About a decade ago I had started amassing a pretty decent vintage cycling library, with the emphasis on English cycling manuals and touring accounts circa 1930-1970. I wound up selling off a lot of them later on to put more money into other priorities, but here are some photos from when I liquidated that part of the collection. I apologize for the small pic size in advance!
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100_1855 by
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100_1857 by
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Published c.1940 as Britain settled in to a real war, this book is nice and obscure and not for everyone. It's not a manual, not a conventional travelogue, but rather an account of many regional and local rides. The core of the book is thus -
Seek to amass, not miles, but experiences. Happy is the cyclist who rides throughout the year, taking what comes his way in weather, choosing only his itinerary. At the end of the year he will scoff at the poor soul who puts his mount in cotton wool for the winter, for he will recall the pageantry of an autumn forest, the sparkling winter morning, the ecstasy of spring, and the lazy afternoon of summer. He will rejoice in the tussle with the March wind, and the comradeship of his fellows round the winter fireside before the battle to reach home.
I love it so much I just bought myself a replacement copy moments ago.
Moving on, we have the ONLY American adult cycling manual I could find from the interwar years, Roland C. Geist's
Bicycling As A Hobby -
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100_1866 by
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- also from 1940. There are few photos, but one clearly depicts a fixed-gear ridden with front brake only. No cover photo because my copy was an ex-library one that had been rebound.
Geist would later write this book during the boom years -
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100_1895 by
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- which is okay, but not my favorite bike boom era general manual. Sloan's
Complete Book of Bicycling, coupled with Tom Cuthbertson's
Anybody's Bike Book and
Bike Tripping, along with Richard Ballantine's
Richard's Bicycle Book all jostled for that place. Had I but known about it, there was also this one -
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100_1890 by
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100_1891 by
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- by Nancy Neiman Baranet, National Women's Champion and first American woman to compete in a European stage race. She's on the right in this photo from the book, next to Gene Portuesi for Cyclopedia. Portuesi was her coach, and illustrations and photos from his catalogs are sprinkled throughout the book.
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100_1893 by
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Another one to look for is this one -
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100_1899 by
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- The Guinness Guide to Bicycling has some really nice writing. It's been a while, but my memory is that Jock Whatley's writings in here, particularly, are first rate. I don't remember if his account of riding PBP in in this one as well as in his book
Old Road And New.
Finally, there's this one, which is beautifully researched and nuanced -
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100_1873 by
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You owe it to yourself to read this one. Fotheringham redeems Simpson from being a casually tossed-off name illustrating the dangers of doping in the peloton and fleshes out the man and his times beautifully.
More books and pix when I have the chance go through what I kept ...