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Richard’s Bicycle Book
Now the nights are drawing in, there are old copies of this on Ebay for £3 or £4. If you're under 40 and missed this, it's still worth a look. It rapidly takes you through what cycling is and can be, getting and keeping a bike.
Not sure what happened to mine, but this is the book that got me hooked and to some extent you might say radicalised me. All the stuff about drivers and cars 2ww talk about is charted in there - and they hadn't even got phones back then.
Steel was real and "10 speed" meant "10 in total" (minus the 2 illegal gears, of course.)
If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.
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64 comments
Original 1975 edition just landed. No jokes, please.
Another calliper adjustment to a slightly faster looking F W Evans. It's usually a double locknut on that type, but you could jiggle the assembly so it was even. Quite a fast handlebar and levers set-up for my tastes.
Brutal dog defense but gave me confidence as a novice.
Haven't read 'The Bicycle Book', but bought a copy of 'City Cycling' when I bought my first bike and started cycling to work.
My absolute bible as a kid, really opened my eyes to the possibilities of bikes beyond riding to school and down the park. Still on my shelves and I still dip in from time to time. Marvellous.
Also has the section on defending yourself against a dog attack.
From when men were real men. Much facial hair, like The Joy of Sex. Touring bike - but look at the size of that big ring up front!
My parents had this. I'll have to see if I've inherited it now!
Much facial hair, like The Joy of Sex
Got it and still good! Thankfully boots, crampons/tools and ropes* have definitely improved since though.
* Assuming you use them.
Thankfully boots, crampons/tools and ropes* have definitely improved since though
I still have the hawser laid nylon rope from those days hanging from the tree!
Is this where the (amusing and fun) thread drift started? Thing is, every guy under 30 now sports some kind of beard - it's not exceptional .
Many Boomers had them and still do now in white, Gen X it was largely a no (traps the foam in your cappuccino), whereas millennials, they're back - them with their quiet quitting and all.
Presumably after Gen Z we will just have The Final Generation?
Anyhoo - I'm smack bang in the middle of Gen X and I had a goatee and long sideburns in my early twenties and have had a full beard since I was 25 or so*.
*Never did drink capuccino.
Back when men were real men, women were real women, and small blue creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small blue creatures from Alpha Centauri.
You knew I was thinking of you!
It must have been very traumatic for you finding that - you shouldn't have been poking around in their bedroom.
PS you should see the cover for the 1975 edition (of Richards Bicycke Book) - coming to a letterbox near me soon.
When he'd wrecked his knees he did have the grace to admit that he'd been wrong to advise riding hard in big gears.
But enough about Dr. Alex Comfort...
Just to clarify - Which book did your parents have - Joy of Sex or the Bicycle Book?
I think it was the Joy of Bikes... but it was a long time ago.
Actually (pedant alert) I believe that revised edition didn't have the full dog attack section, which was removed after complaints from animal lovers (though as Richard pointed out, he too was an animal lover, just not to the extent of letting one attack him without defending himself). It was replaced with an explanation of why it was removed (for the curious, the excised bits were about how to throttle an attacking dog using your frame or a pump).
I had heard the same. But, I've already got the 1989 New Bicycle Book and the attacking dog section is in there. He's put some more narrative around it.
I think I had a later edition than the one pictured, which is from 1979. I think I had this one:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Richards-Bicycle-Book-Richard-Ballantine/dp/033...
I've got it on order from Ebay - my local telephone box library is going to have some interesting reading in it soon.
Disappearing attacking dog passage - solved. Received the 1983 edition today. It was back in by 1989.
Much curtailed section:
What about an actual attack in which you are being bitten and savaged?
Unfortunately, my publishers will not allow me to explain in detail some of the methods for defending yourself. Dog lovers have threatened legal action on the grounds of prevention of cruelty to animals. These are not people who have had to spend a month picking bits of gravel out of their legs and face because a dog knocked them off a bike. They have not had to undergo the long and extremely painful series of rabies shots which are mandatory if you are bitten outside Britain and the dog gets away. They do not have anything useful to say about the little girl who lived down the road from my parents' place and who was pulled down by three dogs and torn to bits.
So be it.
There was another edition published in 2000 ... helpfully called Richard's 21st Century Bicycle Book ...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Richards-21st-Century-Bicycle-Book/dp/0330377175
And then he redid the whole thing from the ground up with City Cycling in 2007
https://www.amazon.co.uk/City-Cycling-Snowbooks-Richard-Ballantine/dp/19...
"Zowie! These 9 speed systems are a game-changer!"
Plenty of used copies available for the price of a cuppucino.
Surely the advice was to put your hand (fist in Richard's vocabulary) down the dog's throat to asphyxiate it?
If a big dog has got you on the floor, then that's the advice.
Bike maintenance in his bestest jumper, a man after my own heart.
TBH on that photo he looks like Hugo Drax having a relaxing day off from killing mankind...
will he introduce me to two blonde beauties who then randomly disappear off?
Not sure, but you should see the lugs on his space station
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