Adventure Cycling Association Forum
Bicycle Travel => General Discussion => Topic started by: SwampYankee on October 22, 2021, 03:47:06 pm
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While touring this summer I read (listened to) a number of books on bike travel. Including On Roads That Echo by Charlie Walker - exceptional..because he told his story, not just a travel journal. Well done and kept you wondering what challenge and obstacle was next.
What's your favorite bicycle touring book and WHY?
Thanks, SY
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The classic Miles to Nowhere by Barbara Savage. Just a really good book.
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The classic Miles to Nowhere by Barbara Savage. Just a really good book.
Same here. I read it six times.
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I guess I need to reread Miles From Nowhere. I read it right after it came out 38 (!!!!!!!!!) years ago and my impression then was for a journey of global exploration and personal enlightenment, it sure seemed to written in a minor key. Hmph. It must be a classic; it's stayed in print all these years.
I really enjoyed The Boy Who Biked the World by Alastair Humphreys. The pages are filled with such a wide-eyed sense of joy.
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French Revolutions by Tim Moore. Highly amusing.
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I also enjoyed Miles From Nowhere, but I would have a hard time saying exactly why it is so good. Perhaps the tragic fate of its author adds to its mystique.
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Not a bicycle book but an adventure book based on a true story - South - Ernest Shackleton's story.
"In 1914, Ernest Shackleton set out on an 1,800-mile trek across Antarctica. During the three-year expedition, his team overcame shipwreck, treacherous glaciers, and a bitterly hostile climate. They faced the elements on this icy continent with extraordinary determination, resourcefulness, and courage. This account by one of Britain's greatest explorers is at once thrilling, harrowing, and inspiring."
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The one I am writing. Reading and rereading my journals. Likely, I will be the only audience, but it brings back echoes of the experience, and, often, new insights about the riding, the people, and, the author.
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I also enjoyed Miles From Nowhere, but I would have a hard time saying exactly why it is so good. Perhaps the tragic fate of its author adds to its mystique.
Does the book have a sad kind of an ending John?
I am ready to grab a copy but have gotta refrain from doing so if the ending is sad.
Thanks in advance for your hoped for update.
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What's your favorite bicycle touring book and WHY?
Though not a story or journal about touring ....
a thoroughly detailed* & well organized 'how to text.'
Why is it my favorite?
Cause it, more than any other information source,
enabled me to fully appreciate touring with the minimal self-inflicted : ) trials & errors.
I relish re-reading quickly thru it about once every 5 years to remind myself
of how much I have forgotten &/or still never knew!
Available from the Adventure Cycling Store:
https://www.adventurecycling.org/cyclosource-store/search-results/sp/essential-touring-cyclist/
*Full dislosure ~ It does not address current digital/internet-dependent gear.
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https://randomlygenerated.blogspot.com/2011/02/punch-to-gut.html (https://randomlygenerated.blogspot.com/2011/02/punch-to-gut.html)
Barbara was killed in a cycling accident shortly before the book’s publication; the story of Barbara and Larry Savage’s two-year, 25,000-mile, round-the-world bicycle adventure continues, however, to embrace a wide readership and to generate letters from readers who have come to know Barbara through her book. The author’s husband, Larry Savage, created this award in cooperation with The Mountaineers Books by donating royalties to encourage adventure writing in the genre of Miles from Nowhere.
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Cannery Row by John Steinbeck. Short enough for a one week tour and, well, it's Steinbeck.
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Loved his In Dubious Battle - pretty close to last year's current affairs
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I read this initially as Best book you've read about bicycle travel. English is hard.
In which case it would be 'You & a Bike & a Road' by Eleanor Davis. It's a sketch chronicle of her cross-country trip with some accompanying poignant text on notable encounters and wrestling with personal struggles. I thought she brilliantly and hilariously captures some of the banal experiences of touring, like life at the convenience store counter.
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The question in the post was:
What's your favorite bicycle touring book and WHY?
Thanks, SY
I do not see that the question limits the subject of the book, it asks "what is YOUR favorite bicycle touring book". When I read that I take it to mean what is MY favorite book to read while bike touring. Besides, I haven't written a bike touring book yet, so there are no books about bike touring that are mine. ;)
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Anne Mustoe's book "12,000 miles, a bike ride around the World" is one of my favourites, a wonderful writer. Any of Josie Dew's books and anything by Edward Enfield.
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My top 5, in no particular order, are as follows:
Going Somewhere Brian Benson
Life is a Wheel Bruce Weber
Over the Hills David Lamb
Just the Two of Us Melissa Norton
Across America by Bicycle Alice Honeywell & Bobbi Montgomery
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An atlas.
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Lands of Lost Borders by Kate Harris.
To give you a sense of her work, Kate has won two of Canada’s top literature awards.
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I've gotta go with the Chris Pountney trilogy. First read him as a journal on Crazy Guy, then he edited and published his travels in a series of three books. Witty and whimsical throughout, but also introspective and you experience him growing and maturing over time. And he gets you to think about what's important in life. He should be part of the bicycle touring canon.
-- Book One: No Wrong Turns
-- Book Two: Into the Sunrise
-- Book Three: Different Parts of Everywhere
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BikePacker, Don't let her death AFTER the ride was completed prevent you from reading it. It is just sad in that someone who wrote such a wonderful story back in the 80s? had such a tragic death. Her death has nothing to do with the story except you hear about it at the end.
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The Barbara Savage book (I just turned my head and there it is on my shelf) and Over the Hills by LA Times writer David Lamb The latter was truest to some of my own experiences, and spared us of the hubris. https://www.amazon.com/Over-Hills-Midlife-America-Bicycle/dp/0812925793
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I've read several books, the one I like the most was The Essential Touring Cyclist: A Complete Guide for the Bicycle Traveler, Second Edition by Richard Lovett. But I'll be honest, I learned more from the internet then I did from various books I've read including the one I mentioned that I liked!
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"Loved his In Dubious Battle - What are you, some kind of Communist? :D Great book by the way by truley one of Ameria's greatest authors. Like you say, so many of his works are just as relevnt today as when he wrote them. The Grapes of Wrath come to immudately to mind. Maybe, IMHO, the greatest modern American novel.
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"Loved his In Dubious Battle - What are you, some kind of Communist? :D Great book by the way by truley one of Ameria's greatest authors. Like you say, so many of his works are just as relevnt today as when he wrote them. The Grapes of Wrath come to immudately to mind. Maybe, IMHO, the greatest modern American novel.
Not a communist but a historian that has researched deeply the way the FDR administration turned this country from capitalism to socialism and how many soviet operatives were influencing war and peace policy towards Stalin. But I will end here as to not be political or hijack this thread.
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"Loved his In Dubious Battle - What are you, some kind of Communist? :D Great book by the way by truley one of Ameria's greatest authors. Like you say, so many of his works are just as relevnt today as when he wrote them. The Grapes of Wrath come to immudately to mind. Maybe, IMHO, the greatest modern American novel.
Not a communist but a historian that has researched deeply the way the FDR administration turned this country from capitalism to socialism and how many soviet operatives were influencing war and peace policy towards Stalin. But I will end here as to not be political or hijack this thread.
I agree, this post is not about politics, so let's not ruin this post with that crap, go over to the discussion part of the forum and post this nonsense, well, partial nonsense anyways.