The Escape Artist

In reviewing Matt Seaton's The Escape Artist, the irresistible temptation is to adopt the shorthand of a marketing pitch and call it the Fever Pitch of cycling. Seaton's book, like Nick Hornby's, is about male obsession and the ways it changes (or doesn't) in the face of growing responsibility and maturity. In Fever Pitch the obsession was Arsenal FC; in The Escape Artist) the obsession is cycle-racing, the sport of strange, lycra-clad lads with shaved legs and eyes permanently fixed on the back wheel of the bike ahead. Seaton is particularly good at evoking the rituals of the sport (the loving maintenance of both body and bike, the relentless monitoring of calories, pulse beats and heart rates) and at recreating the adrenaline thrills it provides. His descriptions of his own races--with the cyclists bunched together for mile after mile, each one testing and assessing the pace and stamina of the others, until the sudden, dramatic opportunity to "escape" the pack offers itself--go a long way towards explaining the otherwise inexplicable hold the sport has on its devotees. His accounts of his own developing responsibilities, and of the tragedy of his wife's illness and premature death, which force him to reassess the priorities in his life, seem more tentative. It is as if the experiences, unsurprisingly, are still too raw and painful to be approached in any less oblique and indirect way. Yet it is these passages that give the book an individuality that makes it much more than just another story of male obsession. The Escape Artist is a brief book, easily read, but it is a moving one and it manages to say much in a short space about subjects more important than cycle-racing.--Nick Rennison

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Pin sharp and full of emotion - Rated
I read this on an evening business trip to Brussels, tucked away in the dark on a seat on Eurostar. I'm glad I was there because I couldn't help welling up at one stage - a grown bloke reading a cycling book! The opening lines written about a climbing a hill on a cold morning were so aptly described I could feel the morning damp tingling my nostrils. It's no more and no less than Matt's autobiography - his life and the role that cycling plays as he gathers his thoughts and works out his emotions during high times and low. The simple eloquence is a joy though, and is exceptionally enjoyable. Up there with Tim Krabbe's "the Rider" as one of the best pieces of cycling literature ever. Highly recommended.

It's hard to put down but tinged with sadness - Rated
Road cyclists will empathise with the cycling anecdotes; Seaton is spot on with these. I think that's what I enjoyed most and particularly as some of the cycling routes he describes are familiar to me.

I've never actually read a book that I generally found more depressing than uplifting so this for me was a first (or perhaps that simply exposes a lack of extensive reading on my part). The highs and the lows are devoted equal, and indeed fleeting, amounts of time but in general you feel like you're on a gradual descent that delivers you painstakingly to the end of Seaton's cycling career. I think every road cyclist who becomes moderately serious with the sport will feel at one time or another that the rest of life (inevitably) gets in the way of an activity that takes 4 hours out of your day in activity and the rest in recovery. I felt frustrated for Seaton as he desperately tried to hang on to whatever cycling life permitted him. It's fascinating to observe how he deals with this experience and how he reconciles things eventually in his mind.

Rituals, poetry, tragedy. - Rated
A beautifully poetic description of one man's obsession with cycle-racing, the sport of strange, lycra-clad lads with shaved legs and eyes permanently fixed on the back wheel of the bike ahead. Seaton is particularly good at evoking the rituals of the sport (the loving maintenance of both body and bike, the relentless monitoring of calories, pulse beats and heart rates) and at recreating the adrenaline thrills it provides.

It is a touching tale of a life tinged with tragedy, it brought me to tears.

Strands of empathy - Rated
This book is beautifully written, and so elegantly ans subtely crafted in that it is controlled, measured, eloquent, yet unleashed on occasion when required, precisely reflecting the nature of the sport itself. For anyone that has competed in bike racing, and has given up for other reasons this is a jolting tug on your heartstrings. It's a shame that its not longer, dwelling more on those signpost life moments; but that would be to deny the impact of the book, written to be read as a race; and as such is as pertinent and as moving as any story about bike racing or indeed the vagaries and eccentricities of life itself.
If you buy no other sporting biography this year, then you should grace your bookcase and your mind with this.

the escape artist - Rated
Matt Seaton's book,has for me been a real trip down memory lane,i too used to road race and i felt for him all the way through the book,i know what its like to win and loose,i also know how saddend i was to have to give up the bike.A damn good book,makes you proud to be a cyclist.