The wind at my back: a cycling life

A lone cyclist, disappearing into a wild landscape - brave, free, engaged with the world.

It's the kind of image that sells bikes, magazines, clothing; a romantic image that all cyclists aspire to.

For cycling is an activity deeply and intimately involved with landscape.

The bicycle allows us to explore, to engage with wild places, and return in time for dinner.

It also allows us to investigate our surroundings closer to home.

In this book, Maunder takes a journey from the most dense centres of population to the wild places; starting from cycling in a major city, then moving through suburbia, the edgelands at the periphery of the city, then into the managed and pastoral farmland, and beyond to the sublime mountains.