Favourite Cycling Books

[alp1950]

Favourite cycling-related books?

Push Yourself Just A Little Bit More (Backstage at the Tour de France. JoHnny Green). Well worth a read - just be prepared for the abrasive style.

Any other recommendations?

 

[Globalti]

Definitely Matt Seaton's The Escape Artist, a fascinating insight into roadie obsession with a tragic twist at the end. Also gives the best explanation I've read for leg shaving.

 

[PaulB]

Favourite cycling-related books?

Push Yourself Just A Little Bit More (Backstage at the Tour de France. JoHnny Green). Well worth a read - just be prepared for the abrasive style.

Did you know that the Johnny Green who wrote that is the same Johnny Green who features in the Doctor Feelgood song, "Back in the Night"? He makes reference in the book to knowing Lee Brilleaux, the former singer of the band, but doesn't say that the song's about him. The lines go
"Old Johnny Green,
He asked me in,
We watched his TV,
Then we drank a little gin."

Anyway, my favourite cycling book of all time is "A significant other" by Matt Rendell. A truly great book for everyone keen on cycling from the rank novice wishing to know more about the mysteries and strategies of the peleton to the seasoned rider wanting to know the psychology and motivations behind pushing yourself to the extent the TdF riders do. It's shuperb.

 

[Yellow Fang]

My favourite cycling book is The Rider by Tim Crabbe. It's like being in a cycle race yourself. My next favourite was Rough Ride by Paul Kimmage.

 

[alp1950]

Definitely Matt Seaton's The Escape Artist, a fascinating insight into roadie obsession with a tragic twist at the end. Also gives the best explanation I've read for leg shaving.

My favourite cycling book is The Rider by Tim Crabbe. It's like being in a cycle race yourself. My next favourite was Rough Ride by Paul Kimmage.

Thought it was time to resurrect this post to thank you guys for such superb recommendations & hopefully to alert others to such excellent reads. Both The Escape Artist & The Rider are wonderful books superbly written & brilliantly evocative. Essential reading.

 

[Muddyfox]

I'm going to recommend 2 because you cant read the first book without wanting to rush out and buy the second

Moods of Future Joys & Thunder & Sunshine by Alastair Humphreys

Both books give a good and interesting account of his trip around the world by Bicycle

Simon

 

[Dayvo]

The Rider by Tim Krabbe is without doubt the best cycling-related book I have read.

 

[Dayvo]

One More kilometre to Go and We're in the Showers is a very enjoyable and nostalgic look back at the golden age of cycling in Britain and Europe, by Tim Hilton.

 

[yello]

I'm not really well read in this area but I too enjoyed 'The Rider' and 'Rough Ride'. Didn't really go for the Matt Seaton one though tbh.

My favourite (though it seems unfair to pick one when there are many different types under the general cycling label) is probably Richard Moore's 'In Search of Robert Millar'... though I suspect that's mainly for the enigmatic subject rather than anything literary. I have to give an honourable mention to 'Blazing Saddles'; a book about the history of the TdF could be dull and dry, this manages to avoid those pitfalls.

 

[martint235]

Barring Mechanicals by Andy Allsopp.

Oh ok then, French Revolutions cracks me up everytime I read it

Sent from my HTC Hero using Tapatalk

 

[HonestMan1910]

I'm not really well read in this area but I too enjoyed 'The Rider' and 'Rough Ride'. Didn't really go for the Matt Seaton one though tbh.

My favourite (though it seems unfair to pick one when there are many different types under the general cycling label) is probably Richard Moore's 'In Search of Robert Millar'... though I suspect that's mainly for the enigmatic subject rather than anything literary. I have to give an honourable mention to 'Blazing Saddles'; a book about the history of the TdF could be dull and dry, this manages to avoid those pitfalls.

+1

 

[Arch]

Barring Mechanicals by Andy Allsopp.

Oh ok then, French Revolutions cracks me up everytime I read it

Hear hear! (Just finished re-reading French Revolutions, by coincidence.)

 

[palinurus]

It's The Rider for me too.

But since that's already come up several times I'll recommend Benjo Maso's Sweat of the Gods.

 

[Campfire]

Miles from Nowhere (a round the world bicycle adventure) by Barbara Savage.

Barbara and her husband, who were not cyclists, cycled around the world, narrating their mistakes, discoveries, their knowledge of one another etc. It was the first cycling travel book I had read, my Mum bought it for me. Sadly, Barbara died from head injuries suffered in a cycling accident near her home in California as the book was going to press.

A book showing courage, strength and humour.

Publishers The Mountaineers ISBN: 0-89886-109-8

I have read many since, as this was the first of my thirst for travel literature. However, it remains my favourite.

 

[Herbie]

just finished Sex Lies and Handlebar tape about the life of Jacques Anquetil. Its a good read.

he was quite a guy