|
|
Motorcycles Book Store > Motorcycles books beginning with U
|
Urban Bikers' Tricks & Tips: Low-Tech & No-Tech Ways to Find, Ride, & Keep a Bicycle |
Author: Dave Glowacz
Published: 2004-04-01 |
List price: $14.95
Our price: $10.17
|
Usually ships in 24 hours
As of: March 10th, 2010 02:05:57 AM
|
|
|
Customer comments on this selection.
 useful, practical, delightful
Funny how the critical reviewers here understand which parts of this book are for them and which aren't, yet don't trust other readers to make such distinctions for themselves!
The book's author clearly labels the different riding styles and moves as "safe," "smart," "sly" or "danger." And he clearly explains who the "sly bikers only" moves are meant for. As you ride your bike, and as you read this book, you will easily determine which type of rider you are. And 95 percent of the tips in this book are for everyone, and will benefit you immensely. Oh, and there is one other tip that seems to bother some of the reviewers here: using your bike lock for self-defense if attacked. If those reviewers cannot even imagine a situation where you might have to defend yourself against a violent attacker, they have led charmed lives with inactive imaginations. For the rest of us, while we hope we will never be in such a situation, it doesn't hurt to have a plan for a possible defense. The author certainly does not recommend attacking anyone just for the heck of it. Quite the contrary. He offers many peaceful approaches to conflict, including handing out a printed list of bicyclists' rights, just riding away, or pretending to know the person and waving.
But the vast majority of this book's pages are noncontroversial and well worth serious study and reference. With diagrams, he shows how to get through all kinds of intersections and traffic situations. E.g., how to get around freeway exit ramps, how to get on and off sidewalks, how to get past attacking dogs, how to get through multilane intersections, when and how to make noise, etc etc. The sections on equipment are also invaluable. He shows how to do things cheap, even making your own powerful headlight system or your own fenders. The section on locks -- how to buy them, how to use them, where to lock your bike etc. -- is worth getting the book for in itself. But so are so many other sections.
Ultimately this book is a reflection of the author's love of bicycles and of his readers. It ranks with Portia Masterson's Bicycling Bliss: Riding To Improve Your Wellness and Robert Hurst's The Art of Cycling: A Guide to Bicycling in 21st-Century America as a masterpiece of bicycle literature.
 Practical, effective advice
This book contains a lot of practical advice about how to think about the space around you as you ride through a city. Please read the vehicular cycling nerds' reviews about how this information is "dangerous" and "misinformed" and then ignore their recommendation to buy Forester's weighty tome: the most important safety tool is your own experience, and the author makes sure to let you know that you're the one in control of your safety. Sure he covers skitching, but there's a lot of really useful advice about how to ride your bike in the city and not get killed, all without dressing up like a cross between a spandex comic book reject and a traffic control device and slowing traffic on the highway by pretending you're a car.
If you want practical advice from someone who has been there, this is your book. If you want preaching and theory, check out books on vehicular cycling.
URBAN BIKING SAFETY GUIDE
This book perfectly compliments "the Art of Urrban Riding" It has great information that will help you navigate crowded streets and intersections. It is an easy read and chicked full of common sense information. You will become a street smart rider after you take in what this book and Urban Riding have to offer up. You won't be disappointed.
 disappointing
Skip this book. There is not much valuable information, and a few too many bad suggestions. Additionally, text/page layout is cluttered and irritating to look at and try to glean what the author is actually trying to say. A waste of money.
Controversial but definitely worth it
Other reviewers have already touched on the more controversial tips, but on the whole this book is filled with practical and safe tips relating to clothing, bicycle security and commuting in general. Although it does illustrate behavior I would personally consider unsafe in most situations, I also feel it is written in such a way to offer them as an alternative approach alongside others. John Forester's overall attitude (less the bizarre opposition to bike lanes) is the correct one, but until most cities' traffic patterns, signals and roads are designed with bicyclists in mind, there will always be the occasional need to short-circuit the letter of the law in order to move traffic along and interact safely with automobiles. Obviously, this is where experience and judgment come into the situation, and no book is going to teach you how to stop acting like an idiot. The best it can do is make you think about your choices, and I believe "Urban Bikers' Tips & Tricks" does so, in spades.
|
Similar Listings
|
|
Our Motorcycles book picks:
|
|
Search the Motorcycles Products Store
LCS Amazon Store 3.0 © 2010
|
|
