A powerful memoir about an epic bike race across one of the most challenging landscapes in the worldRupert Guinness set out on the trip of a lifetime: to race across Australia in the inaugural Indian Pacific Wheel Race. This was no ordinary bike race.
Unlike the Tour de France, which Guinness had made his name reporting on for decades, competitors rode completely unassisted from Fremantle in Western Australia to the Opera House in Sydney on the other side of the country - a gruelling distance of over 5000 kilometres that would not only test riders' physical endurance but their psychological resilience. Dubbed 'The Hunger Games on Wheels', there would be no help, just riders and their bikes crossing one of the most beautiful and often most inhospitable places on earth. Ruperts mission was to test his own grit, physical and emotional, as he followed the trail of the pioneering men and women whose historic rides over the last two centuries unveiled a largely unknown interior. But when a terrible tragedy stopped everyone in their tracks, what he discovered was the extraordinary power of the human spirit. Rupert and his fellow competitors were forced to make some of the toughest decisions they had ever faced.
Bill is one of the founders of Boffins and has been involved in selecting the books we stock since our beginning in 1989. His favourite reading is history, with psychology, current affairs, and business books coming close behind. His hobbies are reading, food, reading, drinking, reading, and sleeping.
Cycling fans will love this story of the inaugural Indian Pacific Wheel Race in 2017. A 5,000 kilometre ride from Fremantle to the Sydney Opera House – totally unassisted, just riders and their bikes. It ended in tragedy, with one of the riders killed in a collision with a car near Canberra, and the race was cancelled. This is Rupert Guinness’s blow by blow account of the gruelling – physically and psychologically - race through his eyes as a competitor in the race, and as a seasoned cycling journalist he sure can tell a story.
