(Part 3) Best cycling books according to redditors

It is one of the most in America, but that's because our cities are pretty appalling, bike-ridership wise, compared to European and Japanese cities. Check out the book City Cycling for an in-depth, intellectual read on the subject.

Cyclecraft (book) is widely thought of as best practice for cycling. It's very well reviewed and it's what the national cycle training scheme is built on. I think you might find the stuff on road positioning useful (this is as excerpt from the '97 edition):

> # Positioning
We have already established that positioning is one of the most important traffic skills for a cyclist to acquire, yet it is precisely here that most cyclists perform badly. Many cyclist fail to position themselves properly because of their fear of traffic, yet ironically, it is this very fear that probably puts them most at risk.

>There are two basic objectives of proper road positioning:


> to increase your margin of safety in relation to actual and potential danger by riding where you can obtain the best view, where you can best be seen by others and your movements predicted, and where you may deter movements by others which could be dangerous to yourself;



> to allow you to ride as direct a route as possible, conserving your energy and making control of the bicycle as simple as possible.

> Good road positioning is not about keeping you out of the path of other traffic as much as possible. Contrary to popular belief, this is not necessarily the best way to maximise your safety.

> Many cyclist, and probably the majority of the public at large, dread riding in close proximity to other traffic, because of the fear of being hit from behind. In fact, this type of collision is one of the least likely, accounting for no more than 5% of cycle-car casualties - and many of these are as a result of the cyclist swerving carelessly into traffic. Whilst no method of cycling is completely safe, you should not have to worry too much about rear hist if you cycle competently.

> On the other hand, riding where traffic can see you clearly is likely to reduce your chances of having one of the much more common types of collision, which occur during turning or crossing manoeuvres. More collisions happen because drivers cannot see a cyclist or cannot anticipate the actions of the cyclist than because they do see but fail to take notice.

>An important rule of road sharing is that no one should unnecessarily impede the passage of anyone else. However, you are quite justified in restricting the movements of other vehicles where this is important in protecting yourself, and you should not hesitate to do so when necessary.

>Motorists primarily give their attention to that part of the highway where there is risk to themselves: they are not nearly so good a noticing anything outside their path. This zone of maximum surveillance is often very narrow, especially at higher speeds - it does not extend to much more than the moving traffic lane that the driver is following, plus the moving traffic lanes that are most likely to conflict with the driver's own movement. For you to be safest as a cyclist, you should ride within this zone of maximum surveillance, not outside it.

> To understand positioning, you have to understand the cocept of a moving traffic lane - that part of the carriageway along which through traffic normally moves. It is away from the area occupied by parked vehicles and other obstructions, and dose not necessarily coincide with any markings on the surface. On a free-flowing road where markings are present, the moving traffic lanes are typically centred on the marked lanes, but do not embrace their full width.

>Away from junctions, you should ride in one of two standar positions (see Figure blah), according to circumstances. The primary riding position is in the centre of the leftmost moving traffic lane for the direction in which you wish to travel. Here you will be well within the zone of maximum surveillance of both following drivers and those who might cross your path, and you will have the best two-way visibility of side roads and other features along the road. The road surface will usually be flatter here than it is nearer the edge, with fewer pot-holes and other problems, and this will afford easier control of your cycle. You should be able to maintain the straightest and fastest course without the need to deviate at side roads.

>The primary riding position should therefore be your normal riding position when you can keep up with traffic, when you need to emphasise your presence to traffic ahead, or when you need to prevent following drivers from passing you dangerously.
It is often the best position, too, on roads where there is no following traffic and on multi-lane roads where the traffic flow is light.

>Because the primary riding position can result in some inconvenience to following drivers, it is reasonable to ride further to the left when this could help others, as long as your own safety is not thereby impaired. At these times you should adopt the secondary riding position, which is about 1 metre (3 feet) to the left of the moving traffic lane if the road is wide, but not closer than 0.5 metres (1. feet) to the edge of any road. Riding closer to the edge would leave you with no room for manoeuvre in the event of an emergency, whilst increasing the need to make unpredictable movements which could lead to a crash. You might also have to endure the discomfort and possible danger of drain covers, edge damage and the debris which tends to collect at the side of the road - and there is no reason why you should have a less comfortable journey than others. Riding too close to the edge can also make you difficult to see for drivers coming out of side roads and drives.

>Only on long streaches of road where there are no side roads, drives or other entrances and you are travelling very slowly (perhaps up a hill) should you allow yourself to ride further to the left than the secondary riding position, but always keep at least 0,5 metres (1.5 feet) from the edge. Conversely, if you are travelling fast, keep further out.

Calm The Fuck Down And Rise To The Occasion

Edit: I'm not talking about line choice. They are skills that you can only learn by riding with groups and trying to hurt them. It's the mental game of when to put the power down to break someone mentally, it's about learning exactly how hard you can suffer (much harder than you realize - but you can only find that out when you're desperately hanging onto the back of a group praying for death). It sounds like you've been on the receiving end of that, got embarrassed and sad, and have never learned to dish it out. Which is sad because it's one of the great joys of cycling.

I do the lamp on the helmet thing too; really helps if I waggle my head while looking at motorists who don't seem to have seen me.

I recently bought Cyclecraft by John Franklin: this is the "foundation" book for the Bikeability course in the UK. There is lots in there about (as you put it) active safety. For example, being in the right place on the road so motorists are more likely to see you - i.e. not in the gutter, not at the edge of a roundabout. Ride where they might already be looking for a vehicle. He is critical of many UK-style cycle lanes for this reason: they move the cyclist to the periphery of the motorists' vision by forcing them to ride in the gutter. Also, he's not too keen on helmets, his argument being that confident, correct riding is a better improvement to a rider's safety. I don't agree with everything he says but I would recommend it anyway.

Eurovelo 15 (the Rhine route) is definitely complete, and well signposted. I rode it this summer.

http://www.rhinecycleroute.eu/

I took with me a book called The Rhine Cycle Route: From Source to Sea with me, which was very useful.

Yep! Read Pedaling Revolution. One of my favorite books and really made me that much more interested and passionate about cycling.

http://www.amazon.com/Pedaling-Revolution-Cyclists-Changing-American/dp/0870714198

start with adventure cycling association - they have annotated bicycle maps for several transcontinental routes. this book may be a little dated but I found it really helpful...

Strip down, degrease, grease and re-assemble everything; and if the gear cables are corroded or sticky at all, replace them.

When you clean the chain and sprockets you may find they are already worn beyond sensible re-use. Measure the chain to see how much it has worn, check the cog teeth to see if they are worn too. Consider replacing the cogs and chain before attempting to clean them. 5 speed setups are simple, cheap, sometimes reliable and often good enough. You may also be able to fit a compact six without spreading (or cold-setting) the rear triangle.

The gears and chain-set look to be in good condition from your drive side pictures

Examples: https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/freewheels-5-speed/

To develop your vintage bike maintenance skills you could do no better than try this inspirational vintage bicycle book: Richard's Bicycle Book

Mark Jenkins has a really good bunch of writing about this in his memoir about biking across the USSR, Off the Map.

They had to bike/walk rail lines all throughout Siberia, since the Russians who were with them had claimed they'd already done the whole ride once before, but there was no road through large swaths of western Siberia. It's a great read.

Looks like someone's been reading Gironimo! That said I'd still watch the crap out of this, love this kind of stuff, even if they're using clipless pedals, the cheats.

Carmichael training systems wrote a book on this. Their system focuses mainly on high intensity stuff. That doesn't mean you'll never work in your endurance zone, but 6-7 hours a week isn't really time budget that fits the traditional zone 2 base training. I've read the book, but not worked through the plan, though so ymmv: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06Y1VRC54/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

TrainerRoad's ask a cycling coach podcast also touches on training with a time crunch, and have a similar conclusion that 6-7 hours a week is probably not we'll suited to traditional base training. They take a different approach from the CMT book and usually have 2 6-week blocks of "sweet spot base", where you're working at 90-95% of threshold for extended periods. The mid volume plan fits your time budget, too: https://www.trainerroad.com/training-base-phase.

I was 26 at the time. I bought a copy of this book

It's good, but old and some of the directions are now wrong. Funded from my work as a freelance designer.

Just wanted to point out that Tim Moore's great book Gironimo has a funny and possibly useful bit about bike restoration in it.

There's a pretty alright book called Pedaling Revolution that's about the changing face of cycling in America.

Bicycle: The History is an excellent book about the history of the bicycle and its place in society.

To be honest there are more good books about racing than anything else.

I haven't read it, but I've heard good things about Graeme Obree's (hour record holder) book:

https://www.amazon.com/Obree-Way-Graeme/dp/1408196425

In the US bike law is based on a theory called "vehicular cycling". It says that bikes are to be treated like a car on the road. This makes running a red light illegal on a bike.

However, vehicular cycling is based on the premise that behaving like a car is safest for a biker on the roads, a claim that has no valid studies to back it up. You can read more on this topic in City Cycling by John Pucher. http://www.amazon.com/City-Cycling-Urban-Industrial-Environments/dp/0262517817/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422389125&sr=8-1&keywords=city+cycling

Also, the rules of the road are not designed to keep bikers safe. Their purpose is to maximize travel speeds for personal automobile travel. You can read more on that here: http://www.pps.org/reference/shared-space/ and here http://usa.streetsblog.org/2013/10/03/the-beginning-of-the-end-for-level-of-service/

IMHO: Ride with safety as the priority. Usually this means following the rules, but sometimes it means breaking them.

Faster by Michael Hutchinson was great, and provides insight into coaching and how assumed best practices are upended or change over time. However, this is not a specific "this is how you train" book. For that, I've heard the time crunched cyclists offers some good guidance.

> i wasn't that impressed with this book, tbh - i was hoping it would be more academic. but just chasing this down has raised my opinion

Have you seen Cycling Science? It appears to be the same format as Performance Cycling in that it's a collection of papers edited together into the volume. That's not exactly a bad thing, but I get how it easily leads to disappoint as a book.

sport nutrition is a detailed (ie textbook) look at nutrition. the coverage is a bit variable and it could have been edited a bit better, but if you want to understand nutrition in depth then it seems to be pretty good. i have the previous version (which is sold at a much lower price).

training bible is an introduction to training. maybe introduction is unfair - it covers quite a range, but it uses a lot of words to explain things. there's an excellent book one third the size hidden in there.

performance cycling is a collection of papers / chapters from different people. best see my review on amazon. not great.

cycling science i read so long ago i can't remember how it differed from 'performance cycling' (it's similar and also not great).

Anything in the Santa Ana Mountains or (a little further form you) Laguna, there will be trails! Just look for green on Google maps, zoom in and see if there is a trail. I mentioned Black Star Canyon which is a really good one. but I'm sure you can find more. I know road trails a lot better, so I can't remember names of specific MTB trails. I'd probably look at Oneill regional park, Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park, Anything coming off Alta Laguna Park will be stupid fun, I've always wanted to do the Westridge Trail, but never have. There are good books on this type of thing too, here is one

I used this book,

The Rhine Cycle Route: From source to sea (Cicerone Guides)
Mike Wells

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1852846917?pc_redir=1398182553&robot_redir=1

I would recommend it to anyone. It's very detailed.

Hi there,

I have done this route by bicycle: Cairo, (Egypt) Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana and South Africa. I went through all those countries Capital Cities. I found the capital cities to be a waste, by car i would try to bypass as far as possible and only use to pick up essential supplies.

Egypt: This is pretty safe and you won't have much trouble with the people however car laws and registration here can be tricky. large fees are payable as deposits ones which correlate to the vehicles value. I do believe you get it back but it requires capital. The borders over Egypt and Sudan were the trickiest I came across, be sure to try arrange ahead of time.

Sudan: I found Sudan incredibly beautiful and safe. The people are very warm and welcoming. I had some run in's with the law but nothing to hectic. Arrange visas ahead of time. The night time desert is utterly beautiful and the most peaceful place you can visit on earth. Your thoughts will scare you.

​

Ethiopia: Wow wow wow. stunning country. Green and full of mountains. The coffee ceremonies in the villages are a unique experience. Its a wild country and you may be harassed at times. If you are in a group and a bit stubborn to being hassled you will be fine. Lovely country.

Kenya: The northern part, bandit high way can be quite scary, I would arrange a security escort through a tour company to help you through these parts, they are not to bad and you would possibly need them for a day. Road can get a bit rough up there but they are tarring quite well now. As you go South it will become more green again towards equator you will have stunning views of Mount Kenya as well as Kilimanjaro as you approach Tanzania.

​

Tanzania: Beautiful, not to much trouble here, I believe the fuel is quite expensive here.

​

Zambia: Very friendly quite easy to travel. Obey laws though don't speed etc.

Botswanan: Wild animals everywhere. Roaming elephants, giraffe, lions you name it. Stunning, take your time through these parts.

South Africa: Try get through the Mafikeng area quickly try stop a little further into the country. Once you are through that you get into the beautiful Karoo and as you approach Cape Town it gets stunning

​

Summary: Definitely do able by car! Major expenses will be border expenses and sadly some bribes as well as fuel and accommodation. Camping is possible in the quiet areas and that will save you a ton of money but generally Africa is not to expensive.

Let us know if you do it! You can read my book on Africa here if you like: https://www.amazon.com/Kunjani-Afrika-Guinness-Journey-Bicycle-ebook/dp/B07FZQ5C5F/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=kunjani+africa&qid=1570085021&s=gateway&sr=8-2

I just found an entire book of these on amazon - Kinda want.

One of your locals has a YouTube Channel and also wrote a book on winter cycling. I like his work.

This past winter was my first riding all through the winter, even in "cold weather alerts." I think the coldest I did was my half hour commute in -20 C. Lots of merino wool layers were the key. Costco actually has cheap 100% merino wool base layers. If your core is too cold, your body constricts blood flow, so having a warm core is key to keeping fingers and toes warm. A rookie mistake is over tightening your shoes, again restricting blood flow. Glad to hear your toes were okay.

Nice! Have you read the book "Frostbike" by Tom Babin? He's an active and vocal commuter in Calgary. The book is absolutely delightful and very fun to read. Lots of great tips about winter biking!

https://www.amazon.ca/Frostbike-Pain-Numbness-Winter-Cycling/dp/1771600489/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=frostbike+tom+babin&qid=1570826294&sr=8-1

Also, I'm a bike commuter in the Vancouver area. I understand that I have it easy, but I'd much rather ride through snow at -10 degrees than through rain at 1 degree with the likelihood of going over black ice ;) good luck to you this winter!

"Off the Map" by Mark Jenkins. It's about a team cycling across Soviet Siberia. It's amazing, and every page makes you want to hop on your bike and GO!

http://www.amazon.com/Off-Map-Bicycling-Across-Siberia/dp/159486764X

Lots of trails in south orange county. I finally bought a book on the subject (I'll post the name of it when I get home). I ride Tijeras/Trabuco loop quite a bit. But I've also ridden Bellview Trail (by Coto). There is lots of trails in and around Saddleback mountain. I'm a poor climber so I stay away from those. I hear Whiting Ranch is a good trail. Theres trails in Laguna Niguel and Crystal Cove.

Have you tried the socaltrailriders website?

EDIT: Here's the book.

I got two cycling-related books and can recommend both for different reasons.

First is Mid-Life Cyclists - a story of two MAMILs training to ride L'Etape du Tour. Throw a Belgian father-in-law into the mix and hilarity ensues.

Second one is The Obsession, Science and Luck Behind the World's Fastest Cyclists - how the pros train, how they think, what they eat. This book shows you how much you have to sacrifice to achieve victory.

Graeme Obree touches this a little in his book. He was somewhat OCD about his trainer setup, and while a lot of the book is a little out there compared to modern sports science, this section about getting consistent measurements with trainers was pretty eye opening.

This is a pretty popular local guidebook. I've used his hiking book extensively.

You might consider hiking up Cathedral Rock, too. It's spectacular.

You might want to grab a copy of this:

https://www.amazon.com/Mountain-Biking-Arizona-Trail-Guide/dp/0966476999/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=ZJE91KCV8KSNRZ23KTCZ

They also sell this guidebook at every REI in the Phoenix area.

Trail 100 is my favorite and varies from very easy to moderately technical.

Can't say I've read any but I do recall from my childhood a friend who owned Richard's bicycle book which is infamous for a section on how to deal with (and kill if necessary) a dog - although google suggests some of the more violent advice may have been removed from later editions

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Richards-Bicycle-Book-Richard-Ballantine/dp/0330267663

Not that I like dogs much myself but I don't really advocate harming them or the hapless buffoons that own them.

I'm reading Gironimo about the 1914 giro. It is insane what they used to do in the grand tours. The 1914 giro went 3100+ km over eight stages. Eight Stages. All in the high-300 to low 400km range.

From wikipedia:

> It is remembered as the hardest Giro of the heroic period of bicycle racing. Besides five stages of over 400 km (and the longest ever average stage length), it included the longest stage ever in the history of the Giro: the Lucca-Rome stage won by Costante Girardengo. This edition of the Giro was run at the lowest average speed (23.374 km/h); marked the highest gap between the first and the second (1 hour, 55 minutes and 26 seconds); saw the longest ever stage by time taken (the Bari-L'Aquila). Only 8 riders (of 81 participants) finished the race.

Gironimo is the book by Tim Moore. He re-creates the entire route with an old Hirondelle bicycle specific to the period. Complete with wine cork brake pads.

He also did one on the tour which I own and hope to begin soon.

I've nover done an organised tour, I do know some people that did red spokes and they say they are great http://www.redspokes.co.uk/ but tend to be mroe exotic locations.

but for italy, read this

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gironimo-Riding-Very-Terrible-Italy/dp/0224092073