S10 Ep162: Kilometre 0 – The cyclist and his shadow
The Cycling Podcast
The Cycling Podcast
4.7 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 5 December 2022
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The book is a vivid exploration of what it is to ride a bike by Olivier, a philosopher and former racing cyclist.
At the end of the 2020 Tour de France, François described the book – published in its original French as Le coureur et son ombre – as his favourite cycling book, which piqued our interest. François translated the book into English and The Cycling Podcast published it.
Reading Olivier's book takes you into the very flesh of bike riding, it leads you straight into the noises, the sights, the smells, the urges involved in leaving the upward position for the stoop in the saddle. But it also takes you into the saddle itself, into the frame and the cogs and even the road, the tarmac, the rain and the sweat. It is more a book to feel than a book to read.
– François Thomazeau
Click here to buy the book
Listeners in the US can buy the American edition published by our friends at Univoval University of Minnesota Press.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You are listening to Kilometre Zero by the Cycling Podcast, Power by Super Sapiens. |
| 0:08.6 | Energy Management for Community that Leads and Coaches. |
| 0:15.2 | My name is Lionel Bernie and this episode of Kilometer Zero is about a book called The Cyclist and His Shadow, |
| 0:21.8 | written by Olivier Harrelambon, a philosopher and former racing cyclist. |
| 0:27.2 | The book has been translated into English by Francois Thomas-O |
| 0:30.4 | and published by us here at The Cycling Podcast. |
| 0:33.9 | The story of the book, for us at least, goes back to the final day of the 2022 to France. |
| 0:39.5 | That strange lockdown tour, which was held in late summer because of the coronavirus crisis, of course. |
| 0:45.8 | Paris felt deserted compared to its usual bustle. |
| 0:49.0 | The weather was warm but pleasantly so, there wasn't that fierce, perisian, July heat |
| 0:53.6 | that seems to hit you anew every time you turn a corner. |
| 0:57.9 | We travelled over from near Lure that morning, still in a days after the showdown on La Planche de Belfie, |
| 1:03.3 | the previous day. |
| 1:04.9 | That, of course, was when today Pogaccia had turned the tables on Prémos Roglich. |
| 1:10.1 | It had been a tour de France with a twist at the end that even the most gifted of fiction writers |
| 1:14.7 | would have struggled to pull off. |
| 1:17.4 | Anyway, Richard Moore, Francois Thomas-O and I, parked in an underground car park |
| 1:21.7 | and had a couple of hours to kill before we could check into our hotel. |
| 1:25.3 | So we found a bistro and sat at a table outside surrounded by our luggage, |
| 1:29.6 | each filled with three weeks' worth of laundry. |
| 1:32.6 | We ordered lunch, a picture of rosé and three salad de chevres choux, |
| 1:37.0 | something that was becoming a final day tradition. |
... |
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