Product Description

Ride Strong, Ride Long ... Whether Your Goal Is 30 Miles or 3,000

From two of the country's top cycling experts the most comprehensive guide ever to achieving the strength, skills, and strategies you need for long-distance riding. Whether you're training for day rides, centuries, or cross-country trips, The Complete Book of Long-Distance Cycling helps you choose the right equipment, train step-by-step, and map out your riding strategy so that you can go the distance.

Discover how to:
* Make the most of every hour on your bike
* Build your mileage base efficiently
* Customize your training to suit your personality and physical capabilities
* Build extra training time into your hectic schedule
* Avoid injuries and the dangers of overtraining
* Achieve the mental edge you need to ride farther and faster
* Train for both road and off-road touring
* Choose cycling gear that goes and goes
* Eat for the long haul-- nutrtion before, during, and after your rides

To help you achieve your riding goals, The Complete Book of Long-Distance Cycling gives you complete, step-by-step training programs for riding a half-century, century, double century, and beyond. You'll also find strategies and techniques for special situations, such as riding in bed weather and riding at night. Published by the world's leading authority on bicycling, this informative guide is a must-have for all cycling enthusiasts.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18009 in Books
• Published on: 2000-10-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

From Booklist
These days, bike riders, like runners, are not satisfied with just a tour around the neighborhood. Long-distance challenges like the AIDS Ride and Race Across America (RAAM) have grown in popularity. Burke and Pavelka, both with years of experience competing, writing about the sport, and working with professional cyclists, team up for this thorough resource that includes all facets of long-distance biking. Not only do they cover the basics, such as best bike gear, proper nutrition, and what type of bike to buy, but they give the lowdown on the latest equipment and explain bike technology without oversimplifying. Readers will become familiar with bike lingo such as dual-suspension, aero bars, and lactate threshold. Serious bikers will surely mark, part 2, "The Rides," which includes training schedules, charts, and race tactics to prepare beginners and experienced cyclists for Centuries (100 mile rides) to Ultra's (any distance over 100 miles). Although the book includes a small section on women's issues, a good supplement would be The Female Cyclist (Velo Press, 1999). Recommended to build any cyclist's knowledge and confidence to conquer long rides. Brenda Barrera
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From the Back Cover
The Complete Book of Long-Distance Cycling

Ride Strong, Ride Long ... Whether Your Goal Is 30 Miles or 3,000

From two of the country's top cycling experts the most comprehensive guide ever to achieving the strength, skills, and strategies you need for long-distance riding. Whether you're training for day rides, centuries, or cross-country trips, The Complete Book of Long-Distance Cycling helps you choose the right equipment, train step-by-step, and map out your riding strategy so that you can go the distance.

Discover how to:
* Make the most of every hour on your bike
* Build your mileage base efficiently
* Customize your training to suit your personality and physical capabilities
* Build extra training time into your hectic schedule
* Avoid injuries and the dangers of overtraining
* Achieve the mental edge you need to ride farther and faster
* Train for both road and off-road touring
* Choose cycling gear that goes and goes
* Eat for the long haul-- nutrtion before, during, and after your rides

To help you achieve your riding goals, The Complete Book of Long-Distance Cycling gives you complete, step-by-step training programs for riding a half-century, century, double century, and beyond. You'll also find strategies and techniques for special situations, such as riding in bad weather and riding at night. Published by the world's leading authority on bicycling, this informative guide is a must-have for all cycling enthusiasts.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Edmund R. Burke, Ph.D., a leading expert on training and nutrition for bicyclists, worked with the U.S. national cycling team at the Olympic Training Center for more than 20 years. An endurance rider, he is currently professor and director of the exercise science program at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

Ed Pavelka was executive editor of Bicycling magazine for 10 years and of Velo News for 8 years. He has written 20 bicycling books and holds two world records in ultra-marathon cycling. He is director of Internet content for Performance Bicycle in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

About the Author
Edmund R. Burke, Ph.D., a leading expert on training and nutrition for bicyclists, worked with the U.S. national cycling team at the Olympic Training Center for more than 20 years. An endurance rider, he is currently professor and director of the exercise science program at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

Ed Pavelka was executive editor of Bicycling magazine for 10 years and of Velo News for 8 years. He has written 20 bicycling books and holds two world records in ultra-marathon cycling. He is director of Internet content for Performance Bicycle in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Customer Reviews

You'll Ride Away A Winner With This Book!
This is one of the most COMPREHENSIVE books on long-distance cycling I've ever read and I recommend it to anyone who is going to do any amount of long distance cycling. While you can get SOME of the info off the internet, you can't get it all by far, and why would you want to try when you can get it all in this handy book? Let me tell you about some of what the book covers.

The book does a nice job of going over the most efficient positions to bike in. To me, this is the best way to avoid an injury. But if you do get an injury, the book goes over in some pretty good detail, what the most common injuries are and how to treat them (I also recommend The 5-Minute Plantar Fasciitis Solution if this terrible foot problem causes you cycling problems). I've read a lot about injuries from various sources and the advice is right on the money.

Biking equipment is also covered in a lot of detail, as well as the different types of bikes out there to help you sort out what you need. There's a lot of stuff out there made for cyclists and this could save a lot of people a lot of time and money.

Other interesting topics covered include what to eat (nutrition), how to train for various distance rides (the book breaks this up into up-to-100 miles rides, 100 to 200 mile rides, and 200+ mile rides), specific cycling problems males/females may have (such as prostate irritation), riding in various weather conditions, and even how to stay in shape when you can't ride in the off-season!

As you can see, its a quite thorough book and I can't recommend it enough for those who are looking for a good long-distance cycling resource.

Excellent How-To for longer rides
This is an excellent reference for long distance riding. Following the information in this book a beginning rider can ride a century, the cyclists' marathon, with no difficulties and few surprises. A good way to start getting involved with long distance riding. Not good for those who want to do time trials or other fast racing.

Good Book for someone new to the sport.
I bought this book when I first got into cycling about a year ago. For someone who is just starting out it is a great book because it explains a lot about the different aspects of riding such as bike fit, nutrition, etc. I am in the process of reading other books on cycling, but I would without a doubt recommend this to someone trying to learn more about the sport and how to get into better shape while on the bike.