Adventure Touring Handbook
Neil and Harriet Pike
Trailblazer Publications £16
This is the fully revised and updated 320-page version of Stephen Lord's guide book for anyone planning (or dreaming) of embarking on a long-distance cycling adventure. With extensive and expansive guides on how to plan your adventure, what bike to choose, and what gear to take, the guide also has region-specific sections with practical information and touring tips for Europe, Asia, Australasia, Africa, and the Americas, with advice from people who have ridden in these places themselves.
Home Is Elsewhere
Eric van den Berg
The full title of this fascinating book is Home Is Elsewhere. Heinz Stücke: 50 years around the world by bike. Written by Dutch travel writer Eric van den Berg, this is a book of the story, photos and memoirs of German cycling vagabond Heinz Stücke, who left his village 50 years ago on his bike and simply kept cycling. 196 countries, 21 passports, 648,000 kilometres and over 100,000 photos later the 75 year old is still going - now on a British Brompton folding bike.
Janapar: Love on a Bike
Tom Allen
Tomsbiketrip.com £5 (Kindle)
This memoir tells how the now serial bike adventurer Tom Allen set off with his friends from rural England at the age of 23 to ride around the world. But it seems the only thing that really took Tom by surprise was not the hardship and petty squabbles of life on the road but finding love itself, with an Iranian-Armenian girl called Tenny. Tom has a great bike touring blog and two excellent guide books on the subject but this is the gripping story of a cycling adventure interrupted by the start of a whole different, and much bigger adventure altogether...
Pro Cycling on $10 a day
Phil Gaimon
VeloPress £8.81
This witty read is a great insight into professional cycling. Sub-titled 'From fat kid to Euro Pro', this is author Phil Gaimon's account of his implausible journey from a computer game playing couch potato to a fully-fledged professional road cyclist. Funny and frank, Gaimon describes how a virtually clueless amateur cyclist suddenly finds himself propelled into the pro ranks.
Cycling to the Ashes
Oli Broom
Yellow Jersey Press £9.99
Broom's book is the story of him jacking in his job and setting off to cycle 16,000 miles to the other side of the world. Ostensibly his goal is to get to Australia to watch England play the Ashes but really this is a story about seizing the day and setting off on a big adventure. On the way he nearly freezes in Bulgaria, sleeps with goats in Sudan, dodges traffic in India, and plays a lot of street cricket. Now that he's back, he'll also be writing for us in the near future!
Along the Med on a bike called Reggie
Andrew P Sykes
amazon.co.uk £10.99
Secondary school teacher Andrew Sykes puts his long summer holiday to good use in this follow up to his debut travelogue, Crossing Europe on a bike called Reggie by getting back on his faithful Reggie and riding from the southern tip of Greece to the Atlantic coast of Portugal. With a list of 'friends of friends' to visit along the way, Sykes rides the 6000km of Eurovelo route 8 through all the hot, sunny and colourful cultures and countries that border the Mediterranean.
Gironimo! Riding the Very Terrible 1914 Tour of Italy
Tim Moore
Yellow Jersey £14.99
The author of French Revolutions recreates history's most appalling bike race - the notorious 1914 Giro d'Italia, an ordeal of 400km stages through night storms and sabotage, all on a diet of raw eggs and red wine. Striving for authenticity, Moore rides it on a gearless, wooden-wheeled 1914 road bike. A treat.
