The Rider

I finally followed Phil’s advice and read The Rider, the 1978 cult classic by Tim Krabbé. It lived up to the hype. The book is the story of a minor-league bicycle race, as told by one of its participants, a journalist and amateur road racer. It’s pretty much a perfect book in form and content.

I want to say that The Rider belongs on a shelf of classic short nonfiction books, along with A Little Book About a Big Memory by A. R. Luria, How Animals Work by Knut Schmidt-Nielsen, The Origins of the Second World War by A. J. P. Taylor, Total Poker by David Spanier, and . . . hmmm, there aren’t really so many classic short nonfiction books really, are there?

In this interview, Krabbé characterizes The Rider as “a novel” but also as “90 to 95 percent real.” I wonder if he went back over the course while writing the book so as to jog his memory and help him get the details right.

I kinda wish Krabbé had gone to the trouble to make the book 100% real. It’s not clear to me what’s the missing 5 to 10%. Is he just saying his recollection is imperfect so there will be inevitable mistakes? Or did he change the names or combine some racers into composite characters? Did he reorder some events to make a better story? Did he just make up some stories entirely? The book is great, so I’m in no position to question Krabbé’s judgment in introducing fiction to his story. But if it’s 90 to 95% real, couldn’t he have written a short appendix telling us where the made-up stuff was? I feel that would increase my appreciation of the book. Krabbé has no obligation to do anything like that; I just think it would make this great book even better.