Where There's A Will: Hope, Grief and Endurance in a Cycle Race Across a Continent - Hardcover

Chappell, Emily

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1788161513 ISBN 13: 9781788161510

Publisher: Pursuit Books, 2019

Synopsis

'Chappell is a gifted storyteller' - Observer

A London cycle courier with a taste for adventure, Emily Chappell entered an extraordinary new race - The Transcontinental - in which riders must find their own way, entirely unassisted, across Europe in the shortest time possible. On her second attempt, she won the women's event, covering nearly 4,000 miles in 13 days and ten hours, sleeping in short bursts wherever exhaustion took her.

In the aftermath of a win that troubled as much as pleased her she worked with Mike Hall, the founder of the race, until his tragic death on the road.

Where There's a Will is a book about a normal person finding the capacity to do something extraordinary; the paradoxes of comradeship, competition, vulnerability and will and the shock of grief, combined in a beautifully written and very human story.

About this title

Review:

For What Goes Around:
Chappell is a marvellous writer, and the book reads rather like a bike ride with its succession of turns and unexpected discoveries ... The joy of cycling is at its heart, however; if any book could make you consider chucking in your desk job and throwing on some Lycra, this could be it.

(DIVA)

Fascinating (New Statesman)

This memoir of a cycle courier and her love affair with the capital delivers the goods in style...Chappell is a gifted storyteller. She deftly weaves in a plotted history of couriering, from the explosion of the industry in the late 1980s...through to its gentle decline at the hand of email attachments, file sharing and electronic signatures...In and out of all this, fine words flow on the simple but profound pleasure of floating through the city on a bicycle - of the "strange sense of stillness", and "the energy of sheer motion itself. (Robert Penn Observer)

Book Description:

Emily Chappell's story of transformation into a cross-continental bike racer, pushing the limits of her endurance

About this edition

• Publisher: Pursuit Books
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1788161513
• ISBN 13: 9781788161510
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288