Which are the best cycling books?

As is often my want, I'm starting with a caveat: I haven't read every single book on cycling so you can read this guide with a pinch of salt.
I have however, knocked off a good few of the books on cycling and have a hit list of others.

I'm not really a fan of the 'authorised biography' genre documenting the highs and dramatic lows of [insert name]'s career.

I always feel they're a bit self-serving and I just shy away from them. That said, I do have the Obree Flying Scotsman on my 'to read' list and thought Tyler Hamilton's The Secret Race was insightful enough to elevate it over the usual standards.

If you can find a copy of Paul Kimmage's Rough Ride, it provides an excellent warts and all view from inside the Peleton in the 80s and 90s which, coincided when I first took an interest in the sport so is especially vivid.

Perhaps less well known is the rather bitter polemic from the likeable former Festina soigneur, Willy Voet Breaking the Chain. Although short - you can knock this off in an afternoon - it shares the first hand realism of Rough Ride and is stark and uncomfortable as a result.

Of course, three of these books are essentially about the recent doping era a category which is not complete without reading David Walsh's From Lance to Landis. 

As I understand it this is pretty much the USADA case against Lance minus the testimony of peers. It all the stuff you've read about in the media: the back-dated scripts, make up over needle marks, shady meetings in car parks - all that stuff. If you've read this one don't bother with Walsh's Seven Deadly Sins as it's the same material.

A Dog in a Hat by former US pro Joe Parkin shares much of the same feelings as Kimmage's Rough Ride but has a much better title. Parkin comes across as a wholesome American kid struggling on in a blue collar Springsteen way. But its more than the cliche suggests. What really comes through is that the excitement and hope drawn from being part of a pro cycling team quickly evaporates into the drudgery of doing a job. A job which happens to involve riding a bike for much of the time.

Rather than the doping culture, this is the really sad theme that comes through for my as my romantic notions are cut off at the knees. Well worth a read.
At the opposite end of the scale is the Death of Marco Pantani by Matt Rendell. I whet my lips when i first picked a copy up in a second hand book shop in town for about 50p. However, trying to read it is as difficult as it would be for me to hold Pantani's wheel up Alpe d'Huez in his pomp. I just found it to be impenetrable and gave up after about four goes and 50 pages. I will try again one day.

William Fotheringham's biog of Merckx Half Man Half Bike is a very nice holiday type book with loads of great stories.  

Other than assorted histories of Le Tour and a few other bits and bobs, that's pretty much my library covered - I know there are many gaps - but as i said earlier, much of the output doesn't really interest me.

But anyway, here's my 'to read' list:

Tomorrow we ride - Louison Bobet
European Cycling - the 20 greatest races
Fallen Angel - Coppi (Fotheringham)
The Hour - Michael Hutchinson
Flying Scotsman - Obree
Escape Artist - Matt Seaton

10 mins with @peterwalker99

Guardian cycling blogger and all round good egg, Peter Walker was kind enough to answer a few questions I posed to him recently. All about cycling obviously. Here's what he had to say.

Do you get out on your bike much?

Most days to and from work. Sometime longer rides at weekend, but not as often as I'd like

What was your first and current bike(s)?

First bike - can't remember. Some kids' bike. 

Currently:

• a very practical Gazelle with basket & child seat
• a much less practical Planet X carbon-frame bike with flat bars for commuting
• a Klein road bike
• a Klein mountain bike

The greatest cyclist of all time is…

Graeme Obree

Do you think we've passed the tipping point for greater acceptance / participation in cycling in the UK?

Not yet, but we're getting there

What would your cycling utopia look like?

A bit like Vauban in Germany 

Do sportives encourage greater participation?

I think so. They give people something to train for, and thus gets them out on their bikes.

Dutchman clocks 83 mph on his bike!

Check out this guy - Sebastiaan Bowier - who is soon to be known around the globe as the flying Dutchman. He claims to have hit 83 mph on his bike which he's ensconced within a whale egg for aero reasons.
Rather makes Greame Obree's 56 mph record seem rather trivial.

Click on the egg

Fuel for cycling

Pop into your local bike shops and the chances are there will be a display stand somewhere holding a range of products which scream at you about their energy boosting or sustaining qualities.  Then there's the 'recovery' products too which, the helpful sales blurb tells us we should take to replace things we loose when we're riding.
There are gels, powders, liquids and chewy things mainly brightly coloured all wanting our attention.
I often wonder what people in 50 years time will think about these products.  I recall listening to a radio documentary about how attitudes toward bathing had changed.  It included an interview from the early 20th century with a guy who was convinced that bathing more than once per month would sap his strength - to our current sensibilities, those are the words off a mad man.
I recount it here as it shows that truth and knowledge are historical and open to change or as Nietzsche efficiently put it: "Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth." 
I cant help thinking that our current trend for consuming these dietary additives will too be seen as a quaint absurdity by the time the year 2100 rolls around.
So are we just being sold snake oil?  Well, I'm not a scientist but I can say that you can ride your bike for 6 hours at reasonable intensity, over the hills of the Peak District without having to use any of these uber-products.
If I was riding competitively and needed to 'accumulate marginal gains' then maybe these products are the way to go.  But I, like the 99.9 per cent of cyclists in the country, am not and can get by quite comfortably on bananas and water.  But yet it's me who feels the subtle pressure to buy into this stuff.

Graeme Obree famously fuelled himself on jam butties (sandwiches) and that's good enough for me.  I'm never going to ride a 3 week stage race, attempt the hour record or compete in a spring classic and, therefore, I don't need to buy any of that stuff to ride my bike.

Ride safe.