This is my favorite "outdoor adventure" memoir. Howard details his experience racing in the Tour Divide, a mountain bike race along the Continental Divide that I've wanted to participate in for a long time.

The author is British and has a subtle, dry humor that I really like. He avoids the navel-gazing that so many other "adventure" memoirists participate in, attempting to justify their feats by pretending they're more profound than they are in reality (and probably also trying to justify the retail-prices of their memoirs!).

In any book of this type, there will be a certain monotony to the days described. I don't mind this, because that's just the reality of being on a bike, day in and day out, for a month, but I know there are other readers that won't enjoy it.

There are just a few minor drawbacks that I choose to overlook due to how much I love this book. (It's one of the few books that I own and actually re-read.)

There's a small amount of profanity, one brief reference to the evolutionary theory as fact, and Howard writes some variation of the phrase "[such-and-such] was noticeable only by its absence" at least five times. If you take a while to get through the book, you probably wouldn't notice, but I read it more quickly.

But as I said, this is one of my favorites, so I'd recommend it to anyone who loves cycling - and especially those who've dreamed of going on a long-distance ride themselves. ( )

A pleasant read about a Yorkshireman taking part in the Tour Divide, an unsupported 2,700-mile race down America's mountainous spine, from Banff in Canada to the Mexico border.The snippets of history were interesting and the descriptions of the scenery were well done: it becomes clear from reading this account that the damage caused by mineral extraction to the lands of the US is quite breathtaking. Paul Howard doesn't harp on about it at all; he just describes the physical effects on the landscape.Sometimes I found his prose a bit laboured, but overall I was deeply impressed by the effort involved in such an undertaking and interested to read about the lands and communities the riders encountered. ( )

Howard is a bit wordy, but overall I found the account to be humorous and exciting. I'm relieved that, now that I have read this account of the Tour Divide, I can say that I've experienced it without actually having to do it! ( )