'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.' Valentino Rossi is an icon: the most successful and most loved motorcycle racer of all time, he has transcended MotoGP to become a symbol of courage, risk and daring. To race for twenty-three years at the very highest level of the world's most dangerous sport is unprecedented. But then, there has never been a motorcycle racer like Valentino Rossi. He is a modern-day gladiator, a man who still risks his life every time he throws a leg over a motorcycle. Yet for all his two-wheel talents, it is Rossi's endearing character that has seen him transcend the sport. His popularity is phenomenal. For Rossi, every race is a home race. He turns MotoGP grandstands across the world a sea of yellow - his traditional lucky colour. In more than two decades of Grand Prix racing, Rossi has seen it all. The deaths of rivals and friends, the glory of his unprecedented success, serious injuries, fabulous wealth, the greatest battles ever seen on two wheels, the infamous on and off-track clashes with his fiercest rivals . . . Using exclusive new interviews with those who have been part of Rossi's story from start to finish, critically-acclaimed and bestselling motorsport author Stuart Barker has produced the most in-depth book ever written about the Italian superstar - a tale of speed, love and loss, told in full for the very first time, in all its adrenalin-charged, high-octane glory.

Officially licensed and published in the 60th anniversary year of World Championship motorcycle racing, this book presents a fact-packed and statistics-laden year-by-year history, concentrating on the premier class (500cc, then MotoGP) but not forgetting the other categories along the way. Beautifully illustrated and designed, written by acknowledged experts and featuring extensive data compiled by MotoGP’s official statistician – all these elements combine to create a history book with a difference.

The definitive and lasting record of MotoGP motorcycle racing in 2014 published with all the behind-the-scenes access that comes with official status from MotoGP's organizing body. Now in its 11th year of publication, this officially endorsed book provides comprehensive coverage of MotoGP World Championship motorcycle racing in 2014, complete with race reports, comment, analysis and statistics, edited by TV commentator Julian Ryder. Supporting Ryder as lead author, Neil Spalding provides detailed technical analysis - including a special feature about Ducati - and Mat Oxley summarizes the season with his usual thought-provoking insights, while the book's superb photography is by Andrew Northcott. The supporting categories - Moto2, Moto3 and Red Bull Rookies - are covered in full, along with the activities of Riders for Health, the official charity of MotoGP. Eight-page reports of each MotoGP race, complete with full statistics and lap-chart graphics. In-depth technical analysis of the year's talking points from leading MotoGP technical expert Neil Spalding. Ducati's progress in 2014, under the leadership of new chief engineer Gigi Dall'Igna, is the subject of a special technical feature. The unique 'Rider's Rider of the Year' poll ranks the year's contenders according to votes by the riders themselves. Superb photography by Andrew Northcott captures all the excitement, action and atmosphere of motorcycle racing at its best. Supporting Moto2 and Moto3 categories covered in full, as well as the Red Bull Rookies races. Riders for Health, the official MotoGP charity, reports on its achievements in 2014. Officially endorsed by DORNA, organizers of MotoGP.

This is the compelling story of how one of Japan's biggest motorcycle manufacturers stole a Nazi rocket scientist's engine secrets from behind the Iron Curtain to conquer the world. In 1961, with the Cold War at its height, East German motorcycle manufacturer MZ was using World War II rocket technology to win Grands Prix, only for rider Ernst Degner to defect and sell the secrets to Suzuki, while his wife and children were drugged and smuggled through the Berlin Wall. The following year Suzuki and Degner made history by winning the world title. Branded a traitor by the communists, Degner suffered horrific injuries in a fiery racing accident and died in mysterious circumstances.

Until the 1970s, North America was considered a backwater with respect to world championship–level motorcycle road racing. European racers viewed American riders as being less talented and rode around in circles on tracks made of dirt. That all changed when Kenny Roberts exploded onto the Grand Prix racing scene and became the first American to win the world championship in motorcycle road racing's premier class. Roberts' success launched an era of American dominance that lasted for nearly 20 years and still echoes through the annals of the sport. This is the story of the legendary American riders who beat the Europeans at their own game, including Freddie Spencer, Eddie Lawson, Wayne Rainey, Kevin Schwantz, Kenny Roberts Jr., and the most recent American world champion, Nicky Hayden. With additional chapters about the American World Superbike champions and those Americans who competed for the World Championship, this is the story road racing fans have been waiting decades to read.

Traction control? Engine management? Acres of run-off? You’ve got to be joking: motorcycle racing's age of superheroes, 1988-93, was the zenith of two-stroke Grand Prix racing, when macho colonials slugged it out on evil two-strokes capable of 200mph. Even Valentino Rossi acknowledges this period as a special moment in motorcycle racing history, for he grew up watching Kevin Schwantz, Wayne Rainey, Eddie Lawson, John Kocinski, Mick Doohan and Wayne Gardner on TV as they bumped fairings and burned rubber around ultra-fast, lethal racetracks.

Already the winner in 2010, Max Biaggi confirmed he was still at the top of the Superbike World Championship by winning the 2012 title in the saddle of an Aprilia. After taking his second world title, he announced his retirement from competition. So the 2013 Superbike World Championship opens without a reigning champion, but it is still packed with excitement. The Superbike World Championship story is once again told in the official, annual, reference book published by Giorgio Nada Editore on the world of bikes "derived from normal production", the machines that for many years have been the heart and soul of sports motorcycling, uniting competition with a high technological content. To illustrate the book there are the inevitable, spectacular pictures by Fabrizio Porrozzi, with the precise, accurate text by his brother Claudio.