The Man Who Would Stop at Nothing Hardcover by Melissa Holbrook Pierson

Product Details

• Publisher: WW Norton (2011-09-20)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 192 pages
• ISBN-13: 9780393079043
• Item Weight: 308.45 grams
• Dimensions: 0.0 x 0.0 x 0.0 cm

Here are the pleasures and perils of compulsive long-distance motorcycling—and one man's mission to outride everyone else.

For the 50,000 members of the Iron Butt Association—also known as the "World's Toughest Motorcyclists"—long-distance motorcycling is not a pastime but an obsession. These men and women push the limits of human endurance, often in rides of more than one thousand miles a day. Perhaps the most determined of them is John Ryan, a diabetic and a man who even in late middle age loves nothing better than riding impossible distances at no small risk to himself. But why? Melissa Holbrook Pierson, herself a longtime motorcyclist, chronicles the gratifications of long-distance riding as well as the challenges and solitude that accompany it. In seeking to understand why people strive so mightily to reach a goal with no reward other than having gotten there, Pierson gives us an intimate glimpse of a singularly independent yet supportive community and a revealing portrait of its most daring member.

About the Author

Melissa Holbrook Pierson is the author of The Perfect Vehicle, The Place You Love Is Gone, Dark Horses and Black Beauties, and The Man Who Would Stop at Nothing and The Secret History of Kindness. She lives in Shokan, New York.