Just wondering if anyone in the ng had read this book by Barbara Savage.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0898861098/
After scouting a potential bike route out in the country north of the city,
we decided to stop by Barnes&Noble and when I spotted this title while
perusing the bicycling section, it looked like it might be a neat
travelogue, similar to the great touring stories at crazyguyonabike.com
Boy was I ever wrong. Though I only spent about 30 minutes browsing it at
the table while we had coffee, I almost feel as if (mostly joking here)
I've been traumatized for life!
***spoilers***
Why? Well it appears to be just one horror story after another about being
run off the road in Florida, hit by a truck in India, living in fear of
attack by bandits in Thailand, and contracting dysentery. To top it off,
you learn that while the book was still in printing at the pubishers, she
died of head injuries sustained riding when she was hit by a truck back
home in California.
How so many reviewers on Amazon thought this was a wonderful humorous
accounting of biking the world, I don't know - every excerpt I came upon
randomly scanning appeared to be more horrific than the next. When she
starts recounting the story of a freak accident in southeast asia and says
she saw her husband and riding partner's head run over by the front wheel
of a truck, I stopped reading.
I wonder if some of their problems wrt traffic weren't caused by lack of
effecting cycling skills. Most of the problems in Florida with the
countless near-misses seem to stem from their dogged practice of hugging
the right edge of the road and not taking the lane where needed.
Not knowing when to alter their route, they rode nearly 60 miles on a road
with no shoulders in white-knuckled terror, diving off their bikes onto the
shoulder when trucks bore down on them, and ending up spending the night in
the hotel shaking in fear.
While there might have been some good spots, I'd have to give this one a
full "Five Darwin's" up! ;-)
jj