Why did Reg Harris want to become a professional road racer? Why did Britain's top time-triallist sit on a dustbin to annoy the RTTC? Why did Jacques Anquetil want to put the British '25' record on the shelf for three decades? And what stopped British cycling being as great as it could have been? How could people passionate about bike-racing, and dedicated to the sport they loved, have made sure that it never became a major sport in Britain, and that British cycling never became a force in the world? This Island Race has the answers and all the fascinating anecdotes and insights that go with them. It tells of blood on the carpet, of lifelong feuds and personal animosities, and of the fear, jealousies and suspicion that have riddled British cycling from the days of the penny-farthing. It could almost be a crime novel. But this is British cycling - seen from the inside. Les Woodland has spent a lifetime in cycling as an organiser, coach and writer - in Britain, in Flanders and now in France. That, and a passion for the history of the sport, have given him an unusual insight into the dusty corners of British and world cycling. His books have been published across the world and in numerous languages.

The Tour of Flanders is Belgium's most brutal day in the saddle. The bike-crazed Flemish don't just send riders over cobblestone roads. Nor are they content to break the racers' legs with nearly 20 steep hills. No, the worst of all cycling worlds meet in Flanders with narrow, vertical roads paved with slippery, dangerous cobbles. The hills are so steep they are called "muurs," or walls, and they come one after another, for hours, until the riders are shattered with exhaustion. The Tour of Flanders is so fiendishly difficult that the man who wins it earns everlasting fame. Les Woodland tells the inside story of how the Flandrians became the world's most formidable racers, and of the dream of one writer to create a signature race, one that would showcase the Flemish virtues of toughness, endurance and determination. That dream became the Tour of Flanders, one of cycling's monuments. Come join Les for a fascinating ride in the cobbled hills of Flanders. About the Author: Les Woodland has been cycling for 50 years and has been writing about cycling since 1965, when he wrote his first reports for the British publication "Cycling." Since then he has been a prolific contributor to newspapers, magazines, web sites and radio stations in the U.K., the U.S. and Belgium as well as authoring more than 25 books. Mr. Woodland, who lives in France, speaks several of the languages of cycling: English, Dutch and French.

Tour de France: The Inside Story The Tour de France is the greatest bike race in the world, but it -began as a humble promotional gimmick for a floundering newspaper. More than 100 years later the Tour still captivates the world and is broadcast to over 180 countries. How did a few men looking for some way to save their struggling business become masters of a giant, successful enterprise? Les Woodland tells the inside story of the Tour de France through the prism of the men who started it, and those who now run it. As he explores the creation and evolution of the Tour, he never runs out of those fascinating illustrative tales that make his books impossible to put down. This book was originally published in a slightly altered form in 2009 as Tourmen: The Men Who Made the Tour de France. It has been updated to reflect the events that have happened since the original publication. About the author: Les Woodland has been cycling for 50 years and has been writing about cycling since 1965, when he wrote his first reports for the British publication Cycling. Since then he has been a prolific contributor to newspapers, magazines and radio stations in the U.K. and Belgium. Mr. Woodland, who currently lives in France, speaks several of the languages of cycling: English, Dutch and French.

The Paris-Roubaix bicycle race, nicknamed "The Hell of the North," is famous for sending riders over brutal cobblestone roads. Only the strong, brave and lucky survive the hours of bone-shaking racing without suffering some mishap or catastrophe. It is so difficult no one wins it by accident, and winning Paris-Roubaix automatically puts a rider among the immortals of the sport. How did that come to be? At one time roads everywhere were paved with cobbles. Why did Paris-Roubaix emerge to be such a special race? Les Woodland tells the inside story: how one of cycling's classics grew from several 19th century businessmen's plan to bring cycling to the mill town of Roubaix. It wasn't a sure thing, and several times it seemed the race might die. It's a fascinating tale, so fasten your seat belts, Les is going to take you on a bumpy ride.

Citius, Altius, Fortius (Faster, Higher, Stronger) is the motto of the International Olympic Committee. After reading Les Woodland's "The Olympics' 50 Craziest Stories" the reader might wonder if the motto should be Sillier, Loonier, Crazier. There is the gentle rower who was winning his race when he stopped his scull to avoid scattering a mother duck and her ducklings-we'll let your read the book to find out how he did-and the American socialites who showed up for a golf game in Paris and accidentally ended up in the Olympic golf contest. There was so much confusion that year they never learned one of them had become Olympic champion. Oh, and the men's Olympic golf champion had actually journeyed to Paris to play tennis.Shooting live pigeons was an event in the 1900 Olympics, but there's no mention today of the competition out of embarrassment over the 300 dead and maimed birds that revulsed the spectators. We can't forget the Jamaican bobsled team nor the Russian KGB colonel who rigged the scoring in fencing and managed to create an international incident. They are all in "The Olympics' 50 Craziest Stories," along with dozens more athletes who managed to attain fame they would rather not have earned.In addition to the 50 stories of competitors behaving badly, or at least oddly, Les Woodland has sprinkled collections of interesting and sometimes improbable Olympics facts throughout, making "The Olympics' 50 Craziest Stories" fun from cover to cover.As the author of 26 books, Les Woodland knows how to tell a story and here he's in fine form. Join him in his trip to the crazy side of sports.

Les Woodland climbed aboard his old Carlton bike to take a nostalgia trip across Belgium and Holland to visit some of cycling's greatest riders. "Cycling Heroes: The Golden Years" tells the story of that journey he took in the early 1990s and the time he spent with some of the finest riders from the 1950s, '60s and '70s. Rik van Steenbergen, Rik van Looy, Jan Janssen, Wim van Est, Hennie Kuiper and Peter Post were some of the most colorful and dominating riders of an era that produced many of the sport's greatest-ever champions. In this book Woodland has collected their and other riders' precious and fascinating recollections, some going back to a time of leather saddles, cloth caps and spare tires wrapped over riders' shoulders; when screaming fans packed smoke-filled velodromes to see their heroes up close; when a stage of the Tour de France could take more than eleven hours. Woodland has filled in his portrait of racing's golden years with the stories of those riders who were either too far away or time got there first, including Fausto Coppi, Louison Bobet, Jacques Anquetil and Raymond Poulidor.Join Les Woodland on a captivating journey back to the golden age of racing.

Professional cycling has been around for more than 100 years, more than enough time for nearly anything imaginable to have happened. Whether it's the Tour de France racer who thought the worst thing that could happen to him was being forced to wear the Yellow Jersey, or the communist team director who insisted, on a whim, that a rider have a toe amputated or the fit of jealousy that started the Giro d'Italia, the sport has an endless supply of examples of human folly. Les Woodland has the perfect knack for telling these improbable, silly, crazy and absurd stories.