Improve Your Riding With a Good Book

I like books. Whenever I start a new hobby, I buy books. Bicycling wasn't any different.

When I started mountain biking, it was pretty obvious I had a lot to learn regarding technique. I didn't know how to climb steep hills or maneuver through rock gardens, and the only advice I was given was "ride more." Well, that advice really doesn't work. The following are the books in my collection.



Mountain Bike Magazine's Complete Guide To Mountain Biking Skills was the first cycling book I bought. It was a fun and easy read. I would read a chapter, visualize what I was reading, and then go try it on the trail, with few exceptions. I've attempted a wheelie, but that ended in disaster and I haven't tried since.

I highly recommend this book for beginner mountain bikers and for those that don't got skills. For the men who would like to encourage their girlfriends or wives to ride, this an excellent book to give as a gift. It will take a lot of stress out of learning how to ride because the very important unspoken information is in the book. It really will make climbing and technical riding easier.

I like to think of Bicycling Magazine's Complete Book of Road Cycling Skills as the roadie companion to Mountain Biking Skills. It is set up the same way and has short, easy reading articles. What is great about this book is that it doesn't only have articles pertaining to fit, skills, and racing, but it includes men and women only chapters containing many of those embarrassing to ask questions.

This book is geared toward roadies, but it contains lots of great information for all riders. It serves as a great compliment to the Complete Guide to Mountain Biking Skills.

My riding partner lent me Ned Overend's Mountain Bike Like a Champion. I'm still reading this book. I recommend this book for someone who has been riding for a few months. It is a great read after the Complete Guide to Mountain Biking Skills as it just seems to be written on a more experienced level. Not surprising, and quite enjoyable.

Ned goes more in depth about basic and advanced skills and gives information about racing and training as well. What I found quite enjoyable about this book are Ned's anecdotes and his admissions that he isn't particularly good at everything, at least not in his mind. It's refreshing to learn from such a great rider that it's ok not to be able to master everything. Just do what you can.

When I joined the Red Jacket – BlueSky Health Racing Team, I decided it was time to get a training book. I didn't get the one that everyone recommended, because it just didn't speak to me at the time. After about an hour sitting on the bookstore floor and thumbing through some cycling books, I purchased The Lance Armstrong Performance Program after much thought.

This book has a lot of great training information including riding programs and goal-specific workouts to include in your training. It is full of Lance experiences and tactics and is quite inspirational. If your training program is lacking something, this may be just the book you need for a little inspiration and a lot of great ideas.

National Bike Month tip of the day: buy a bicycling book for inspiration and skill improvement.