The definitive life story of the seventies world 500cc motorcycle champion Barry Sheene – the Brit whose death-defying crashes and playboy lifestyle made him the most famous bike racer on the planet. Written by the only journalist to have ridden on the roads with him, and featuring interviews with closest friends, team mates and former rivals.Born in London's East End in 1950, Sheene was introduced to motor sport at the age of five, with his father Frank building him his first ever...

A searching and at times harrowing re-appraisal of the life of Evel Knievel, the seventies American icon and the greatest daredevil motorcyclist that ever lived. The story of the last few years of his life and his death in 2007.Stuart Barker's definitive biography captures the super-star status that Knievel held and also examines the marketing phenomenon of a man who once boasted he ‘made $60 million and blew $63 million’.Born in the town of Butte, Montana in 1938, Robert C...

‘When an accident occurs, something may emerge of lasting value, for the human spirit may rise to its greatest heights. This happened on Haramosh.’The Last Blue Mountain is the heart-rending true story of the 1957 expedition to Mount Haramosh in the Karakoram range in Pakistan. With the summit beyond reach, four young climbers are about to return to camp. Their brief pause to enjoy the view and take photographs is...

With a foreword by Carl FogartyJoey Dunlop's story is one of towering triumphs and desperate tragedies in almost equal measure.Born poor - dirt poor - with no running water, no electricity, he was the definition of the everyman hero, earning the title 'King of the Roads' in what must be considered one of the world's most extreme sports - motorcycle road racing. And as well as being voted Northern Ireland's greatest ever sportsman, he remain...

This book lifts the lid on the high pressured, complex world of women’s artistic gymnastics. By adopting a socio-cultural lens incorporating historical, sociological and psychological perspectives, it takes the reader through the story and workings of women’s artistic gymnastics.Beginning with its early history as a ‘feminine appropriate’ sport, the book follows the sport through its transition to a modern sports form. Including global cases and innovative narrative methods, it exp...

*THE INCREDIBLE COMEBACK STORY OF THE 2025 MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPION*Marc Márquez is the apex predator of the MotoGP world: arguably the greatest motorcycle racer who ever lived, he is a nine-time world champion. He is the man who dethroned Valentino Rossi, and who changed the sport of MotoGP forever.Márquez's hyper aggressive riding style has made him many enemies, his epic championship battle with Valentino Rossi in 2015 led to one of the mos...

'AN EXCEPTIONAL READ' - Motor Cycle News'STUART BARKER IS TO WRITING WHAT VALENTINO ROSSI IS TO RIDING [...] A MUST-READ FOR ALL BIKE NUTS' - DAILY MIRROR'At high speed everything becomes more difficult and more beautiful. When you're racing at 180mph, the semi-bends become bends, the little holes become big holes, everything becomes extreme and bigger. And then it becomes beautiful.'Valen...

*From the acclaimed author of Ragged Edge*Road racers don't race for money; they race for the sheer rush of it. Skimming stone walls at speeds of over 200mph on bumpy, treacherous public roads with no room for errors offers a buzz like nothing else on earth. This is sport at its rawest, fastest, and most lethal.The Isle of Man TT and motorcycle road racing events like the North West 200, the Ulster Grand Prix, the Macau Grand Prix,...

They are watching. They have been watching for years. And if the warnings go unheeded, the consequences for humanity may be too catastrophic to comprehend. UFO Warning, the bone-chilling collaboration between researchers John Stuart, Gene Duplantier, and the legendary Gray Barker, tears back the veil on one of the most unsettling and persistently suppressed topics of the twentieth century. This is not a book of idle speculation or comfortable theorizing. It is a raw, urgent, and deeply dis...

The unvarnished, raw truth behind the world's most dangerous sporting event - in the words of those who ride it.One week in June. One small island. 40,000 annual visitors. Raw speed. Numerous annual deaths. The Isle of Man TT motorcycle road race.Five minutes to go. The claxon sounds, harsh as an air raid siren. Television crews attempt last-minute interviews with riders. The thousand yard-stares give it away: they're really not listening n...

This Companion analyzes the representation of disability in literatures in English, including American and postcolonial writing, across all major time periods and through a variety of critical approaches. Through the alternative ideas of mind and embodiment generated by physiological and psychological impairments, an understanding of disability narrative changes the way we read literature. With contributions from major figures in literary disability studies, The Cambridge Companion to Lite...

The 40-year-old Scot has been Britain's most successful Grand Prix racer since the legendary Barry Sheene. At his final race in Knockhill in August 2001, more than 20,000 fans turned up to watch Mackenzie and to bid farewell to their local hero.Niall has come a long way from Denny where he would regularly get into trouble for racing round the streets, as well as in and out of the local chip shops, to impress the girls.As an amateur it was recognized he had an abundance of t...