|
|
 |
Cycling Facts And Feats, Jeremy Evans (1996)
Guinness Publishing 0 85112 677 4 Octo 192 £13.99
A surprising treasure trove of information packaged as an adolescent
gift book
 
|
This title was one of four that Guinness publishing - they of the World
Records - published in the mid 1990s. The intention, clearly, was to create
sport-specific books that exploited the company's reputation. Not a very
promising prospect - but this is a book full of surprises.
Of course there are lists of winners of the great tours, and the classics
- but there is a good deal more besides. The book gets underway with an
18 page timeline of cycle development that is a distracting miscellanary
in itself. Reynolds 531 was introduced in 1935 (the digits refer to the
proportions of its constituent metals) for example; there's a note about
the German Nazi Party's 'Day of the German Cyclist' in 1933 and, Britain's
first segregated cycleways were built in Stevenage in 1946 in the teeth
of stiff opposition from the CTC.
Thereafter follows some lengthy lists of race results - but they are
leavened with tons of supporting information and stories. The events covered
are also very catholic - British time trialling gets a decent mention,
as do women's events. There is space for results from the Paris-Brest-Paris,
the Commonwealth Games, cyclo cross and mountainbiking. There is even
space to give the Guinness seal of approval to Nick
Sauder's 170-mile-a-day round the world ride in 1985.
Today - 13 years after publication - it is still a great book for the
smallest room in any cyclist's home - and a handy reference if you are
compiling a club quiz night.
PS Oct 09
|
Bookmark this on Delicious
Follow the site!
Join our list we will let you known when new reviews
are added to the site. We will never share your email address with
third parties.
tim@timdawsn.demon.co.uk
You can also follow us on Facebook
|
Visit our sister site
for dispassionate, expert advice on general cycling
issues
|
How this site is organised
As reviews are added, they are featured on the
front page. All titles are listed in the master index and cross-referenced
in the other indicies.
The subject line contains the title, author and
date of each book's publication. As a general rule, we list the
date of the actual edition that we read, unless there is an obvious
reason to use the original date (say where we read a reprint).
The first line of the main text contains the name
of the publisher, the ISBN
number, where it exists, an indication of the book's
size and the number of printed pages that it contains. Finally,
where it is clear, I list the published price of the work in the
currency that is most prominently displayed.
We summarise the book in a single sentence or two
in the next line. The rest of the review is then intended as a self-contained
piece.
|
|
