was able to put onto paper the conscious and unconscious thoughts and experiences that seem universal to anyone who has ever thrown their leg over a saddle. There are moments of recognition, and moments of revelation, where you suddenly see in front of you thoughts you didn't know you had but are revealed like an epiphany as you turn a page.
I cannot recommend this work highly enough, and it certainly puts a lot of poorer writing about cycling (certain Team Sky/ INEOS riders and their "auto" biographies with the emphasis on pub crawls, I am looking at you!) into the shade. I hark back to David Coventry's "The Invisible Mile" where beautifully crafted individual sentences on their own are not enough to add to an intellectual and creatively interesting whole, and am very relieved to see that Fournel is a worthy addition alongside the names of Krabbé and Bobet in the canon of cycling writing.
This book is made up of short (often between 2 and 4 pages long) reflections on what it is to be a cyclist and the experience of riding a bike whether in a race, a Sunday morning group ride or a solitary commute around Paris and everything in between. It is no surprise that, taking Fournel's role as a philosopher, writer and poet, the descriptions are beautifully realised, but really it is his role- or his actual identity- as a cyclist that overrides (no pun intended) all. My favourite writing on cycling all seems to stem from France (Jean Bobet's "Tomorrow We Ride" for example) and this is another beautiful combination of French literary panache and the nation's deeply embedded love of the bike. Time and again, reading through the book, I was struck by how Fournel was able to put onto paper the conscious and unconscious thoughts and experiences that seem universal to anyone who has ever thrown their leg over a saddle. There are moments of recognition, and moments of revelation, where you suddenly see in front of you thoughts you didn't know you had but are revealed like an epiphany as you turn a page.
I cannot recommend this work highly enough, and it certainly puts a lot of poorer writing about cycling (certain Team Sky/ INEOS riders and their "auto" biographies with the emphasis on pub crawls, I am looking at you!) into the shade. I hark back to David Coventry's "The Invisible Mile" where beautifully crafted individual sentences on their own are not enough to add to an intellectual and creatively interesting whole, and am very relieved to see that Fournel is a worthy addition alongside the names of Krabbé and Bobet in the canon of cycling writing.
