Bespoke: The Riders' Guide to Cycle-Speak and Saddle Slang

Some sports lend themselves to language: cycling is one of them. With its rich history and culture, its professional roots across the continent and beyond, cycling has developed a terminology that goes well beyond borders, producing a lexicon all of its own.

This book guides the reader through a land where the road to hell is paved not with good intentions, but with cobbles. This is a place where all the world is a stage, unless you are a one-day specialist. Where its inhabitants come with a litany of arresting nicknames: Badgers, Cannibals, Eagles, Pirates, each with a wonderful story of their own.

This is a book that takes the reader from the tete de la course to the grupetto at the back, from the caravane following the race to the tifosi cheering on the mountainside. Insightful and irreverent, Be:Spoke is the book for anyone who wants to be able to speak cycling. The book is complete with a series of specially commissioned artworks by celebrated `Crayonfire' illustrator Neil Stevens.