
No sport demands & celebrates the suffering of its participants like road racing, yet the pursuit of cycling was formed out of a spirit of emancipation, freedom, invention & revolution. It started with Victorian adventurers who took their new machine across continents, up unscaled peaks & into the first races, followed by those who saw the potential of the bicycle as a radical mode of transport, before the twentieth-century sun shone on a golden age of cycling, bringing fame & fortune to its glamorous new sporting superstars. Through fifty key riders, from early pioneers like Mark Twain to modern superstars like Eddy Merckx, Break Away is a fascinating & arresting new history of road cycling.