Richard Ballantine
Richard Ballantine, who has died aged 72, was regarded by cycling aficionados as the “godfather” of their sport; his Richard’s Bicycle Book, first published in 1972, became a bike-shed “Bible”.
The book was a compendium of cycling-related information which included an account of the history of the bicycle; discussions of different bicycle designs, types and accessories; and tips on maintenance and fitting. Yet it was no dry instruction manual.
Its popularity stemmed from the fact that it was a witty and fervently-argued manifesto for the rights of cyclists to use the road unmolested, as well as for the physical and spiritual benefits of cycling. “Look at what happens to you on a bicycle,” Ballantine wrote. “It’s immediate and direct. You pedal. You make decisions. You experience the tang of the air and the surge of power as you bite into the road. You’re vitalised. As you hum along you fully and gloriously experience the day, the sunshine, the clouds, the breezes. You’re alive!”
“Sex,” as one interviewer put it, “had Dr Alex Comfort. Cycling had Richard Ballantine.”
Yet Ballantine’s books were not recommended reading for car drivers with dicky hearts, as he was known for his championing of “traffic jamming” — an aggressive approach in which cyclists force drivers to give them space by riding in the middle of the road. “Never ride in the gutter,” he advised. “If the road or street is too narrow for overtaking vehicles to pass you with enough room, then ride bang out in the centre of the lane.” Capri drivers, he warned, “treat driving as a form of armed combat”.
Nor would animal lovers necessarily appreciate his advice on what to do when faced with an aggressive dog. If the cyclist does not have a pepper or ammonia spray to hand, Ballantine playfully suggested, he or she should try to ram a bicycle pump down the animal’s throat.
In fact, Ballantine was a dog-lover — the proud owner of a labradoodle called Sunny.
Richard’s Bicycle Book was first published at a time when cycling was experiencing a resurgence in popularity due to the oil crisis of the early 1970s and the arrival of nippier, lightweight bikes. It went into several editions and sold more than a million copies, helping to fuel a mini-boom in cycling. This became an explosion when the craze for mountain biking got going in the 1980s, with the growth of bicycle touring, cycling action groups, charity bike events and race series — developments which Ballantine also did much to promote.
In the early 1980s he imported 20 Ritchey Montares bikes into Britain — the first commercially-available mountain bikes in the country. He established a famous mountain bike cross-country race series, the Fat Tyre Five, variants of which are popular around the world. He was also instrumental in founding, in 1978, the London Cycling Campaign, a charity which lobbies for better conditions for cyclists in London and has more than 11,000 members.
“Today is as golden an age of cycling as has ever been,” Ballantine wrote in a revised edition of his classic book in 2000. “The questions are no longer, 'Should I have a bike?’ and 'How do I make sure I get a good bike?’, but rather, 'How many bikes?’ and 'What kinds?’ Bikes are so wonderful, so much fun, so useful, it makes perfect sense to have several.”
Richard Ballantine was born in Kingston, New York, on July 25 1940, the son of Ian and Betty Ballantine, the founders of various publishing companies, notably the Ballantine and Bantam imprints (both now part of Random House). His passion for cycling developed when he was given a bike as a child, and his anger at the way cyclists were treated by other road users developed as he did battle with cars and exhaust fumes on the streets of New York.
He attended the Browning School in New York and Columbia University, but his real education took place on the road and at his parents’ publishing house, among such authors as JRR Tolkien, Arthur C Clarke and Isaac Asimov.
His career was spent in writing and publishing in America and in Britain, to which he moved in the early 1970s and where he married his wife, Sherry Rubin, in 1974.
He was the founder publisher and editor of several magazines, including Bicycle Magazine, which won several design awards, and an annual guide, The Bicycle Buyer’s Bible, and was involved in editing and producing numerous books for the family and other publishing concerns.
These included the Fodor’s Sports series (for Random House); the marine photography volume Ocean (for HarperCollins); and Liftoff, the astronaut Michael Collins’s account of the Apollo 11 mission (for Grove).
With his father, he helped to produce the 18-volume Illustrated History of the Vietnam War and the 36-volume Air and Space series (both for Bantam). In later life he ran Rufus Publications, an independent publishing house founded by his parents in the 1980s, as well as his own Richard’s Bicycle Books.
Ballantine wrote or co-wrote several more books about cycling, including Richard’s Ultimate Bicycle Book (with Richard Grant, 1998).
In 2007, in response to the growth of cycle commuting, he published City Cycling, a characteristically lively and eccentric guide to everything a cyclist might need to know when riding in a city.
In the 1980s Ballantine became involved in the human power vehicle movement (human power vehicles, or HPVs, are unconventional “bikes” — mainly, though not exclusively, “recumbents” which the rider propels lying down). He served as chairman of the British Human Power Club and of the World Human Powered Vehicle Association, and as a founder member of the Human Power Institute. He also published the movement’s eJournal, Human Power.
Richard Ballantine is survived by his wife, and by their son and two daughters. His funeral tomorrow will be led by a bicycle-drawn hearse.
Richard Ballantine, born July 25 1940, died May 29 2013
