Richard's Bicycle Book.

After I wrote a post about books I'd been given for Christmas, a friend handed me a little collection of  1970's cycling books that her husband "thought I might be interested in". Well worn paperbacks, read and re-read with underlinings and annotations.

 "Closed-minded predictions that an optimum level of excellence has been reached in any field usually are soon reversed by wide-ranging human ingenuity. However, as of now the butted steel-tubed bike of standard diamond shape, brazed together with lugs,... is going to be hard to beat."

This slim collection of essays tells you every thing you would have wanted to know about bicycle frames in 1975, and a list of "currently active" US frame builders, compiled by "Bike World" magazine.

This one is a little less intense and is built around interviews with notable frame builders from around the world.

It's great if you want to know what Cino Cinelli though would be the racing bicycle of the future (26inch wheels, 180-185mm cranks, high bottom bracket and steep frame angles), or who did all the brazing at SCHWINN (Lucille and Wanda). There's always some dodgy advice of course...

"Never allow the tip of the saddle to be lower than the back of the saddle."

Certainly this guy disagrees, and he wrote the book...

Before there was sheldonbrown.com, there was "Richard's Bicycle Book". Richard was the son of publishers Ian and Betty Balantine of Balantine Books. I like to imagine his doting parents indulging their son's eccentric vanity project ... "we'll think of a proper name for it later"... only to be amazed when it turns into a classic, continuously selling, revised and updated since 1972.

It might not have been like that at all of course.

With two volumes in one, Book Two is a beautifully written guide to maintenance and repair featuring amazingly clear exploded diagrams of old derailleurs. Book One is a bunch of other stuff: history, tips, advice and opinion, featuring notorious and alarming instructions on how to kill a dog... "If this is too stark, then skip this section."

"Richard's Bicycle Book" has been updated several times and the current version "Richard's 21st Century Bicycle Book" is available everywhere. Ballantine was a notable cycling advocate, chair of the World Human Powered Vehicle Association, populariser of early mountain bikes and promoter of a certain style of assertive urban cycling that he called "traffic jamming". Enough good work to excuse that beard and jumper!

Sadly Richard Balantine passed away this week aged 72, survived by his wife, three children, two grand children and his mother Betty.

VALE, 29 May 2013.