What have you been reading lately?

[rickpaulos]

Bike books only please.

Currently being read:

Personal Best, autobiography by Beryl Burton (1995). One of the all time greatest women bike racers. First woman to break the hour for 25 miles, 2 hours for 50 miles and 4 hours for 100 miles in solo time trials. 15 world championships and countless British championships. over 100 sub hour 25 mile tt races. I did that once in my racing career.

The Mechanical Horse by Margaret Guroff (2016). Covers the history of bicycles and cycling in society and wars. Imaging arresting parents for letting their kids ride bikes.

 

[MattiThundrrr]

I have a copy of Being Gary Fisher. It is a beautifully designed book with unique binding and vibrant colors. Obviously, it helps if you are interested in Gary and mountain bikes, but he's interesting enough that I would recommend it to other cyclists too. ..

I want to read his former business partner, Charlie Kelly's book as well, haven't gotten my copy yet though

 

[Slow-Rider]

 

[BartRidesEternal]

I have a copy of Being Gary Fisher. It is a beautifully designed book with unique binding and vibrant colors. Obviously, it helps if you are interested in Gary and mountain bikes, but he's interesting enough that I would recommend it to other cyclists too. ..View attachment 255707View attachment 255706
I want to read his former business partner, Charlie Kelly's book as well, haven't gotten my copy yet though
View attachment 255708

I'm gonna put these books on my list. Thanks!

Currently I'm also reading esoteric and philosophy books.
But this following bicycle book I am reading is great. I love the old English language and the humor. There is such great humor in this book!
The story is about an awkward guy who is not particularly good at bike riding named 'mr Hoopdriver' going on a cycling trip in his vacation period.

I deeply enjoy the way how HG Wells describes the countryside so vividly. You don't need a picture to get a feel for the atmosphere.

Another awesome topic!

 

[MattiThundrrr]

I deeply enjoy the way how HG Wells describes the countryside so vividly. You don't need a picture to get a feel for the atmosphere

Wow that's awesome, HG Wells was a genius of science fiction, but I've never heard of that cycling book. I added to your reading list, now you've added to mine. Thanks Bart!

 

[MattiThundrrr]

Wells was apparently a proficient cyclist, used his bike to scout "landing sites" for the War of the World's. Seems that many authors enjoyed two wheels

https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2016/jul/01/wheel-life-and-fiction-bicycling-in-literature

 

[rickpaulos]

I read the Wheels of Chance, 1st edition hard bound, when I got my "career" job at the University in 1984. They had just put their card catalog on a computer that I could access via the campus computer connections using an ADM 31 terminal. This was before the WWW and HTML and Hyperlink and personal computers in the office. The computer access allowed for keyword searching and I printed a list of all their books with bicycle. It was a very short list. I remember the only other books I checked out were a 3 book series of french books Red, White, Blue, not worth looking at. Before computers we had to use the Readers Guide to Periodical Literature. A monthly printed list of publications, sorted by selected topics. Then track down those publications and see if it was relevant to your interests. This was suppose to be more detailed than the Dewey Decimal system that Libraries used to sort books on the shelves. With modern computers, you can search on any word over 3 letters long and get meaningful results.

BTW, Wheels of Chance is in the public domain and you can get the text, kindle and other versions at Project Guttenberg:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1264

 

[MattiThundrrr]

Oh yeah, this is on my list too, but it's tougher to find, more limited publishing run