Cycling Books
Cycling Books 自転車の本
Books on Cycling - Kyoto & Japan & Beyond
CycleKyoto recommends some of the best books on cycling, Kyoto, and a bit more.
Below is a list of books related to cycling and Japan. This list is inconsistent, illogical, and ecumenical.
Crap Cycle Lanes: 50 Worst Cycle Lanes in Britain
The title speaks for itself. In places, it is hysterically funny.
Japan: 6,000 Miles on a Bicycle Jitensha
This is a journey through the rice fields and concrete jungles of Japan.
Poet Leigh Norrie rode Japan for six months and 10,000 kilometers through every prefecture. The book is a travelogue that documents the struggles and daily banality, and the many people he meets along the way.
It's All About the Bike: The Pursuit of Happiness On Two Wheels
This book should be on every cyclist's book shelf. Robert Penn is a serious bicycle traveler. He has logged some 25,000 miles on a bike. Now entering middle age, he is in search of the "perfect" bicycle.
Penn seeks out craftsmen and parts, skill and components to have a bespoke bicycle built for him.
"I want a bike that shows my appreciation of the tradition, lore and beauty of bicycles."
En route, he takes the reader on a trip through history, beginning with the 1817 Draisine.
All About the Bike is a wonderful book, full of facts, quotes, information, and illustrations.
Down the Japanese Archipelago on a Bicycle
Donald R. Schlief rode around much of Japan, and has the book to prove it.
Adventure Cycle-Touring Handbook, 2nd: Worldwide Cycling Route & Planning Guide
Author Stephen Lord has written a manual on how to go about planning and riding the Big Trip, be it the Karakoram Highway, Tibet, or Patagonia. Very useful.
The Cyclist's Manifesto: The Case for Riding on Two Wheels Instead of Four
Robert Hurst has penned a manifesto. If you are an urban cyclist, you are among the converted to whom he so eloquently preaches. If not - if you drive a combustion-engine automobile, beware: your worldview may diverge very sharply from Hurst's. Excellent.
Bicycle Diaries
Former Talking Head frontman, current bike advocate, David Byrne has penned a mystical diary of his rides in many locales. Fascinating.
The Rough Guide to Japan (Rough Guides)
As always with Rough Guides, you get a quality easy to use guide..
It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life
Lance Armstrong's ghost-written biography is worth a read, whatever your suspicions about doping.
Full Tilt
Dervla Murphy's amazing, amazing book. She rode from Ireland to India and documents it all in a readable entertaining style.
Bicycle
David V. Herlihy has done all of the cycling world a brilliant service: this tome is encyclopedic in scope. To quote the New Yorker: "Herlihy portrays the men who pioneered this gravity-defying wonder; they worked in near-obscurity, lit by the Industrial Age's spirit of invention, the capitalist impulse, and the utopian hope that the bicycle would "take men away from the gambling rooms and rum shops, out into God's light and sunshine."
Major
A wonderful biography of an American pro track rider in the early 1900s. The rider himself was an African-American in a deeply racist time and place. Fascinating.
Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists Are Changing American Cities
Jeff Mapes rides and documents his way around the US with a detour to Holland. Unlike Europe and Japan - where cycling is more practical than political - in the US the act of riding a bicycle by an adult bicycle is a political statement. Mapes travels to Amsterdam, Portland, Davis (California), San Francisco, and New York, and other places and documents the state of cycling and regional cycling cultures.
The Art of Urban Cycling: Lessons from the Street
This book is part manual, part history, and part passing down of wisdom from someone who has been there. Robert Hurst, former bike messenger, goes into the details of how to ride safely and well and the urban American environment. Very helpful.
Bicycle Repair
A great book for those who want to tinker on their bikes.