When Otto Ecroyd embarked on a voyage to sail a broken boat from Norway to France - and failed - he decided to do what any other hapless adventurer would do: cycle from Alaska to Mexico. But, as Otto says, he 'had never ridden further than across town.' So, with no experience, the wrong type of bike and with panniers overflowing with lentils, Otto pedals across vast American landscapes, cowers from juggernaut RVs, and all the while wonders when he will next meet a grizzly bear. En route, Otto's wit and self-deprecating charm ensure he wins many friends, from an array of regional characters, to a cosmopolitan mix of fellow long-distance cyclists, each with their own motivation for riding the hard miles. With some, he cycles leisurely in tandem; with others, in lungbusting sprints; and with others still, in bedraggled pelotons. But then, this is no grand depart from the daily grind to the upper echelons of sport, for Otto is not in it for the competition - just the adventure of a lifetime. Northbound and Down isn't Ranulph Fiennes crossing Antarctica, or 'The Man Who Cycled the World'. It's more entertaining than that. Three months in North America, 100km a day on a bike. The places, the people, the misadventures of the journey. Like a Bill Bryson book if Bill stayed out of the pub once in a while. The local wildlife in the northern frontier. The moose, the bears, the refugees from 'The Lower 48' states. The characters in cowboy country. People who defy any stereotype of heartland America, and those who definitely don't. Down the Pacific Coast, redwood forests, hippie surf towns, mansions and homeless camps. Californian plastic perfection and the weirdness of the American dream. The preparation for cycling 5,000 miles was questionable at best. The furthest Otto had ridden before landing in Anchorage was from London to Brighton. He rode through a golf course and along a motorway, did laps of Gatwick airport and rolled into Brighton two hours late, ready for bed. He learned how to fix a puncture from YouTube and discovered that not all Porsche drivers are dickheads. Otto's touring skills start from a low base. The steep learning curve and daily struggles with reality on the road bring humour to the book. The challenge and the shared experience with people along the way leads to a lasting sense of the rewards of adventure. Otto's motivations for embarking on this adventure were relatable ones. He was bored at work, too old to get wasted in every hostel in Latin America and too poor for a proper mid-life crisis. This is the story of a normal guy breaking out of the daily grind. Cheryl Strayed's 'Wild', but inspired by a struggle against a life on autopilot rather than a life collapsing. A whole middle class, middle career and middle fulfilled generation is in a similar position. They are searching for inspiration. Northbound and Down gives them a taste of this, without having to miss a mortgage payment. Northbound and Down is the everyman's take on breaking the everyday.

As a young girl, trapped in bed with a life-threatening disease, Paula Eber dreamed of adventuring across the globe, visiting exotic places far beyond the suffocating walls of her bedroom. Thirty years later, now an anthropology professor, cyclist and mother of two young girls, Paula runs into a quirky ad that sets in motion a very unconventional idea. Why not bicycle around the world with her family? Traveling slowly on a bicycle and camping along the way, the family could meet the local people, intimately experiencing the culture, history and geography of the world. Plus, the journey could support an important cause. Each kilometer they pedaled would raise money for asthma, the disease that had almost killed Paula as a child. And by cycling, they would choose a sustainable form of travel, making the world a better place to breathe. Two years later, supported by six major outdoor sponsors and World Bike for Breath, www.worldbikeforbreath.org, Paula, her husband, Lorenz, and their two daughters-eleven year old Yvonne and thirteen year old Anya-set off with two tandems, two tents, six panniers and one stuffed elephant. Their audacious plan: to pedal 15,000 kilometers across Europe, through Asia, Australia and the South Pacific and across North America in an unbroken, continuous circle around the globe. As they cycle, the Ebers do indeed plunge deeply into the local culture. They become guests of honor of an Italian cycling team; cook dinner with a Mongolian family over a dung fire in their yurt; participate in an ancient tea ceremony at a Buddhist monastery in Taiwan and are treated as honored guests at the Dayton rodeo in the U.S. However, as the family struggles with increasing hardships and danger, both parents and children are forced to grow and change both individually and together. Facing a 100 degree heat wave in Italy, a snowstorm at the Great Wall in China, an earthquake in Taiwan, and a tornado in North Dakota, the family is forced to work together-each dependent on the skills of the other, no matter how young. Dealing with drug smugglers and corrupt border guards in Russia, a bite by a poisonous molokau in Tonga and a broken foot in New Zealand, Paula and Lorenz learn hard leadership and decision-making lessons as parents. Yvonne and Anya come face to face with poverty and global inequities as they camp on the lawn of a Lithuanian man whose home has no heat or insulation. And weaving throughout the story is Paula's own personal challenge: overcoming her asthma as she struggles to breathe while cycling over high altitude mountains in the Alps and Rockies and battling pollution filled air in Asia. On August 28, 2004, the Ebers finished their 14,931 kilometer journey in Washington D.C. They raised $65,000 to combat a disease that kills more than 250,000 children and adults around the world every year. The family spoke about clean air and asthma to over 150 newspapers, magazines and TV stations across the globe, including features in Time for Kids and NPR, and PBS's Road Trip Nation. They are the only family on record to complete a full circumnavigation of the world by bicycle.

Eddy Merckx. Fausto Coppi. Jacques Anquetil. Bernard Hinault. Beryl Burton. Marianne Vos. Since the first road race in May 1869, revealed here for the very first time, cycle road racing has been dominated by iconic cyclists who redefined endurance and fortitude. The battles facing these cyclists are not fought over just one race, but an annual series beginning with the Spring Classics and culminating in the three great tours - the Giro d'Italia, Vuelta a Espana and the Tour de France - before the cyclists retire to lick their wounds and start on another winter of training. How were the great races founded and developed? How have the great riders stamped their authority on them through the ages? Truly international in scope, looking at road racing in North and Latin America, Australia, Africa and Asia, as well as continental Europe, The Call of the Road is essential reading for anyone who is interested in the history, tactics or personalities of cycle road racing.

In Summer, 1981, a young Neville Peat set out from Cape Reinga on his new 10-speed bike Blue, aiming to cycle through the small towns of New Zealand from north to south, all the way to Stewart Island. The week before Easter, he reached his destination. He wrote a book about it, Detours: A Journey through Small-Town New Zealand, which sold many copies and was broadcast on the radio. Many times in the intervening years, usually on anniversaries of the journey, he wished to try a repeat journey, but life held other challenges. Now, as a leading author, and in the age of the personal computer and cell phone a very different world he has revisited many of the towns and regions, not on a bicycle, but by car. In Detours A Generation On, an opening essay reflects once again on how small-town New Zealand is doing, followed up by a reprint of the 80's classic account.