Jed19

I am interested in acquiring some essential cycling skills books and I am looking for recommendations.

I have searched the Threads but I have not been satisfied with what I found.

What I am looking for are books that can be good for an enthusiast to use in learning and imarting skills like pedalling, climbing and other essential riding specific skills as opposed to books on coaching, nutrition, "what Lance does" and bike maintenance etc.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Regards

WaitUpForMe

I don't know what your search turned up, but maybe you can look at Serious Cycling by Edmund R. Burke.

Dead Extra #2

I know you said you didn't want a book about "what Lance does", but I just got "The Lance Armstrong Performance Program: Seven Weeks to the Perfect Ride" yesterday.

So far it seems to be a pretty well rounded book about cycling, and not a "how to be Lance" manual. It is broken up into sections about different topics like bike handling, riding in bad weather, hills, mental toughness, diet etc.

It does have a section about training programs, but it has different outlines from begginer to advanced. I think I will find this section worthwhile as a general guidline on how much, and what kind of riding to do.

I don't know how much an advanced rider would get out of this book, but I think I'll learn a lot myself being totally new.

I know there is a lot of "Lance is great" hype, but well, he is, AND this is still a good book. At least consider it, you can get it used at amazon for $7.50

jslopez

Google has always been helpful for me.

Nothing beats going out there and jsut doing it though.

timwat

Have to respectfully disagree with you, jslopez. All I was doing by just going out and doing it was permanently ingraining my flaws and weaknesses.

Every time I have a serious conversation about cycling with my experienced racer friends, I learn volumes about training, spin, climbing and bike handling. That kind of stuff I'd never learn from just going out.

BF has been great answering the stray question, for instance, on improving climbing technique. But it's not organized info like a book, and it can't identify weaknesses I don't know I have.

cyclezen

The C.O.N.I. Manual was the only thing in print here in the US back in the early 70s, besides some stuff in Bicycling and the stuff in Velonews. More came out by the mid-70s.
The Basic principles in CONI are still mostly valid stuff.
Go to the Palo Alto Bicycles Library page for some of the period texts on cycling. The Ed Burke stuff is good. The Fred Matheny stuff is good. The Eddy B book has underpinnings from the Eastern Bloc Dominance starting from way back in the 70's and is subtly different. His US Team management made the real 1st big leap forward for US riders, in spite of its constant controversies - IMHO anywhey...
I haven't seen the Armstrong book, but if it has some of the stuff he learned from the carmichael group, thatz gotta be good.
People always expect major revelations from these things. Well cycling and the 'art of' is a building of subtle things on strong foundations. especially since each rider requires a different emphasis for improvement and 'peaking'. Reading the Eddy B book in particular, a quick read produces not much (if any) earth shattering stuff. But a closer exam and what comes thru are the subtle but clearly directed methods to take great athletic potential and produce winning 'form'. Mostly you still need unstoppable drive, like Merckx, Hinault, Indurain, Lemond, Armstrong, Sean Kelly, Moser, de Vlaminck (and the list goes on.
Anyone know if carmichael has 'written' anything with his current science, or is he holdin out for everyone to drop big dosh at his training programs?

Blackberry

Pretty good free ebook here: https://www.roadbikerider.com/index.htm

As well as a free online newsletter with training articles. They also sell ebooks about cycing technqiue which you download and can then print out on your own printer.

webist

Ditto: Just about everything I have in writing about cycling came from there. They only do electronic books now, but they are still good.

YMCA

If you can find Bernard Hinaults book of training and technique from the 80's, you should get exactly what you are looking for. Most of the book dealt with proper position and skills. Old-school stuff always dealt with learning to ride the bike first. Very cool. Check out www.amazon.com

jslopez

Well I'm not discounting books or training aids of any means and if it helps you then that's awesome. I just want to warn against turning into one of those guys (or gals) who are just well read on cycling but don't put the same time and effort in the actual riding. Not saying that's applicable here but I used to ride with someone who talked your head off on biking, has 1 bike for every room in his house (total of 7). Reads all the books, 2 computers perenially set on ebay, 16 spoke wheels (despite easlity being over 250 lb). Come our century he breaks a few spokes (kindly refer to weight and spoke count) and didn't finish and yet still talks people heads off.

Again that's a hop skip and a jump from the OP and a lot of people here but sometimes it's best to jsut start riding.