bassjones

GREAT book! Couldn't put it down and ended up finishing it last night. Very inspirational for me. Highly recommended reading.

Neil_B

I enjoyed the book too.

However, the author's subsequent life is a cautionary tale. His first memoir, Lummox, described his wild, fat, drunken, deceitful past. Some of that past came out in his nature after Heft on Wheels was published. He cheated on his wife, took up smoking and drinking, and put weight back on. He was wiped out financially after the divorce. It's another case of a person thinking weight loss and exercise are a cure for all your problems.

jethro56 

Next you'll TRY to tell us there's no Easter Bunny

Neil_B

Sorry to burst your bubble, Jethro56, but......

Seriously, Magnusson writes about making a life change - the subtitle of Heft on Wheels is "how to do a 180." It's fair comment to note he didn't succeed as well as he thought. Weight loss and exercise will help you think about your problems in a more constructive way, but they often aren't the solution.

CraigB

I agree. And while I enjoyed reading the very entertaining Heft (partly because of his description of familiar haunts in and around SIU-C'dale, one of my almas mater), his fairly self-indulgent style wore on me a bit. When I read an article/interview he wrote about and with Greg Lemond in one of the magazines a year or two ago, the article became very much about him and his own divorce, instead of about Lemond, which to me is unforgivable in a writer.

Neil_B

Well, he made his name as a memoir writer. :-)

I agree with you about the Lemond article being a failure.

john423

This just got done infuriating me (while at the store picking up candy). In case you don't wanna click on the link, it's the new book by Bob Greene, Oprah's trainer (so we see how successful he is) called "The Life You Want: Get Motivated, Lose Weight and Be Happy."

I've been as low as 192 and I'd say I'm back up to around 245-250 now. There's absolutely NO difference in my happiness level anywhere in those two weights. Weight loss does not necessarily equal happiness. "I'll be happy when I lose this weight." Maybe. Maybe not. Lose it and find out. But if you EXPECT to be happy when you lose the weight, you may be disappointed. You may be the same old butthole you always were. Just skinnier.

bassjones

I did not know that. Basically then, he moved from one addiction to another, then back again without ever really dealing with who he was and why he has addictive tendencies...

Neil_B

Agreed. And I have some empathy, having lost 158 pounds and then adding back 60 some because I never entirely stopped being the fat guy. I addressed the specific behaviors that led me to become 400 pounds, but I skated around the thinking that made me that way. I took care of what was on the plate, but not what was in my head.

nkfrench 

I remember a day when I stepped on the scales and I had achieved my goal weight. I guess I thought that day that there would be a parade in my honor, that money would be growing on trees, and people I admired would suddenly be friends.

However, my physical capabilities were much better than they had been previously; and life was much simpler not being so large and heavy.

I read the book. I'm still trying to figure out how he could be relatively quick on the bike despite his size.

B.Alive

Coming from a running background (I started running at 350 pounds and got as low as 259,) I always wondered how Dean Karnazes was able to run so far in his Ultra Marathons that he describes so well in his books. Then, I learned that it's his STORY telling that makes his books so great. I learned that there are thousands of people who run those distances and further every year and he wasn't the first. Nor was he ever the best--he's good, but there are quite a few that are better.

I think that's where the author of "Heft on Wheels" does a great job. He can tell a story well. I bet there are a lot of folks that are his size (in the book) that can pedal that fast, but they just don't tell it as well.

Neil_B

Good writing can make even the worst cyclist seem great. :-)

Sayre Kulp 

I did not like this book. The subject matter interests me, but the author's writing style drive me nuts. His writing seems to lack focus. Maybe it's just me, but it drove me bonkers after a while. I am, however, reading Dean Karnazes's "Ultra Marathon Man" and I love it. His style does a much better job of sucking me into the story.

dbikingman

How true, just look at some of the posts on BF for support of this statement

Neil_B

I had myself in mind when I wrote those words.

Neil_B

I guess you are referring to the author's reflections on his life, which he cuts to from the straightforward narrative? I liked them at the time.

Speaking of which, a review of Heft on Wheels, and my comments on Lummox:

https://historian2wheels.blogspot.com...ok-review.html

Heft on Wheels: A Field Guide to Doing a 180 by Mike Magnuson

A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. For Mike Magnuson, it was worth more; it changed his life.

Magnuson, a professor at Southern Illinois University and author of two novels, wrote an article for Gentleman's Quarterly on his love of cycling. Unfortunately for him, he agreed to pose naked on his road bike in a photo for the article. Years of beer, junk food, and smoking had plumped him up to 255 pounds. When the picture appeared in GQ, alongside his article, he was horrified. Not only because of the unflattering appearance he cut, but also because it made him seem he had written the piece "as a goof to make a couple of bucks....cycling's not a joke to me." Magnuson immediately attempted to restore his self-image by riding with his local club during inclement weather. But he hadn't reached bottom yet; while trying to climb a hill during the ride, a thunderstorm strikes, and the group sends a biker back to rescue Magnuson by letting him catch up and draft. After the ride, the author vows "I need to prove something out of this. Cycling's not a joke. I'm not a joke. I don't want to be a figure of fun. I'm not a fat man on a bike. I'm a real cyclist, and I'm hereafter going to do everything in my power to achieve my fullest potential on the bike..."

Magnuson attacked his problems with his all. He quit smoking, gave up drinking, and lost 75 pounds in about three months. Heft on Wheels, however, isn't just about giving up your vices, nor is it just about the bike. Magnuson gets down to 175 pounds, participates in rides and a race, but the changes in him are more than just physical or a matter of experience. He questions his loss of his old unhealthy lifestyle. He questions the time he's devoted to his two-wheeled passion. He questions his goals: "What do I do now? Pedal up a mountain, because it's there?" These doubts and many others Magnuson struggled with are told in a simple, conversational prose style; even Magnuson's frequent references to literature, such as his comparison between dieting and Kafka's tale "The Hunger Artist", come across with the easy tone of a friend who just happens to be well-read. And this book could well be the friend of anyone who has undergone "a 180" from a harmful, life-sucking lifestyle, even if they don't ride a bike.

https://historian2wheels.blogspot.com...on-lummox.html

I've finished Mike Magnuson's memoir Lummox. It's an entertaining recounting of some episodes of the author's fat, drunken, lecherous, under-achieving, smoke-filled youth. A portrait of the artist as a young lummox, in other words. Reading both Magnuson's memoirs, this one and Heft on Wheels, in reverse order helped me clarify the meaning of the overused phrase "lifestyle change." After reading Lummox, I've reached the conclusion that, for most people who lose weight, there isn't a lifestyle change at all. Nor is the phrase "a 180", used in the subtitle of Heft on Wheels, an accurate description of Magnuson's life when he began to take bicycling seriously.

The way the phrase "lifestyle change" is commonly used is to imply that there is a 100 percent alteration in the person. I myself have used it that way. And I was wrong to do so. It strikes me now that what I, and other people, were describing was a change of emphasis in the lifestyle, not the lifestyle itself. Magnuson is a good example; he always was a bicyclist, and in Lummox he writes of riding for 30 miles. He didn't change who he was by the time he wrote Heft on Wheels. He merely developed the bicyclist aspects of himself to a fuller potential. And part of developing that potential was dropping booze, smoking, and 80 pounds. In the course of doing that, he discovered he loved cycling more than his usual 'lummox' behavior.

My own life also serves as an example of the change in emphasis. I've always loved to walk and hike. I enjoyed the outdoors. I was the fat kid hiking in the woods. By the time I reached 385 pounds, and long before then, I couldn't engage in those activities anymore. But they were always part of me. Losing weight has made them available to me once more, that's all. I walk and hike now because I enjoy walking and hiking more than I enjoyed being fat.

What's more, all the bad habits that aided the process of constructing a 385 pound man are still in me. I am fully capable of turning into a human suction pump at the dinner table. Magnuson could turn up in the local bar any night, munching on pretzels between drags on his Camel. Both Magnuson and myself have shunted these bad habits from a place of prominence in our lives to the back of the closet. But they're still with us. And always will be.

thestoutdog

I loved the book, it is the reason I started back in the saddle years ago. I won't speak to writing styles, or his fall from grace, but the book was and is a great motivator for me. I read it a couple times a year.

ScottStr

The writing style didn't bother me when I read it. Of course, I was on a mixture of morphine and Percoset. I was in the hospital, recovering from surgery. The Lemond article didn't bother me either. It was nice to catch up on Mike only a few months after reading Heft. I'm going to reread the book and see if I get something different out of it with a clear head. Probably ought to do the same for The Shack. Mike's story, post-book, is a warning to us all.