A confession of an obsession with cycle racing, this book is a rich
source of information providing not only technical details of the
machines themselves but also an evocation of the insular world of
bikies with their rituals, codes of honour and camaraderie allied
to competitiveness. In attempting to explore the psychology of
people who find a challenge in punishing themselves, Matt Seaton
explains the relevance of associated activities, such as
turbo-training, measuring pulse rates and even leg-shaving, and he
spices the book with ancecdotes concerning fellow cyclists
similarly obsessed with 'doing the miles' and 'feeling the burn'.
Particularly memorable is the story of riders in the Tour de France
stuffing slices of raw steak into the back of their shorts to use
as a cushion before setting out in the morning then handing the
meat, suitably marinaded in sweat, to a local restaurant in the
evening. Whilst extolling the sense of sheer exhilaration in
escaping from the mundane into a world of fresh air, speed and,
sometimes, danger, Seaton is no mere cycle-racing evangelist. He
balances his memoirs with an honest account of the extent to which
his passion impinged upon his personal life, especially his
marriage to the late journalist Ruth Picardie, dominated by early
starts, time spent away from home and fears that their infertility
problems are caused by the well-known effect of tight shorts.
Seaton has avoided the trappings of obsession - boringness and
self-delusion - to produce a highly enjoyable memoir which will
appeal to fellow cycling enthusiasts and autobiography fans alike.
(Kirkus UK)
For a time there were four bikes in Matt Seaton?s life. His evenings were spent 'doing the miles' on the roads out of south London and into the hills of the North Downs and Kent Weald. Weekends were taken up with track meets, time trials and road races ? rides that took him from cold village halls at dawn and onto the empty bypasses of southern England.
With its rituals, its code of honour and its comradeship, cycling became a passion that bordered on possession. It was at once a world apart, private to its initiates and, through the races he rode in Belgium, Mallorca and Ireland, a passport to an international fraternity. But then marriage, children and his wife's illness forced a reckoning with real life and, ultimately, a reappraisal of why cycling had become so compelling in the first place. Today, those bikes are scattered, sold, or gathering dust in an attic.
Wry, frank and elegiac, ?The Escape Artist? is a celebration of an amateur sport and the simple beauty of cycling. It is also a story about the passage from youth to adulthood, about what it means to give up something fiercely loved in return for a kind of wisdom.
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