Menu:

hint: move the cursor over a book cover to display purchase details (when available)


bicycle literature — fictions

"The greatest cycling novel ever written. ... An underground classic. ... A bicycling book that follows a different course — one with characters you can relate to, whose actions raise questions about life on and off the bicycle. ... The heart of The Yellow Jersey is the Tour de France itself, which serves as a metaphor for life." —Bicycling Magazine

"This is sports fiction at its very best. Mr. Hurne has a cool, downbeat style descended from Lardner and Hemingway, and a fine hand with the hairpins turns of suspense." —The New York Times Book Review

"Full of wit, charm, excitement, and intelligence." —Publishers Weekly

One of H.G. Wells' earliest (and funniest) novels, The Wheels of Chance is a whimsical romance between a Walter Mitty-like draper's assistant — one Mr. Hoopdriver — and The Young Lady in Grey, whom he encounters while on a bicycle trip. The entire breathless story takes place as the characters pedal over dirt roads through the English countryside, in the too-brief halycon era between the invention of the bicycle and the advent of the automobile.

The shy Mr. Hoopdriver perceives that The Young Lady in Grey is being seduced by a cad (also on a bicycle), and over the course of many days and many miles of cycling, gallantly comes to her aid. With hilarious descriptions of the early days of cycling, delirious pastoral visions, and H.G. Wells' sublime prose, The Wheels of Chance will find many happy readers in this modern age.