Well, perhaps not. But a friend gave me a copy of "The Complete Book of
Bicycling" by Eugene A. Sloane. The copyright date is 1970, and I think
this book functioned as a handbook for riding for bike boomers in much
the same way as James Fixx's jogging book did for joggers.
However, I'm not sure he did less harm than good. Excepts from the often
informative book:
Chapter 2 covers "Practical Tips for Bicycling Safely." Mr. Sloane
avoids some of the worst possible failings, but on p. 21, offers some
mysterious advice:
"Never ride on a city street where parking is not allowed!"
This seems to reflect urban design of the time (such roads would be fast
commuter chutes) rather than complete wrong-headedness.
but the next point is to ride where parking is allowed because, "traffic
is supposed to allow from thirty to thirty-six inches...to allow for the
doors of parked cars to open easily...thirty inches will be all you
need."
Followed immediately by "Watch out for car doors opening ahead of you
when riding on streets with parked cars!"
Apparently, Sloane wants us to ride in the door zone. The chapter
continues on with some fairly random-sounding libels against the driving
abilities of suburban housewives and older drivers, later followed by a
tale of Sloane's only traffic accident, in which he ran into the back of
a parked car because he was looking down at the connection of his
electric socks.
I am not making that up.
I don't want to trash the entire book. He's got some good advice about
looking out for storm grates, which especially at the time, often came
with straight bars, great for wheel-bending.
Chapter 5, on how to ride a bicycle, starts with nearly two pages,
including a diagram, on ankling. Oh dear.
The chapter on bike racing has a brief discussion of drugs in cycling,
which suggests some curious theories about drug-tolerance, and alludes
to the death of Tom Simpson without naming him.
Surprisingly, the history section seems pretty good, describing both the
political and performance landmarks of the early sport. One thing he
points out that I hadn't thought of was that when Mile-a-Minute Murphy
set his rail-paced record, no car was able to beat his speed for a
decade.
In the section on bike components, Sloane falls prey to the then-current
sentiment that centre-pull brakes were superior to side-pull.
There's a fair number of illustrations and photographs throughout. It
might be a worthwhile addition to a bike book collection for those
pictures alone, which range from contemporary to quite historic indeed.
--
Ryan Cousineau [email hidden] http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos