It's once again time for the Summer Olympics, so in turn I'm going to be looking at some sports manga (and in particular those featuring sports you're likely to see at the Olympics), and that includes bike racing.
YOWAMUSHI PEDAL (Yowamushi Pedaru), by Wataru Watanabe. First published in 2008 and first published in North America in 2015.
PLOT:
Sakamichi Onoda is an otaku who loves nothing more than his regular trips to Akibahara. It doesn't matter that he lives in the hilly countryside nearly 50km away from the heart of Tokyo - he's happy to bike his way there and back if it lets him save that much more money for another vending machine toy. Eventually Sakamichi's endurance is noticed by a couple of classmates who are part of the school's biking team. They eventually convince Sakamichi to give them a chance, but the transition from casual trips to Tokyo on an everyday bike to serious races on sporting models is a rough, even perilous one.
