Product Description

Offering clear explanations and practical applications for cutting edge science, this book details critical performance issues for both road and mountain biking. The scientific justification for equipment positioning and training decisions is expained, illuminating the human-technology interface.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #132603 in Books
• Published on: 2003-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 328 pages

Customer Reviews

Technical
This is not an easy read on the whole. It's basically a collection of technical articles about cycling, and one or two of the articles verge on requiring an engineering degree to fully appreciate them. For example, there is a chapter on avoiding knee injuries which in fact consists of details of a study done on the effects of different pedal types on the various stresses on the knee joint which occur during cycling. My favourite chapter was the one on choosing equipment, which goes into great detail about the comparative effects of air resistance versus rolling resistance, and includes advice on the best position for your water bottle(!) A lot of the information is things that cyclists intuitively know in any case. For example, it apparently helps to draught behind another rider, or better in a group, or best of all behind a lorry. Well cheers, I didn't need a man with a clip board and a slide rule to tell me that. Indeed, the chapter on pedalling cadence effectively bows to the greater knowledge of the experienced cyclist and ends up saying, "Well if you interpret the results of the various studies this way then they don't look so bad." And finally, I felt the book may be a little out of date. It was only published in 1996, but at the end of each article is a section titled "Directions for Future Research" and you get the feeling that in some cases this research will have already been done. At bottom though there is some useful information in this book, and I quite enjoyed reading it. Other chapters include information on suspension, the effects of body size, nutrition and gym workouts.