Richard Sachs stands as an icon. He also breaks conventions as an iconoclast. He likes to say, “I didn’t want to be a framebuilder. I became one.” This phrase neatly captures the serendipity that shaped his career: a young man who intended to become a writer ended up becoming one of America’s most revered builders of the most finely wrought handmade bicycles in America.
Winter can be kind of rough for cyclists sometimes, at least for those who don’t have a winter sport that gets them outside. Winter can also be a good season for a little downtime, to either recover from the year’s efforts, or to take your mind off the mind-numbing chore of riding a trainer indoors. As a fan of cycling as a sport, along with its history, I am constantly seeking out new books to read, and I know that others may do the same. As such, I am pleased to present the 2019 version of A Cyclist’s Winter Reading List.
Few athlete memoirs are well-written, and fewer still are written by women athletes. That The Breakaway: my story, by retired Welsh cyclist Nicole Cooke, is both means that the time it takes to read it is definitely well-spent.
When I first read the description of BIKE MECHANIC: TALES FROM THE ROAD AND THE WORKSHOP, I anticipated a quick read filled with profiles of team mechanics and humorous anecdotes of life on the road and the daily grind of cleaning and repairing bikes during the Tour de France.
If you don’t already have this book, then you need to get this book.
Over the years, I’ve collected a nice little library of books on the sport of cycling, but one thing was missing is a section on cyclocross. That changed in 2012.
