It's Just a Hill: Me, My Bike and the Massif Central

After being hit by a car on her way to a bicycle rally Helen loses her passion for cycling. Her wounds soon heal but her desire to pedal has died. Searching for a way to regain her love of the bike and armed with a small redundancy pay-out, she decides to cycle across France.

Helen sets out, poorly prepared and navigationally challenged, to cycle from Rome to Cherbourg in what turns out to be the second wettest spring on record. Battling the weather, hills, rapidly depleting finances and amorous Italians, Helen proves that persistence has its rewards, even if mainly in hindsight.

Along the way Helen discovers that the kindness of strangers boosts resilience, that you can cry and cycle at the same time and that France has some very big hills.