Given that this sport has a history, an ethos and its own heroes why does it not have any good books written about it?

I ask this as I have just finished feet in the clouds about fell running, a minority sport (well of sorts) and was drawn in, really was. All the time I thought this must exist for mountain biking, and then this should exist for mountain biking!

Steve Peats documentory is a good start, I really liked it and its a good video representation of what I am looking for.

So, have I missed anything? Is the book I want out there, or are any journalist types planning on or writing one?

This could be really important for documenting the early stages and development of the sport (and its sub divisions) and fostering interest and its continued growth in light of road cycling really being on the up at the moment, at least in this county.

Any thoughts or views?

http://www.ukmtbhalloffame.com/

That’s nice ta, they really should think about putting it into a book when the projects a little more complete.

I suppose compared to adventurous touring or something like the RAAM or big self-supported races, there’s not a lot in mountain biking that would make a book of interest to more than a few mountain bikers. The Cranes ‘Bicycles Up Kilimanjaro’ is good, but what most see as MTB currently isn’t really book material, it’s a 3 min youtube clip. Klunkerz documented the early days well, could make a good book? Well, of interest to a few anyway.

My personal theory is that mountain biking has developed largely in a digital age and has embraced a visual rather than a literary culture – endless derivative video, photography etc. What writing there is tends to be magazine stuff and consequently both relatively short and ephemeral, though some of it is good, it’s all in bite-sized pieces.

Mike Davies has published his stuff from Privateer as a Kindle edition and it’s very readable btw, though not quite Touching The Void epic.

Not only that, a lot of the visual culture we’ve developed is proper moron stuff – I actually walked out of ‘Not Bad’ because the introductory sequence showing a bunch of (adult) mountain bikers goofing about like drunken teenagers before all the stereotyped big jump stuff. Maybe there’s a clue there, maybe the nature of mainstream mountain biking simply isn’t very cerebral.

It’s sad really, road cycling has a rich literary culture as does climbing and mountaineering, but mountain biking seems in a rut of ‘awesome edits’.

I’m still waiting for an awesomely well written and beautifully photographed coffee table volume of the world’s greatest trails, a sort of Classic Rock for mountain bikers.

Classic Rock for mountain bikers.

I had this vision for road bike routes when I published my book last year, I desperately want to do the same for MTB but you cannot believe the time and dedication it needs.

Agree with Badly Wired Dog and also think the sport is still relatively new… Am working on the Classic Rock for Mountain Bikers though…

DavidB – Member
Classic Rock for mountain bikers.
I had this vision for road bike routes when I published my book last year, I desperately want to do the same for MTB but you cannot believe the time and dedication it needs.

Actually I can – you’d have to not only ride every single route, but also arrange the photography – on perfect days preferably – and be (ideally) a brilliant writer with time to burn. And then you’d have to sell the idea to a publisher.

What’s your road bike book called btw? (Can that, I just clicked on your profile. I enjoyed Obsessive Compulsive Cycling Disorder btw – it rang various bells… 🙂 )

And where is the mountain biking poetry?

I’m not sure you could write all that much of an engaging book about MTBing…

Magazines sort of write themselves: Here’s some kit and bikes (25%) here’s some rides you might like (15%) Here’s a bit about some racing/events (10%) here’s some adverts for shiny things (50%) and Tada! you’ve written an issue of MBR/MBUK!

But a book needs to be a contiguous story, have some thread that keeps the reader engaged and wanting to read the whole thing, what would you write about?

I could possibly see an account of a big bikepacking/adventure biking tour, That might be interesting, I’d not want to read an XC or DH rider’s autobiography TBH, maybe a book covering the broad history of the mountain bike, but it’s still pretty early days IMO, I’m not sure you’d fill that many pages, give it another 25 years…

Then again, differnt people like different subjects…

There was a thread recently about the lack of riders out on the Lakes trails. Yet if you go to a trail centre they are packed out. If climbing was like this: climbing walls packed out and only a few on the outdoor crags then I doubt that you’d have much of a literary heritage from climbing/mountaineering. Feet in the Clouds was mentioned – that’s one of a very small number of fell running books and the best seller by a long, long way, print runs of some of the other “classics” are/were in the order of a couple of thousand at most. So that’s from a sport that has been going for over a hundred years.

I wonder if the self-supported adventure style races might start to produce some literature though even here blogs and the like are the media of choice for participants to share their experiences. Perhaps it’s just the feeling that there’s not much new to discover/do which is why you get the “first man/woman to cycle from Lands End to John o’ Groats with a flat tyre” style of claims.

The sport isn’t that old really, the majority probably know the history inside and out. Even the characterfull big money years of DH probably aren’t much more interesting than an episode of “sun, sean and A&E” type TV, just a load of lads on tour getting drunk. Great fun, but not book worthy.

Disregarding travel guides, there are two viable approaches at the moment IMO…

1. The Klunkerz movie in print form basically, fascinating stories, interesting characters and loads of material. End it in the early 1990s maybe.

2. A history of DH racing, the only existing strand of the sport with a wide and growing fanbase plus the possibility of appeal to a broader audience if focused on interesting and contrasting characters like Palmer, Voullioz, Giove, Warner etc.

1. The Klunkerz movie in print form basically, fascinating stories, interesting characters and loads of material. End it in the early 1990s maybe.

Richard’s Mountain Bike Book?:

A very good read.
Would be nice to see an update.

And where is the mountain biking poetry?

And the Haiku, we need more Haiku!

rain clouds replace sun
bicycle ridden up hill
soul cries in silence

What’s your road bike book called btw?

Great British Bike Rides

We need to lobby Mr Warner to write a book.

The race culture in mountain biking is really fairly shallow compared to road riding so I can’t see that working very well as a subject. There’s probably scope for reflective writing along the lines of The Old Ways or expedition journals along the lines of mountaineering books or say Mark Beaumont’s books – but do people really identify either of those as reflecting their idea of mountain biking?

I rather like that mountain biking isn’t really book material. It’s just dicking about on bikes in the mud, after all.

A history of DH racing, the only existing strand of the sport with a wide and growing fanbase plus the possibility of appeal to a broader audience if focused on interesting and contrasting characters like Palmer, Voullioz, Giove, Warner etc.

Is #Enduro not the currently the best example of a “strand of the sport with a wide and growing fanbase plus the possibility of appeal to a broader audience”? and again, I can’t see much of a book being written about that either just yet…
DH is established now but it’s only really getting into it’s third generation or so of Racers, and as already pointed out a lot of it’s “growing up” as a sport has been done during the digital (Video & Photographic) age…

Road cycling is very different, over 100 years of history to draw on, wider appeal outside of the cycling community, an angle can be found to engage non-cyclists, I struggle to explain the appeal of DH to many of my work colleagues who ride bikes, the odd M/C racer might get it but TBH it seldom actually appeals.

Is #Enduro not the currently the best example of a “strand of the sport with a wide and growing fanbase plus the possibility of appeal to a broader audience”?

Enduro is growing quickest for participation no doubt, but there’s not much history to write about and it’s a nightmare for TV coverage. Do non-enduro-riding MTBers follow it like non-DHers watch the DH world cups?

(sneaks off to pitch idea for “My First Big Book Of Enduro” to Ladybird)

Rock climbing does attract people who write bad poetry and prose.
Something to do while sat on a belay stance for hours, I suppose.

God, even I’m doing it now.

Not sure that MTBing has that same kind of wishy-washy subset, though, or the sense of breaking ground adventure that makes books such as Hard Rock so popular.

I’ve read books on windsurfing, surfing and skateboarding. Some are ok, none are great. Feet in the clouds is a great book as are many of the climbing books out there, touching the void etc. I think some sports just make for good story telling. I could see how the road race seen could make for a good story given the level of competition and underhand tactics etc but MTB is just to dull or to niche depending on where you chose to look.

I’m sure that someone posted on here that they had an early years book being released in October? I thought I had posted in the thread but can I find it?

I suppose I’m being a bit harsh, I mean Just how much Merit does a book’s subject need in order to get published?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fat-Tire-Flyer-Repack-Mountain/dp/1937715167

out next month
Charlie Kelly’s book
Looks like its going to be great
If there is enough interest Charlie said on Facebook he would try to sort out some way of buying signed copies direct

Repack_rider, hopefully you will pop on here again and read this, and see there would be the interest

that book of Charlies will be worth buying and reading.

thing is with mountainbiking is there are too many branches.
racing, bivibiking, dh, mtbo, endurance.
and not many folk will have done all the lot. if a certain Mr Tomac put pen to paper, that would make a good read.

We’re all illiterate, every fule no a book about mountain biking would gather dust on shelves.

We’re doers, not readers. We’re the sort of dynamic and carefree sould who’d make a Pot noodle without reading the instructions. Mad, bad and dangerous to know.

(I’m typing this slowly because I know none of us are fast readerers.)

mountain biking seems in a rut of ‘awesome edits’.

along the lines of mountaineering books or say Mark Beaumont’s books – but do people really identify either of those as reflecting their idea of mountain biking?

MTB covers a lot. It’s a lot more than ‘edit content’ riding to me anyway. Shredding some lines on an enduro rig etc isn’t really the stuff of books unless you’ve lived the life of Peaty. Jill Homer has written very well about ultra-endurance racing and there’s touring books that I’d class as off-road/MTB stuff. The Divide, Idita etc, may be ‘epic’ but it’s just not Doug Scott crawling down the Ogre with broken legs or a Boardman + Tasker tale. Climbers just have better stories to tell. There’s a Swedish guy (not Goran Kropp.. but I forget his name now) who rode across the Changtang alone over 19 days a few years ago, that has more of the ‘alpinist’ kind of approach, his rides would make good reading.
And I wonder what ‘Crane brothers’ kind of challenges lightweight bikepacking approaches might open up in the next few years. People do pack-rafting, why not accept more hike-a-bike as part of covering ground? 3 of us did that in the Alps a couple of years ago and it’d be very different to try it in the Karakorum or similar.

that book of Charlies will be worth buying and reading.

Agreed.

I do like the idea of series like “Classic Rock”, “Hard Rock” about off road cycling

The essays were written by a number of people. I don’t think the photos were shot for the book

Not quite what the OP is after but does cover some mountain biking (amongst other sports) but above all is a good read:

Can I offer up mint sauce? A collated volume of all the strips can’t be far off what you were thinking?

this bloke could write some awesome cycling books…….but not all offroad.

Maintenance page

i like reading all cycling books except racing stuff.
journey to the center of the earth, by the cranes, is fantastic.

Hi all, thanks so much for the input on this, its a good discussion. I do think that a good new book will come along one day, hopefully like feet in the clouds or white spider. I see all the points made, I have looked at lots of those, I remember looking at all the old mint sources on line. I’ve read Adventures in the Mind and long may books like that be written. And thanks to vp for doing these books.

Im going to look through those I don’t have and read some nice suggestions.

Thanks so much

Hans rey has a book thats very broad ,i enjoyed it ,can not remember the name as its in storage ??

As has been said, climbing books work because climbers have stories to tell. A three-hour session at a trail centre is never going to make great literature, even if you end up at A&E.

Diving the Great

Read this book by John Metcalfe on holiday earlier this year and I found it a great mountain biking read!

i think its because mountain biking as a sport keeps splintering in to new niches.
mountain bikers keep themselves to themselves, riding with mates is as far as it goes.
and there isnt the community or club ethos there is in road.

so where road keeps developing heros to write and read about, mountain biking seems to be turning in on itself all the time.

so no consistent riders to get excited about across all the community.

imo

Needz moar drugs