Flying Scotsman : Cycling to Triumph Through My Darkest Hours
Paperback – Download: Adobe Reader, September 28, 2005
Description
“Mad, brilliant, and human…” — L’Equipe ”The psychological and emotional forces that drove Obree to reach some of the highest achievements in cycling also extracted a great price.” — Vintage Bicycle Quarterly "The only sporting biography worth reading this year … Hard-hitting and brutally honest." — Cycling Weekly "The highs and lows of a remarkable life are told in this searingly honest autobiography." — The Herald "Mr. Obree is unique: an artist of the pedal…" — Francesco Moser, World Hour Record Breaker "This is a book that must have taken great courage to write, is a harrowing reminder of how little the public know about sportsmen, no matter how brightly the spotlight shines on them." — The Guardian “This is one of the best and moving sports books I have read.” —Alastair Campbell, The Times of London ”An extremely effective and evocative book… This is not a book about bicycling or championship, it is a portrait of one man’s struggle to triumph through his darkest hours.” — PedalPushersOnline.com ”There are parts of this book that will make you want to cry… It is a very honest account of a life filled with incredible highs and desperate lows, but written in a very matter of fact manner that must have required great courage, since many incidents show Graeme in a less than ideal light.” — TheWashingMachinePost.net Wilcockson has been writing about cycling for 30 years
Features & Highlights
- Little-known Graeme Obree became international cycling's most unlikely star, capturing the public's imagination with his innovative engineering and design skills and unique training regiments. When he broke world records and won championships, the cycling authorities outlawed both his bike and his tucked riding position. He invented the ""Superman"" riding style and triumphed again. But while battling authorities and other cyclists, Obree was also battling a much more serious threat: bipolar disorder. In ""The Flying Scotsman, Obree tells his remarkable story with brutal honesty and unexpected humor. Beginning with his troubled childhood in Ayrshire, where the bike was his only escape, Obree recounts his turbulent life and career, describing what drove him to not only break records, but to attempt suicide on three separate occasions. Long known for his courage on the track, here Obree demonstrates a different kind of courage as he movingly lays bare his struggle with manic depression.
