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Bike!: A Tribute to the World's Greatest Cycling Designers
Large Hardcover
- GenresCycling
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
About the author
Richard Moore
17 books67 followersRichard Moore is a freelance journalist and author. His first book, In Search of Robert Millar (HarperSport), won Best Biography at the 2008 British Sports Book Awards. His second book, Heroes, Villains & Velodromes (HarperSport), was long-listed for the 2008 William Hill Sports Book of the Year.
He is also the author of Slaying the Badger: LeMond, Hinault and the Greatest Ever Tour de France (Yellow Jersey, May 2011), and Sky’s the Limit: British Cycling’s Quest to Conquer the Tour de France (HarperSport, June 2011).
His latest book, The Dirtiest Race in History: Ben Johnson, Carl Lewis and the 1988 Olympic 100m final, will be published by Wisden Sports Writing in June, 2012.
He is also a former racing cyclist who represented Scotland at the 1998 Commonwealth Games and Great Britain at the 1998 Tour de Langkawi.
He is also the author of Slaying the Badger: LeMond, Hinault and the Greatest Ever Tour de France (Yellow Jersey, May 2011), and Sky’s the Limit: British Cycling’s Quest to Conquer the Tour de France (HarperSport, June 2011).
His latest book, The Dirtiest Race in History: Ben Johnson, Carl Lewis and the 1988 Olympic 100m final, will be published by Wisden Sports Writing in June, 2012.
He is also a former racing cyclist who represented Scotland at the 1998 Commonwealth Games and Great Britain at the 1998 Tour de Langkawi.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 21, 2014
This has flashes of being a great book on racing bicycles, but often disappoints.
It consists of many short entries on a series of famous brands. They might be bike manufacturers (Bianchi, Flandria, etc) or component makers (Reynolds, SRAM, etc). There's also the occasional special two-page spread for more detail: such as Coppi's 1952 Bianchi after the chapter on Bianchi.
That's all good, an accompanied by plenty of fine illustrations. But the whole is let down by poor execution.
For a start, the number of contradictions within the text shows sloppy proof reading. Within two or three pages you can read three different start dates for some companies. Are any of them correct?
The editors also made a lazy (non-)decision about units of measurement: everything is listed in both miles and kilometres. This makes for awful reading in sections where four or five racing distances are listed in the one sentence.
Further, for a book about classic cycling brands, I think it was a poor decision to include some 'up to date' recent technology - poor because they aren't classics. The spread on Mark Cavendish's Specialized Venge just reads like a press announcement from three years ago.
I enjoyed this book, but I don't trust it as a source of information. Hence, two stars.
It consists of many short entries on a series of famous brands. They might be bike manufacturers (Bianchi, Flandria, etc) or component makers (Reynolds, SRAM, etc). There's also the occasional special two-page spread for more detail: such as Coppi's 1952 Bianchi after the chapter on Bianchi.
That's all good, an accompanied by plenty of fine illustrations. But the whole is let down by poor execution.
For a start, the number of contradictions within the text shows sloppy proof reading. Within two or three pages you can read three different start dates for some companies. Are any of them correct?
The editors also made a lazy (non-)decision about units of measurement: everything is listed in both miles and kilometres. This makes for awful reading in sections where four or five racing distances are listed in the one sentence.
Further, for a book about classic cycling brands, I think it was a poor decision to include some 'up to date' recent technology - poor because they aren't classics. The spread on Mark Cavendish's Specialized Venge just reads like a press announcement from three years ago.
I enjoyed this book, but I don't trust it as a source of information. Hence, two stars.
April 4, 2013
There is a risk that, at first glance, this could simply be labelled a "coffee table book" due to the stylish photography and eye catching design. However this is one of those rare occasions where the content of the text matches, and surpasses, the visual impact. This will come of no surprise to anyone who is aware of the work of Richard Moore or Daniel Benson, both of who contribute to the book. There can be the temptation when writing about some of the most influential and beautiful pieces of engineering to dwell too much on the technical side that can befuddle the non-expert, but there is a clear balance achieved here- enough to keep the tech-heads happy but also not enough to alienate those who don't know their Reynolds from their Campagnolo.
The teams and personalities are all here, but generally this is (to borrow from a reader discredited tome!) all about the bike, and how two wheels and some tubing can be combined to create emotive, history making machines that can deal with the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix or the Mortirolo.
The teams and personalities are all here, but generally this is (to borrow from a reader discredited tome!) all about the bike, and how two wheels and some tubing can be combined to create emotive, history making machines that can deal with the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix or the Mortirolo.
October 27, 2012
A fantastic coffee table book with chapters for all of the major and significant bike and compost manufacturers.
For all the major tour and classics winners it has detailed descriptions of the bikes and components that they used, and lots of photographs.
If you have any interest in cycling then you should read this book.
For all the major tour and classics winners it has detailed descriptions of the bikes and components that they used, and lots of photographs.
If you have any interest in cycling then you should read this book.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews