BIKEmagic exclusive! Yep, we’ve only gone and done it again: beaten the competition to the first Christmas present review! This week we’re doing books; just the kind of thing relatives love to buy you instead of the Intense/Santa Cruz/Motor Home at the top of your list. So here are BIKEmagic’s opinions of three of latest crop of bike books on the market.

Cycling for fitness. Dave Smith.
140 pages, soft cover.
£13.99
ISBN 0-7136-5140-7

Dave Smith is a well-known coach and cycling journo so we expected any book by him to be a fairly safe option. This book is aimed predominantly at the non-cyclist who is considering taking up cycling as a means of improving their fitness, although that’s not to say there’s nothing here that more experienced riders couldn’t learn, or at least be reminded of.
The book starts with a chapter of definitions and lists reasons why you should take up regular exercise. It’s probably important that a novice should read all this, but anyone who’s read any other cycle coaching books will more than likely skip this section.

Things get more interesting in chapters 2 and 3, when the book shifts emphasis to cycling, giving advice on bike choice, gearing, sizing and the choice of other cycling essentials like helmets, tools etc.

The remainder of the book is dedicated to training and riding techniques. There’s a really good section in there on how to ride safely in traffic, which everyone could learn from. Most books of this kind ignore this topic, which is surprising as this is one of the major causes for concern for would-be cyclists.
The training advice is sensible, and although not revolutionary, would be a useful starting point for someone looking to start cycle training. The example weekly training plans are especially useful to a beginner as they as they start with very low volumes of training. There is also a chapter dedicated to training in preparation for competition and although the advice is good, there are loads of other books on the market that give this information in far more detail.

Overall, if you’re already a regular cyclist, this book might be good to buy as a present for a friend/partner/relative who you’re trying to encourage taking up cycling, but is probably a bit basic for your own needs. And anyway, if you give it away as a present, you can always steal it back at a later date to look at the interesting parts.

Mountain Bike Fitness Training, John Metcalfe
183 pages, hard back.
£14.99
ISBN 1-84018-424-8

Mountain Bike fitness training by John Metcalfe is one of the first books on the market (that I’ve seen at least) to address the fitness requirements of competitive mountain bikers. The book is aimed predominantly at cross country racers and downhillers but also includes good advice for ultra endurance riders and tourists.
The book covers every aspect of mountain bike training from developing a training programme and formulating a diet plan, to the more practical aspects of how to improve skill levels, cross training and how to measure one’s own fitness levels.
The section on fitness testing is quite comprehensive and most importantly, it’s feasible for the average rider. By way of example, Metcalfe has produced a questionnaire that he recommends be filled in after every race so that weak areas may be perceived and then worked upon in subsequent training. This is just the kind of thing that can really help the amateur racer to improve his or her performance and it is also just the kind of thing that you rarely find in such books.
The examples of training sessions are also really good: they are obviously designed specifically for mountain bikers rather than being lifted straight from a road race-training manual.
The section on how to organize a training year is also really useful. This is something that in my experience is often ignored by mountain bikers and this book covers it in greater depth and more coherently than many other books that are on the market.
If I have one criticism of the book it is that some information is given as gospel without reference to other sides of the argument. For example, Metcalfe describes a DIY test to determine one’s anaerobic threshold. The method he describes is known as the Conconi method; what he does not say is that this method has come under much criticism in coaching journals for being at best inaccurate and at worst, baseless.

Long Distance Cyclists Handbook, Simon Doughty
216 pages, soft cover.
£14.99
ISBN 0-7136-5819-3

I had hoped that this book would cover in some detail the growing number of trailquest style events that are cropping up on the calendar. Unfortunately it doesn’t, sticking to the more traditional no-nonsense long distance road events. That doesn’t mean that this book is of no use to a mountain biker, indeed most of the information is quite generic and could be applied to most aspects of cycle sport and as such is of use to any cyclist.
I found that the advice given as to how to prepare towards a super long distance event (the examples given are of 400km or 600km audax events) would be just as applicable to an event like the Red Bull 24hrs as it would be to a similar road event.
The advice on long distance touring is also really informative and obviously written by someone who has been there; advice is of the style of “what to pack”, “how to blend in” and “how to maintain your sanity when you’ve been in a foreign country, alone, for X months”. Perhaps this kind of stuff isn’t applicable to everyone but it still makes for an entertaining and informative read.
Personally, I can’t see why anyone would want to ride a bike for much more than 6 hours maximum, but then, a lot of people of obviously do, and if you are one of them (or even just considering giving it a go) this book would be a wise investment.