Cycling is a great sport, and unlike many other sports has inspired some great writing. Most footballers write terrible autobiographies, and movies about tennis or basketball are hackneyed and cliched on the whole. Not so cycling. Here are in my humble and biassed opinion the top ten cycling books. They cover the huge range of cycling activities - from long distance cycling adventures, through quirky English humour, to road racing and the darker side of performance enhancing drugs, and finally on to the celebrity world of Lance Armstrong.

Of course, these may not be your top ten cycling books. if you have another favourite not listed here, let me know and I'll be happy to read it and see if it deserved a place in the top ten!

An astonishing travelogue communicating with breathtaking clarity a dazzlingly adventurous journey, around the world. John Foster Fraser and two friends set off in 1896 to ride around the world on Rover Safety bicycles. Their experiences over the subsequent three years are vivid and refreshing, yet also described with the tint of imperial superiority which places this book so firmly in its time.

After 19,237 miles, through 17 countries and across three continents, and two years and two months of adventurous travel, you'll be wishing they could have done more. Sit back and enjoy!

Fraser's book is a vivid, exciting and absorbing account of that truly amazing global journey, undertaken at a time when very few of the inhabitants of eastern Europe and Asia had ever seen a bicycle

Inspired by the exploits of his Tour de France heroes, self-confessed couch potato Tim Moore decides to ride the route of the Tour himself. Laugh out loud entertaining, this book is both an engaging Bill Bryson-esque travelogue, and also an interesting insight into the extreme physical exploits of professional road bikers. Above all it is very, very funny.

Tom Simpson is a British cycling icon. Olympic medallist, world champion and the first Briton to wear the fabled yellow jersey of the Tour de France. His tragic early death on the barren moonscape of the Mont Ventoux during the 1967 Tour still leads many to climb the peak and pause at his memorial. Indeed the 2009 Etape du Tour follows the route up Mont Ventoux.

This book is a striking evocation of a bygone era when the world was in some ways a simpler and more naive place, and yet at the same time a darker underworld existed within cycling. It provides an insight into the birth of a culture which has lived on and provided the breeding ground for many modern day cyclign drugs scandals. Depressing and herat-rending at the same time, this book is a must for anyone who wants to find out more about this flawed, but talented enigma, and the cyclign world of his era which he inhabited.

A psychological journey inside the head of a cycle racer.

Simultaneously an account of the author's own amateur racing career and an insight into the characters, personalities and the pain and suffering on the fictional Tour de Mont Aigoual. If you have ever lost your nerve on a hair-raising descent, flailed on a false flat, or suddenly found new legs on a climb you will hurtle with Krabbe into the final sprint, only realising as you turn the last page, that your lungs are ready to burst in sympathy, having held your breath for most of the last 137km!

Written some years after Three men in a boat, this is a series of bicycle-related set-pieces as the characters meander their way through life. Some of it is gloriously dated, and other bits as relevant today as they were in 1900. Take this discussion on ergonomic saddles, still the subject of much consideration today.

I said "...There may be a better land where bicycle saddles are made out of rainbow, stuffed with cloud; in this world the simplest thing is to get used to something hard. There was that saddle you bought in Birmingham; it was divided in the middle, and looked like a pair of kidneys." He said: "You mean that one constructed on anatomical principles." "Very likely," I replied. "The box you bought it in had a picture on the cover, representing a sitting skeleton--or rather that part of a skeleton which does sit." He said: "It was quite correct; it showed you the true position of the--" I said: "We will not go into details; the picture always seemed to me indelicate."

A true cycling novel. Our hero, Terry Davenport is over the hill having been a never-quite-great rider on the European racing scene. His 'what might have been' disappointment and bitterness strikes a chord with the cycling enthusiast reader who has been out for a hard ride, puffing up a hill, only to be overtaken effortlessly by a fat baldy guy with a big tum and and beard.  The cycling gods are not always fair when handing out talent.

But there is always just that glimmer of a chance that fortunes might change, but with the complex mix of the individual effort and team plan that cycling provides, nothing is for certain.

The dramas of Terry's final Tour de France, ridden on sufferance, create a sports thriller with a finely balanced edge of suspense, and a heart of courage and endeavour. Compelling and entertaining writing set against the backdrop of the greatest sporting event on earth.

Another British cycling icon. The man who stunned the cycling establishment by breaking the World Hour record on a self-made bike using washing machine components. His unique tucked riding position put more than a few noses out of joint at the UCI, and both his bike and his position were outlawed by the authorities. Obree invented a new 'Superman' riding style and fought back, but this book is more than just a story of tenacity and talent. Obree fights not only the cycling establishment but also the grips of a manic depressive illness which drove him to attempt suicide on three occasions.

Sparing the reader nothing, Obree's courage comes shining through the rawness of the story. Moving, at times humourous, and consistently astonishing. Deserves to be read, if only to give Obree the recognition he was so often denied when he was riding.

Kimmage was a profesisonal rider. Not a star, not a particular winner, but a slogger, a grinder - a domestique, working for the good of the team and the glory of the team leader. Kimmage documents his struggles with his physical limitations and the malignant tumour which is doping within cycling. His book led to his ostracism from the fellow riders who formed such a close knit group in the peloton - a feeling which still persists today.

This book is frank and honest, at times bitter and disillusioned and all the more compelling for that. The 1998 drugs scandal, which nearly broke the Tour de France took place several years after this book was published, and sadly verified much of what Kimmage describes. Read it to open your eyes, but only if your stomach is firm enough.

Dervla Murphy, as a young and naive Irish girl, set off on a three speed roadster bike in the 1960s to ride from Ireland to India.

The feat for a young woman of the day is an impressive one, but what is more striking is the clarity of Murphy's writing and the captivating joy and delight as she shares he discoveries of Afghanistan and India. One of those magical books that leaves the reader wanting to get up and try it for themselves. Dervla Murphy makes you believe that you can, and her ability to communicate it will linger with you long after you have put the book away.

This is the first and the best of the two part Lance Armstrong autobiography. It deals with Armstrong's fight against testicular cancer and reveals an extraordinarily focussed and determined individual determined to squeeze every last drop of experience out of life.

It starts with a neccessarily irritating account of him as a bolshy and obnoxious know it all teenager, who was arrogant to the point of needing a good thwack on the nose.  he took that attitude into his pro racing career and the professional peloton dutifully took him down a peg or two.  However it is the cancer which took him down to rock bottom and his recovery that rebuilt the man. 

As you get to know the man through his story you can understand more of what has made him into the unbelievably driven and focussed individual he is today, whether training, competing or promoting his cancer charities, Lance is a man with a plan. 

Curiously having been annoyed by him and disliked him at the start of the book, one grows almost fond of him through his illness.  Yes, whether you liked him or not beforehand, you can't help feeling enjoyably and successfully manipulated into loving him by the end.

It's not fantastically well written, and its not high art, but put aside your literary snobbery. Love him or hate him - admire him or suspect him this book is a must read. Inspirational, awe inspiring and touchingly human.