Books, Maps & DVDs

To be honest this book has very little to do with the love or even understanding of cycling. Bikes feature - but they're pretty basic machines and remain capricious and mysterious in their mechanical functions to our travellers. Free Country is the tale of two friends called Matt and Ben who decide to try to travel the length of Britain by starting out in just their underpants at Lands End and relying on the generosity and kindness of the Great British Public (GBP) to clothe, feed and supply them with bikes to help them get to John 'O' Groats within three weeks.

Last year someone in our club bought a signed Mark Cavendish world champs jersey for over £2,000. The tiny little rainbow jersey is now framed on his wall. Even considering the number of jerseys star riders sign in their lifetime cycle jerseys are definitely gaining currency like never before with collectors.

Racing Is Life - The Beryl Burton Story follows the journey of one of the best female cyclists ever to take to two wheels.

For those that have heard the name but know very little about Beryl Burton, Beryl was a no nonsense Yorkshire tom boy who won the RTTC Best All Rounder 25 years in a row from 1959 until 1983.

She was 7 times world champion in the 3,000 metre pursuit and on the road - all while being a mother and holding down jobs on fruit farms in West Yorkshire.

My patience has been tested recently by a couple of books cashing in on the cycling boom, so 'The Srampagmano Tales' - a book of poetry by 'Scarlett Parker with illustrations by Faith Buck' set me straight away on high whimsy alert. The general rule is that bad poetry beats bad prose hands down. Thankfully 'The Srampagmano Tales' is actually rather good.

Before I start talking about the Cycling Anthology itself I'm going to have a quick pre-review warm up rant about one of the reasons I like it so much much. Here goes...

Haven't you grown sick of the cyber-chatter this year more than any previous year?

I hadn't heard about The Last Kilometre until I was asked to review it and it's a relief to come to a piece of work with no pre-conceptions and no trailers. After the recent non stop trailer for 'A Year in Yellow' I was thinking 'If I hear Cath Wiggins say "Which Bradley..?" one more time I shall head butt the TV. Not Cath's fault - but less is more.

'Made In England' is a big and beautiful book that showcases the frame builders, artisans if you will, behind the British hand-built steel bicycle.

I'm ashamed to confess that I only have Issue 2 of Rouleur - so all of Paul Fournel's essays on cycling were new to me when his book Veló dropped through the letterbox.

What do you get if you gather together some of the leading cycling journalists and ask them to contribute to an in depth historical encyclopaedia of cycling hardware? You get Bike! by Aurum Sports Press.

In the mid 1970's Eddy Merckx's career was beginning to draw to a close. By this time, even with just 3 tv channels - none of them showing cycling - everyone in the playground knew that Eddy Merckx was extraordinary. Looking like a cross between early Elvis and Bruce Lee, Merckx was like a swarthy brother of George Best; a brooding unpredictable hardman of cycling.