The Road Book 2024 is about to launch, and we’ve been overwhelmed with the response so far. Thousands of you have pre-ordered copies of our latest Big Red Book and we couldn’t be more excited for you to get your hands on it. This has been a seismic year in the sport for many reasons, one to be remembered for decades to come and our customers will have the perfect tool for this. Not only will you be able to say, “I remember where I was when Pogačar won his triple crown”, you’ll have our gorgeous red tome full of relevant facts to impress your friends and family with. Seriously, they’ll weep with joy over Christmas dinner as you reveal to them the depth and majesty of your cycling knowledge. That, or they’ll put Elf* on the TV and turn the volume all the way up... again.
We wrote an article breaking down all the contents of this year’s book, and you can read that here.
Though the brilliant Mark Cavendish has made his second consecutive appearance in our pages (for obvious reasons, we simply couldn’t leave him out), you may have noticed that 2024’s edition features only 7, rather than our usual 8 essays, with an exclusive focus on road cycling.
In previous years, the supremely talented Katy Madgwick has done what we could not, and analysed the Cyclocross season in intricate detail. Unfortunately, this year, due to rising print costs, we’ve had to remove the Cyclocross section from the print version of the book to keep our page count at a remotely manageable level.
But fear not Cyclocross fans, ‘tis not the end for your glorious segment in The Road Book! We said we couldn’t print it, not that we wouldn’t write it (well that Katy wouldn’t). In a first for us, we’ve made a pdf version of the Cyclocross segment (including Katy’s brilliant essay breaking down the season) available with every purchase of The Road Book 2024. If you’ve purchased a copy, then a link to view the pdf will be sent to the email address provided to us at checkout.
If you didn’t provide an email address but want to get your digital hands on the segment, then email us at: office@theroadbook.co.uk with your name and/or order number, and we’ll send you a link.
Who knows, maybe we will be able to cater for these niche cycling interests even further in the future – what would you like to see as an additional download next year?
In the meantime, here is a little extract from the Cyclocross section, just to get you excited:
‘Each winter, the devotees of cycling’s oldest and most abstruse pleasure, cyclocross, take to the fields of northern Europe (and Spain). It is a tale full of mud and fury, as riders do battle with sadistic course design and appalling weather. Each year tells a different story, with great rivalries emerging, then fading. Sometimes one rider dominates almost to the exclusion of others. When this happens, the purists find themselves defending a sport that can appear all too predictable. The winter of 2023/24 was a case in point.’
You can order a copy of The Road Book 2024 here.
If you've already got a copy, let us know what you think over on our X (Twitter), Bluesky or Instagram accounts.
*Other Christmas films are available. They are inferior, but they do exist.
Photograph Courtesy of Russ Ellis
Illustration by Matthew Green
Article written by Henrik Bassett
