This is a brilliant, fascinating little paperback about a man's teenage cycling days and the sheer enjoyment and exhiliration to be had from racing bikes.
Charlie Woods was born in about 1938 and he recounts his upbringing in west London (around Acton or somewhere) and his days of cycling with his friends and, later, a cycling club. They went all over the place, up to the Chilterns on races - he calls them 'roars' - and down to Brighton.
Of course, they all used a proper "racing" bike; this means a mens racing cycle as opposed to the awful "mountain bikes" you see so much of these days. Mountain bikes are for... fucking mountains, not cycling on roads. If only all of these adults who buy mountain bikes realised how much easier their little journeys would be if they bought a proper fucking racing bike.
It's like asking someone about to embark on a journey up the M1 motorway to the north: what would you prefer? An Aston Martin or a tractor? Would you drive up the M1 in a tractor? A mountain bike is for cycling across fields, cross country on rough, unpaved tracks and open countryside. NOT for cycling around town.
I cycled down to Budleigh Salterton at the weekend, as usual, and on my Claude Butler
San Remo racing bike it was effortless. Indeed, the person I went with was on a mountain bike and I constantly had to stop every five minutes to wait for them to catch up.
Anyway, Charlie Woods is a very skilled, accomplished writer. Bikie is very philosophical in its treatment of cycling; he sees it as a sort of zen past-time, one where the repetitive motion of turning pedals with one's feet and legs is entrancing, leading to a higher consciousness. And he is right. Absolutely. I experience it every time on my long (35 miles) trips to the coast and back.
