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Re: Your Favourite Cycling Book Is....?
Posted: 7 Sep 2010, 10:51pm
by pedalsheep
Albion lass would this be '4 Cheeks to the wind' by Mary Bryant? Lots of useful info but a bit heavy going.
Thanks Neil for 'I cycled into the arctic circle'. I picked this up in a junk shop but haven't got round to reading it. After your comments I will definitely do so.
Re: Your Favourite Cycling Book Is....?
Posted: 8 Sep 2010, 8:50am
by Colin63
There's a feature film of the book being made. Two riders have just set off to the arctic to start making it. It does sound like a good read, but the only copy I've spotted (on Amazon, so that doesn't tell you too much) was £60. I may have a nose around some trade sellers to see what I find.
Re: Your Favourite Cycling Book Is....?
Posted: 8 Sep 2010, 8:52am
by AlbionLass
pedalsheep wrote:Albion lass would this be '4 Cheeks to the wind' by Mary Bryant? Lots of useful info but a bit heavy going.
Thank, yes that was the one.
I usually remember everything I've read going back donkeys years but that one escaped me.
One of my favourite books as a youngster, repeatedly checked out from the local library by myself was 'The Young Cyclists Handbook, published by Hamlyn, a fat, squarish little hardbacked book. I bought a secondhand copy a couple of years ago and enjoyed it just as much now as then.
Re: Your Favourite Cycling Book Is....?
Posted: 8 Sep 2010, 9:43am
by pedalsheep
Another great read are Louise Sutherland's books 'I Follow the Wind' describing her cycle journey round the world in the 1950s and 'The Impossible Ride' describing her amazing ride along the Trans Amazon 'highway' in the 1970s.
For more information see
http://cycleseven.org/louise-sutherland ... #more-4281
Re: Your Favourite Cycling Book Is....?
Posted: 8 Sep 2010, 11:55am
by MartinBrice
Colin63 wrote:'Cycling Back To Happiness' by Bernie Friend, though not a literary masterpiece is none the less a wonderfully heart warming account of a trip around the North Sea Cycle Route by a young man suffering from paranioa.
i thought it was rubbish. badly written - for example, he thinks the things that stop your bike are called "breaks". he doesn't even cycle the north sea cycle route - just gets to denmark. i find it hard to understand how he even found someone to publish it.
Re: Your Favourite Cycling Book Is....?
Posted: 8 Sep 2010, 1:02pm
by CREPELLO
I've just managed to get a copy of Touring Bikes by Tony Oliver and I have to say I was a little dissapointed with it.
I imagined that being a frame builder and phsycist, he would have spent a lot more time on the nature of the frame and it's tubing. Instead it amounts to little more than notes on best practise - the sort of thing you can read on any well informed forum. Of course, it is coming up for twenty years old and therfore the large section on components becomes increasingly irrelevent as design actually does improve (sometimes), such as tyres.
Perhaps I'm being a little harsh and his bikes do look beautifully made.
Re: Your Favourite Cycling Book Is....?
Posted: 9 Sep 2010, 5:39am
by cyclingthelakes
I'm currently reading a book "Giro d'Italia" and what it is actually are the news articles by Dino Buzzati written back in 1949 for the Giro where Coppi came of age with a lot on Bartali too, so they are newspaper articles basically, I'm not sure if that idea is that captivating but the author, Buzzati himself has a special way of writing and that part is good. It's very descriptive of the Giro itself in regards to the mountains and terrain. Highly readable at that.
Re: Your Favourite Cycling Book Is....?
Posted: 9 Sep 2010, 11:02am
by Colin63
MartinBrice wrote:Colin63 wrote:'Cycling Back To Happiness' by Bernie Friend, though not a literary masterpiece is none the less a wonderfully heart warming account of a trip around the North Sea Cycle Route by a young man suffering from paranioa.
i thought it was rubbish. badly written - for example, he thinks the things that stop your bike are called "breaks". he doesn't even cycle the north sea cycle route - just gets to denmark. i find it hard to understand how he even found someone to publish it.
I was being diplomatic by saying not a literary masterpiece because it wasn't by a talented writer, but the book was less about cycling and more about Bernie's mental health and how he stepped out to challenge his problems. I doubt that he would consider himself much of a writer, but I think he's a normal bloke and had a story to tell for other sufferers and I find it inspiring that he did it using a bike.
Re: Your Favourite Cycling Book Is....?
Posted: 9 Sep 2010, 5:56pm
by cyclingthelakes
'Thunder and Sunshine' by Alastair Humphreys..
http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews ... ewpoints=1A lot of books I haven't seen mentioned here including these other books by Mike Carden, 'The full-English' and 'A bit of Scotland' which I haven't read but sound interesting.
Re: Your Favourite Cycling Book Is....?
Posted: 9 Sep 2010, 6:09pm
by cyclingthelakes
cooper_coleraine wrote:As a lover of Galloway and South West Scotland my favourite cycling books are the two collections of articles from the Ayrshire Post written by Davie Bell. For thirty years He wrote weekly articles for the paper under the name of The Highwayman In his weekly articles Davie Bell described the regular cycle runs he took with his friends and the places and people they met.mainly In the nineteen fifties and sixties The books, out of print, are The Highwayman and The Highwayman Again, both published by the Ayrshire Post. Again about SW Scotland Sweetheart Travellers by S.R. Crockett ( Out of print but secondhand copies turn up). I also like Cycle Touring in Ireland by Tom Cooper published by the Cicerone Press. I am very biased as the book was written by my cycling companion and SON !
I'm familiar with the David Bell Memorial Ride, they really need to republish these books.
http://www.petemain.co.uk/2009_a_sportive%20_year.htm Pete Main's website has some interesting reading for some on riding in Scotland.
Re: Your Favourite Cycling Book Is....?
Posted: 12 Sep 2010, 2:47pm
by crankster
The Rider, Tim Krabbe. A deceptively simple story of one race.
Re: Your Favourite Cycling Book Is....?
Posted: 18 Sep 2010, 3:09pm
by Brian Offord
Just finshed cycling home from SIBERIA by Rod lilWALL a verry good read.
Re: Your Favourite Cycling Book Is....?
Posted: 18 Sep 2010, 7:03pm
by Steve Kish
'For a Yellow Jersey' and 'Wide Eyed and Legless', both about the TdF.
First is fiction and the second is a factual about the ANC team from GD in the 1987 Tour, the one won by Stephen Roche.
Re: Your Favourite Cycling Book Is....?
Posted: 19 Sep 2010, 5:25pm
by bikerpauline
cyclingthelakes wrote:'Thunder and Sunshine' by Alastair Humphreys..
http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews ... ewpoints=1A lot of books I haven't seen mentioned here including these other books by Mike Carden, 'The full-English' and 'A bit of Scotland' which I haven't read but sound interesting.
I thought The Full English was a very poor book. It is written by someone who could not even complete a short ride from Portland to Berwick without hopping on trains and thumbing lifts. All he did was feel sorry for himself.
Re: Your Favourite Cycling Book Is....?
Posted: 25 Sep 2010, 3:49pm
by velocipede2288
Some of my favourite cycling books.
Around the World on a Wheel, John Foster Fraser.
Three by Edward Enfield, (Harry Enfield's father)
Greece on my Wheels,
Freewheeling Through Ireland.
Downhill all the Way.
Wheels of Choice, Tim Hughes, a book of cycling photoes.
And Two of Frank Pattison's artworks,
The Frank Pattison Picture Book,
The Art of Frank Pattison.