Thursday, September 16, 2010

"The Lost Cyclist"

I actually had time to read and finish a book! It was a good one too. I just finished "The Lost Cyclist" by David Herlihy.

Its a historic non fiction tale during the 1890's of cyclists who bike around the world. This isn't 1990, its 1890. They just came out with the "safety" bicycle, or the standard shape of bicycle we use now. They were just phasing out the "standard" bicycle, or the high wheel.

I SO want to ride one of these!

After a pair succesfully rounds the globe on bicycles, including crossing the treacherous Gobi Desert in China, a young lad goes it alone, but unfortunately dissapears along the way, and a global search occurs to find him. Mind you, the telegraph was the quickest form of communication back then, and even then it took a day or two to get word across the world. This book is both a history lesson, but also includes a first hand account of signifigant events that occured back then. It also gave you an insight on what riding AND racing a bicycle was like back then.

Makes you want to travel back in time with your Cervelo and spank everyone and claim a World record! This is also a time when the car didn't exist and the United States was bicycle CRAZY. YOU were the fastest thing on wheels out on the road!

A good read!

7 comments:

  1. looks like a good read, going to have to check it out! Hope your foot is feeling better.....

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  2. now thats a cool bike!

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  3. I wish we were still bicycle crazy!

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  4. No cars = Cyclist bliss! Assuming we would still have roads that is? Or maybe we would all just ride MT bikes!

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  5. I saw someone riding a biking like the second picture at RAGBRAI. It was crazy!

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  6. Love Jeff's comment. ;)

    I need a bike.

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  7. Sounds good...will it inspire me to get on my bike more:) haha. Im having a hard time carving out any reading time!

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