The Cyclist Who Went Out in the Cold: Adventures Along the Iron Curtain Trail

Description

From the author of French Revolutions and Gironimo! comes a hideously over-ambitious challenge on doomed machinery. Tim Moore cycles the length of the old Iron Curtain on a shopping bike. 'Bill Bryson on two wheels' Independent Scaling a new peak of rash over-ambition, Tim Moore tackles the 9,000km route of the old Iron Curtain on a tiny-wheeled, two-geared East German shopping bike. Asking for trouble and getting it, he sets off at the Arctic winter's brutal height, bullying his plucky MIFA 900 through the endless and massively sub-zero desolation of snowbound Finland. Haunted throughout the journey by the border detritus of watchtowers and rusted razor wire, Moore reflects on the curdling of the Communist dream, and the memories of a Cold War generation reared on the fear of apocalypse - at a time of ratcheting East-West tension. After three months, 20 countries and a 58-degree jaunt up the centigrade scale, man and bike finally wobble up to a Black Sea beach in Bulgaria, older and wiser, but mainly older.

Tim Moore's writing has appeared in the Daily Telegraph, the Observer, the Sunday Times and Esquire. He is the author of Gironimo!, French Revolutions, Do Not Pass Go, Spanish Steps, Nul Points, I Believe In Yesterday and You Are Awful (But I Like You). He lives in London.

One hundred per cent self-inflicted ... Beyond stupid ... It's hilarious. -- Adrian Chiles * Radio 5 Live * Bill Bryson on two wheels. * Independent * The world's funniest travel writer. * Observer * A good, entertaining writer, laugh-out-loud funny in parts. * Irish Independent * It's a hoot. -- Michael Kerr * Daily Telegraph, Book of the Year * It's a hoot. -- Michael Kerr * Daily Telegraph, Book of the Year *