Bicycling Magazine's Complete Book of Road Cycling Skills: Your Guide to Riding Faster, Stronger, Longer, and Safer

by Ben Hewitt, Bicycling Magazine, Ed Pavelka

Book Overview

Bicycling Magazine's Complete Book of Road Cycling Skills by Ed Pavelka and the Editors of Bicycling Magazine will help you take your road cycling to the next level with the newest techniques,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0875964869
• ISBN13: 9780875964867
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Rodale Books
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.72 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A good encouragement to cycle more

Some have criticized this book as if it has little useful to say. But, I found it quite helpful, and I have been cycling for most of the last forty years. I bought the book because I wanted to dust off my bicycle again after a dozen sedentary years. The last book on cycling I read was Eugene Sloan's "Complete Book of Bicycling." I would say the subtitle is very descriptive of what this book offers: "Your Guide to Riding Faster, Stronger, Longer, and Safer." The book is written by people who race bicycles. They explain that many training techniques for racing used wisely will make the touring cyclist a much better rider. I found some of the suggestions about when to drink how much water and caution against overreaching and overtraining to be very helpful, but those were not the only things. I can endorse the encouragement to work for smoothness in pedalling as well as a higher cadence in a lower gear instead of lugging it in a gear that is just a little too high. Because of extra years and extra pounds it will be a while before I can reap all of the benefits I might from this book.

From a recreational cyclist who wants to be competitive

I have been cycling recreationally for a number of years, and want to learn more and improve.I have looked at a couple of books, but this one is excellent:1. All the chapters are short, relevant and written in plain understandable English2. Within a couple of pages you have several useful tips3. It has helped me dramatically improve very quickly

Cobbled together, but a comprehensive guide

As a long-time car driver who just made the 'switch' to cycle commuting, I had a lot of anxieties regarding safe and intelligent operation of a bicycle on roads shared with automobiles. This book served the purpose admirably and got me riding safe and sane on the streets of Manhattan, something I wouldn't have believed possible a couple months ago.There are sections on how to equip your bike, how to follow the rules of the road, and tips and tricks bikers need to know to coexist safely in traffic. There are also sections on what to eat and drink, how to train effectively to increase your abilities, and how to get into serious long-distance touring - things which I hadn't originally been interested in but which were fun to read about. I think what I liked best about the book was that it was clearly written by enthusiasts who've spent a lot of time riding and a lot of time thinking about how to convey their skills and enthusiasms to the public.If I had a criticism, it'd be that the book suffers by being a collection of separate magazine articles not originally intended for publication in this form, so some information is repeated and coherence is sort of loose. But it's not a major criticism and I'd recommend the book anyway.

Just the best

It taught me a lot I did not know before

A first class book for the cyclist who wants to do more.

Being new to road biking I wanted a book that covered the basics as well as one that gave guidance as to how I could improve once over the initial stage of riding. This book is very comprehensive in this regard. It is particularly useful in some of the training areas in that it makes suggestions that are not too overly structured, as some books are inclined to do, but at the same time maintain the overall training effect.It reinforces this approach by relating training regimes with real life experiences of riders, rather than adopt a "textbook" approach.I found the book extremely useful and fully recommend it.