The book landed in the Dutch Top 10. He was invited to write newspaper columns on cycling, offer commentary on the big races. But in 1980, he called it quits on racing. “I stopped, rather suddenly, because,” he says, fidgeting with a small pile of toothpicks, that he long ago broke into pieces, on the table before him, “I was aware there were other forms of life.”
Almost from the start, The Rider became something more than a book. It became a rite of passage. Krabbe began to receive postcards from Dutch cyclists who had done the route of The Rider. Over time, these pilgrimages became more regular, more popular, and more official.
When I talked to Max Leonard, he was on the verge of taking some journalists down, on behalf of Rapha, to ride the route (not for the first time). Leonard describes the area as “rustic,” a bit “spooky,” and doesn’t think “you could really ask for more from a 137-kilometre ride – fantastic scenery, no cars whatsoever, flats with beautiful meadows.”
As described in the book, the topography messes with your head. “You do all of your flat riding at the top,” says Leonard, “then go down into deep valleys, and up again.” As Krabbe writes: “The cols here are made of air and lie upside-down in the landscape.”
In 2003, on the 25th anniversary of The Rider, fans of the book organized a Tour de Tim Krabbe, which became an annual event in the 2000s. As part of the festivities, Krabbe, then 60, and a self-described “fat, old guy,” was riding the route – in a car.
“I started to get really jealous of these guys,” he says. “They were riding my roads.” He idly began talking to someone about training. “He said, if you’re really prepared to work for it, then you can do it.” And so his “second riding life” began. He started running to lose weight (“it’s more efficient”), then began entering master’s races.
This culminated in a second-place finish in the World Championships in Austria. “I could have been world champion!” he says, laughing. “It would have been a little ridiculous, age 65 plus – but there were guys from all over the world.”
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