The Rider by Time Krabbé

The Rider by TimKrabbé

Dutch fiction

Original title – De Renner

Translator – Sam Garrett

Source – Library book

This is one of those books that had been on my radar since the early days of the blog, I think one of the old book blogs, I Loved Back Then Parish Lantern or Inside Books, must have reviewed this Dutch masterpiece and I have seen it on the list of the best books around cycling, and I have long followed the tour de France and kept an eye on cycling so I knew one day I would read Tim Krabbé’s book. The writer himself was a competitive cyclist he had raced in France so the route he described in the book is one he would have known. Krabbé is also a well-regarded chess player and writer around chess if you follow road cycling for a long time you’d know there is a chess-like quality to making the right move and positioning yourself for the win. He came from a creative family and has written many novels he also wrote a huge 800page work of nonfiction called Friends, a chronicle about the kidnapper and murderer Ferdi Elias, who he had grown close to his wife in writing this book. A number of his books have been turned into films. This was made into a Dutch film and a less successful US film

Kléber is standing in front of me. We greet each other. I point to his bars. ‘New tape?’

He smiles apologetically. ‘For morale

Kléber is my regular training buddy. The two of us checked out the course together. We both like long races with lots of cols. But he rides for Barthélemy’s team, and sticks strictly to that during the competition.

I’m standing at the back, but it doesn’t matter. I used to think it never mattered. Until race number 145, on August 31, 1974. It was my first really long road race in the Netherlands, the Four-River Tour. A race over 175 kilo-meters, I figured, so there’s no hurry. We rode at a snail’s pace through the streets of Tiel, behind the race director’s car. Twenty-wide the riders rode, curb-to-curb, without a single gap to move up into. Strange, I thought.

One of the cyclist he knows during the race

The book is set on a single day and is in the mind of a cyclist called Tim Krabbe as he is about to do the one day Tour de Aigouat, a single-day race in France, this has also been used as a stage twice in the tour de France a race with five cols on the route (Hills), and the book describes his thoughts of the race on each kilometre but also those around him, as well as him remembering, his own cycling career. We follow his races over the years the wins, the losses, the cyclists he has ridden with the conditions and places. There is also a few nuggets of cycling history from the greats like Jacques Anquetil, who had a habit of moving the water bottle of his bike to his back pocket at the start of every climb was asked why by one of his Dutch Liutenants ask him why he did this ritual. Then we have the sad tale of Tom Simpson, the British rider who died on one of the stages of the Tour de France. As the race continues, he talks about cyclists around him, the ones he knows he calls by their names and what they do in situations like this. That chess-like quality iof cycling the player 9cyclist know each other, but when he doesn’t, he refers to them by their team jerseys (I had to check the teas as they are older teams from before my time he used the real times of the late seventies when the race is set. As the race gets near the end, we see he is doing well, and his mind of Tim turns to how to win the race.

My sporting career: 1958

A Dutchman had won the Tour! It was Charly Gaul. In fact he was a Luxembourger, but he rode in the combined Dutch-Luxembourg team, and in Paris I had personally seen him enter the Parc des Princes. I was standing outside, by the gate, and the whole peloton came in as one. I looked for the yellow of Gaul, saw it flash by and noted his look of satisfaction.

One of the sections that he remebrs his cycling life and cycling history as well here

This book has captured how we all are when we ride, even if it is just for fun I don’t cycle as much as I had done. There was a period when I lived in Germany, I cycled every day, and that is how your mind is you are thinking about various things at once. took me back to the regular cycle I did in the Netherlands from Germany. I think he has captured the nature of cycling I said I have watched the Tour in particular since the late 80s, and I am aware of the chess-like nature to cycling, watching those other riders and how each day has twists and turns and they watch each other as that one move can changer a day just like in chess. I have only read one other novel which had cycling at its heart, and that was another Dutch novel that used Ventoux the great stage finish and climb as a location for two cycle rides a year apart. But this one just captures the peloton and how it feels to be a racer and how it is to be a great cyclist but in a pack of great cyclists, just be ordinary like most of the cyclists in the peloton thsere are only a few Anquetil, Merckx etc. This deserves the title of the best cycling novel as it is, but it is also like a thriller in the way it unwinds as the kilometres drop. This reminds me to get some of those backlist books I must find and read.

Winston score ++++ A. This is one that has gone straight into my all-time favourite books.