RIDING WITH GIANTS

The remarkable story of the building of a beautiful racing bike in a small cycle factory in rural France and of rediscovering the true value of well-made things, and of human connection.

During the bitterly cold early months of 2011, Peter Holmes à Court, one of Australia’s most prominent entrepreneurs, found himself out of place, and out of his depth: the town of Hommes, deep in rural France, which would be home to him and his adorable twin girls for the next year, offered few of the creature comforts of life back in Australia. What it ended up offering, though, was nothing short of a life-changing experience: wherever Peter looked, things were done in a way that ran counter to everything he had learned about how to succeed in business and life. Small was good. Slow was good. High quality was more important than low price. How and when, Peter started asking himself, did we lose our connection to the people who make things, and make them well? RIDING WITH GIANTS is the result of his investigation into the revolution in industry that made the world we live in, and now threatens to unmake it. It’s also a chronicle of the building of one amazing bicycle, and a story about how a struggling father found a new way to relate to the world and those closest to him.