Cycling For Sport

Description

This title deals with mountain bikes, free riding and sportive races. This is the ultimate visual guide to moving up a gear: the challenges of off-road and on-road cycling in over 230 step-by-step photographs. This is an informative guide to training and taking part in sportive rides and mountain bike events, offering expert advice for cyclists who want the challenge of speed and competition. Full of practical information on the preparation needed to build up to basic fitness, it provides professional tips on choosing a bike, equipment and the training programmes that ensure success. This is a guide to the thrills and spills of trail riding, racing and multi-day events, and to the world's most inspirational sportive and mountain bike venues, their routes and the pitfalls. More than 230 photographs inform and inspire. The great sportives of the world such as Cape Argus, Gran Fondo Gimondi and Milan - San Remo are outlined in detail - the difficulties of the rides and the tactics that will help you win. Sportive events are the equivalent of marathon running, in which cyclists are involved in a personal fight to ride long distances. Mountain biking can be fast and furious, although always fun. There are many variations, from trail riding and four-cross to slalom and dirt-jump riding. More than 230 evocative photographs illustrate the bikes and equipment, the skills, the great races and training techniques. This volume is the essential guide for any cyclist who wants take their performance to the next level on a sportive or mountain bike.

Author description

Edward Pickering is an experienced racing, sportive, leisure and commuting cyclist and journalist who works for Cycling Weekly and Cycle Sport magazines. He has also written for various cycling publications, including the Lance Armstrong souvenir magazine, and for the New York Times. He specializes in the coverage of international road racing, and has followed and reported on eight Tours de France, as well as most of the other major races. He discovered cycling at the age of five, and then rediscovered it at the age of 16, since when he has cycled and raced on three continents.