Arguably the most famous date in literary fiction is June 16, 1904…Bloomsday…the single day James Joyce steers protagonists Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus throughout the streets of Dublin. Ulysses is a fearsomely lengthy, legendary tome: dense, complex, employing different literary styles for each of the 18 chapters, the object of a landmark obscenity trial. Yet it’s also a love affair with his native Dublin, penned in exile. Says Joyce, “I want to give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book.” Buried hundreds of pages into the book, the date is revealed to the reader in a solitary mention. And why June 16, 1904? It was the day of Joyce’s first date with his wife-to-be Nora Barnacle.

Style-wise, Tim Krabbe’s elegantly crafted novella The Rider is the anti-Ulysses: stripped down prose, crisp sentences, a sleek and svelte 148 pages in length. It, too, takes place on a solitary day, June 26, 1977, revealed in the very first sentence. Thirty-one years ago today. It’s a book which can be comfortably digested in a single sitting. It’s a book which definitively addresses what it means to be a racing cyclist. And it’s a book which will stay with you for as long as your passion for cycling flickers.

It’s no surprise that the Rapha braintrust live and breathe The Rider. Take a moment to read of their own Tour du Mont Aigoual, find out from the man himself the significance of June 26, 1977, soak up some photography, and go for a ride.