Reading List
yourpaceormine
Posts: 1,245
It' summer holiday time soon, any good book recommendations? And why?
I've read -
Boy Racer
Put Me Back On My Bike - In Search of Tom Simpson
Fallen Angel: Fausto Coppi
In Search of Robert Millar
The Death of Marco Pantani
I've read -
Boy Racer
Put Me Back On My Bike - In Search of Tom Simpson
Fallen Angel: Fausto Coppi
In Search of Robert Millar
The Death of Marco Pantani
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Comments
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Ah, it's that time of year again, for me to recommend French Revolutions by Tim Moore. Literally a laugh every page.0
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From Lance to Landis by David Walsh is an excellent read - a page turner and packed with useful information.0
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I am duty bound to tell you that you must read The Rider by Tim Krabbe. The author is a chess playing Dutch cyclist, the English translation has been available for some time. A great novel that really gets into the motivation behind competitive cycling.0
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In Search of Stardom - One of the best I've read. Story of chaps going over to Europe to try it make it. Real pioneering stuff and excellent
Dog in a Hat - Joe Parkin. Quick read and great stuff. An American in Belgium
We were young and carefree - The Fignon autobiography
Viva la Vuelta - A History of the Spanish Tour.Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.0 -
Razzle0
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I just ordered the Fignon book0
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One more kilometre and we're in the showers - Tim Hilton
Weird mix of cycling culture, cycling history, left wing politics and random reminiscences that by rights really shouldn't work, but it does. & brilliantly. An amazing book that everyone should read.
The escape artist - Matt Seaton
Is worth a look too. More of a book about one's relationship with bikes than about racing per se, but really good nonetheless.0 -
The Rider by Tim Krabbe - the best book in cycling hands down, serious literary quality
Krabbe is a proper novelist, but also is a chess grand master, and used to be a cyclist at elite amateur level in the 70s and 80s. He wrote The Rider in 1978, partly based on a real race in France.0 -
As a coincidence, Amazon emailed me this today...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1874 ... 3881_snp_d0 -
I'll second The Rider. Even if it was written in Dutch, the English translation is the masterpiece of cycling literature. It's like a good race, you can do it again year after year and each time th experience is different.
Sweat of Gods - Benjo Maso
Need for the bike - Paul Fournel0 -
The Rider0
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Bad Blood - Jeremy Whittle. A real eye opener but not exactly a light read..."Difficult, difficult, lemon difficult"0
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Wide Eyed And Legless by Jeff Connor. Unfortunately its as rare as Hens teeth now.0
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+1 for Bad Blood, just finished it myself.0
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I doubt it, just a really good read, sometimes absolutely hilarious and other times quite sad really. I lent my copy to a friend years ago and never got it back and wish i could read it again now.
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The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera blew my mind.
Nothing to do with cycling mind.0 -
The Rider looks like the winner. Thankyou all. Keep em coming though...0
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Another vote for this one from me.iainf72 wrote:In Search of Stardom - One of the best I've read. Story of chaps going over to Europe to try it make it. Real pioneering stuff and excellent.
For much of cycling's "Fabulous Fifties" it was Brian Robinson alone who flew the flag for Britain abroad - that is until three young men set out to emulate his success, starting from ground zero. This book tells the story of how, along with fellow Yorkshireman Vic Sutton and South Londoner John Andrew, the intrepid Tony Hewson set off to conquer the European racing scene, first off in an old, battered, converted ex-WD ambulance, then in an oil-leaking pre-war Wolseley with a caravan in tow. Variously mistaken for gypsies, terrorists, undertakers, even market traders, these were our original cash-starved, have-a-go pioneers, whose inspiration prompted Tom Simpson and succeeding generations of would-be stars to cross the Channel. It is an often hilarious sometimes sad but never bitter saga of daring-do that found the trio rubbing shoulders with Coppi, Anquetil, Van Looy and the other greats of the era. It tells of how Andrews won a place in the prestigious Mercier-BP trade team and of how Sutton conquered the headlines with a brilliant display of climbing in the mountaains of the 1959 Tour and its relates Hewson's own pickings of primes and placings in after-Tour criteriums. It also provides a wonderfully evocative insight into what life was like in France and Belgium back in that far-off era.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pursuit-Stardom ... 619&sr=1-20 -
P.s. 'The Flying Scotsman' is also worth a look.
If we are talking non-cycling related books, where do you start?
Orwell's '1984', his satire on post-war Britain and the dangers of relativism, written in 1948, was probably the book of the Century.
"Nazi theory indeed specifically denies that such a thing as 'the truth' exists. There is, for instance, no such thing as 'science'. There is only 'German science', 'Jewish science' etc. The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past. If the Leader says of such and such an event, 'It never happened' - well, it never happened. If he says that two and two are five - well, two and two are five. This prospect frightens me much more than bombs - and after our experiences of the last few years that is not a frivolous statement."
From Orwell: Looking Back on the Spanish War (written 1942, published 1943), CE II, 296f.
(O’ Brien). ‘Do you remember,’ he went on, ‘writing in your diary, ‘ “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four”?’
‘Yes,’ said Winston......
‘How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?’
‘Four.’
‘And if the party says that it is not four but five-than how many?’
‘Four.’
The word ended in a gasp of pain.......
‘You are a slow learner, Winston,’ said O’Brien gently.
‘How can I help it?’ he blubbered. ‘How can I help seeing what is in front of my eyes? Two and two make four.’
‘Sometimes Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all three at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane........
(Winston) ‘But how can you control matter?......You don’t even control the climate or the law of gravity. And there are disease, pain, death-...’
O’ Brien silenced him by a movement of the hand. ‘We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull.....There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation,- anything.....You must get rid of these ninteenth-century ideas about the laws of nature. We make the laws of nature.’
‘But the whole universe is outside us. Look at the stars! Some of them are a million light-years away. They are out of our reach for ever.’
What are the stars? said O’ Brien indifferently. ‘They are bits of fire a few kilometres away. We could reach them if we wanted to. Or we could block them out. The earth is the centre of the universe. The sun and the stars go round it’.
From '1984' by George Orwell.0 -
It has become tradition that the summer months are devoted to cycling literature, Jan - March mountauineering literature and everything else the rest of the year. Why the summer - well it is TDF time. Just as the Grand Depart warrants a bottle of Orangina, pate, nice cheese, good ham, decent bread and a nice bottle of red.
jan - march - traditionally the time of decent climable ice in Scotland.
At the moment I HAVE to read education management books
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Kléber wrote:Need for the bike - Paul Fournel
In a classic case of Indian Giving, I've just borrowed 'Need For The Bike' from someone I gave it to as a Crimble prezzie...
It's an hilarious, delightful, gentle book on cycling by someone who has a wonderfully utopian view of cycling and its effects on people. If you love cycling this will put into words what you already feel. And if you don't, you may start to understand what you're missing.
Well, that's what an Amazon reviewer wrote, and I'd agree with it 100%! It's got jack to do with Pro Race though...0 -
The Art of Wheelbuilding - Gerd Schraner
Why??? Learn to DO something IN cycling instead of simply reading ABOUT cycling.
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dennisn wrote:The Art of Wheelbuilding - Gerd Schraner
Why??? Learn to DO something IN cycling instead of simply reading ABOUT cycling.
I spy with my little eye!0 -
Interesting choice for BOTC. Can't argue with it. Not my favorite though. Brave New World - Huxley or Darkness at Noon - Koestler would be my picks for books in that vein.BikingBernie wrote:Orwell's '1984', his satire on post-war Britain and the dangers of relativism, written in 1948, was probably the book of the Century.
Just picked up Norman Mailers - The Castle in the Forest. Was curious if you had read it?
I haven't started yet but I do like Mailers stuff.0 -
dennisn wrote:The Art of Wheelbuilding - Gerd Schraner
Why??? Learn to DO something IN cycling instead of simply reading ABOUT cycling.
This is Pro Cycling. There are possibly people here who never ride a bike yet like following the sport.
Something which is alien to you, I know....Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.0 -
Dennisn
Wheels are the major flaw in my mechanicing skills. Is it possible to learn from a book, always thought it was a dark art passed down from grand masters to curious youths.
(My dad always claimed that he new how to true a wheel - as a kid I always had to take them to the bike shop to get fixed)0 -
yourpaceormine wrote:Dennisn
Wheels are the major flaw in my mechanicing skills. Is it possible to learn from a book, .............?
I did. Great way to spend some time in the dead of winter and you'll never regret it.
Always comes in useful.0 -
iainf72 wrote:dennisn wrote:The Art of Wheelbuilding - Gerd Schraner
Why??? Learn to DO something IN cycling instead of simply reading ABOUT cycling.
This is Pro Cycling. There are possibly people here who never ride a bike yet like following the sport.
Something which is alien to you, I know....
Ya got that right. Get into bikes and cycling. Don't just read about them. Do it. It's a whole other world.0 -
Anyone read Hinaults book? Wonder if it's worth getting but only seen second hand copies for around £30 and not keen on shelling that much out unless it's bloody good.0
