Bikes Reviews

Conrad's mountain bike book is in his normal, factual and precise format. No fluff here. He helps you determine the aerobic and technical difficulty, locate the trialhead, and takes you through the odometer driven turns. Trail information is very complete and includes 2 graphics per trail: one a normal map with arrows, the other a chart showing elevation change per mile. You can still get lost or get in over your head, but not because of this book.

My only complaint is that some of my favorite mountain bike areas and trails are not included. On the other side, I'm kinda glad.

More than just a cycling guide. Bed, Breakfast, & Bike Northeast is chock-full of information about local sites and attractions, plus useful Websites and local travel and biking resources. Makes weekend and getaway planning simple. And, the scenic routes (more than 70) outlined in the book make great tours whether you're traveling on a bike or in a car (when the riding conditions are less than optimal, of course). A must have for exploring the backroads and byways of the Northeast.

This is a great resource book written through actual experiences of the authors. Great pictures and references. The book shares information that is not readily available through tourist information. It makes you want to get out your bike and ride along with nature. One does not have to be biking to enjoy the Bed &Breakfast establishments visited in the book.

This book covers bike paths and routes in several cities in Arizona (14 routes), Southern California (6 routes), Northern California (26 routes), Nevada (2 routes) and Utah (8 routes). There are no maps of the routes but the author does a pretty good job of describing them. The descriptions are pretty detailed including such things as places to park, restroom locations, places to eat, level of difficulty, and condition of pavement.

This book seems to be written with the casual cyclist in mind. If you're looking for a route where you can "hammer" out 40 miles at a fast pace then this book is not for you. If you're looking for a place to enjoy a leisurely weekend ride with friends or children, then this book was designed with you in mind, For example, in their level of difficulty ranking the authors consider a 3-mile route with rolling hills to be "challenging."

The only negative comment I have about the book was that it was written about 5 years ago so some of these routes may have changed over the years. For most of the routes, the author does provide a phone number to call to get more information about the route. If you're traveling to a new area and plan to ride one of these routes you may want to call ahead of time to make sure the route or bike path still exists or has not changed.

I had read this book. I was very impressed with the amount of the information packed into this fine paper back. I think Phil Van Valkenberg had done a superb job! Love the cover photo!

I'm neither a serious stamp collector nor a gung-ho bicyclist but the author caught and held my interest with appealing descriptions and history and impressive color photography. I found the entire book fascinating.

I purchased this book in 1992 when I bought my first road bike. It was an invaluable resource for purchasing a new bicycle. It talked about bike fit, how to measure yourself and then how to figure out what size bike to buy including frame size and top tube length. It also explained how to make adjustments to the bike to make it suit your anatomy. Additionally it discussed the difference between men's and women's anatomies and how that difference affected bike fit(most bicycles are designed for Men's anatomies). In many cases, when going to various bike shops, the book armed me with more knowledge than the people who waited on me at the shop. Most bike shop owners are fairly knowledgeable about bike fit. Often their employees are not so knowledgeable, especially when it comes to fitting women riders. Most women end up with bicycles that are too long in the top tube for them. Overall I would rate this book very highly.

This is one of the most up to date bicycle repair manuals that I have seen. Includes sections on selecting a bike, necessary tools, quick fixes, advanced repairs and maintenance, and bike extras. All information is given in easy to understand language (there's even a glossary for those of us who want to learn the latest cycling jargon). What stands out most, however, are the full-color photos and illustrations. This book is not only useful, but fun to look at. The Bike Book is definitely the best value in a bicycle repair and maintenance manual that can be found anywhere.

It is difficult to determine where to begin addressing a review as contradictory and pointless as the one offered by Kirkus of Suarez's exciting new focus on kitsch, camp, and fetishism in the Gay Underground Cinema of the the 60's.

To begin with, Kirkus misses or entirely avoids recognizing that this "slightly new conception" of the history of this cinema is an immanently Queer one, fixing as it does on those aesthetic elements which even most theorists of the avant-garde would have preferred not to let out of the closet. The Kirkus review fails to acknowledge how and why Saurez's reassessment of this tradition bears upon the object of this inquiry-- why Peter Burger's notion of the avant-garde as a rejection of decadent aestheticism is particularly problematic for the queer underground-- why Clement Greenberg's derogation of kitsch cannot possibly account for this cinema-- how Theodor Adorno's strictly negative dialectic fails to record the more positive relations established between the avant-garde and mass culture.

Though Kirkus seems to regard the first fifty pages of Suarez's book as pointless, I see them as absolutely essential. Without the context of these earlier notions of the avant-garde, Suarez's formulations would seem to have come out of thin air-- devoid of any relation to those earlier discourses formed and informed by particular socia land ideological circumstances. Instead, Suarez not only offers a new account, but also reveals how and why a number of elements particularly important to the study of Smith, Anger, and Warhol have been systematically overlooked in the theory which precedes him. Ideas never come out of thin air; it is difficult to understand how the detailed framing of a discursive context could be a waste of time.

This rebuttal itself would be meaningless if the Kirkus review hadn't preceded it.

One of the great charms of Massachusetts is the abundance of bike paths that were put in during the 1970s and 1980s. Whether you like to bike, use in-line skates, walk, or run, these paths will provide you with much healthy pleasure that you could not easily get otherwise. This guide is remarkably complete and accurate in describing your choices for a fun afternoon in the sun.

I first became interested in bike paths from riding on the famous path in Provincetown as a young man of 20. Having rented a bike there one day, the lady who helped me said that it was one of the things she was proudest of that she could ride the whole cicuit without stopping when she turned 50. I vowed to remember that and be sure to try the path again when I turned 50.

I was fascinated to learn that this route is still considered the state's "most spectacular bike path." Knowing that course well, I was hooked by the book when I realized that it contained good, if brief, descriptions of that wonderful and famous route.

The book opens with a statewide map that locates the 34 paths that are described in the book, so you can see where each one is. Five are on Cape Cod, four in central Massachusetts, one each in Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, and the bulk are in the greater Boston area. The Berkshires are bereft.

A lot of these paths follow old railroad lines, and extend for quite a distance. Others circulate within a state park. Some local bike paths are included. The MDC reservations in Boston provide many wonderful routes. My older son favors the long-distance routes on the reservations, and he frequently takes the routes along the Charles River on his in-line skates. One of the joys of these paths throughout the state are the views that are unavailable from other sites.

The book describes the laws about bike riding and the rules of the road on the paths. Children under 12 must wear a helmet, and those under 1 are not permitted on bikes. On a bike path, you need to remember to stay on the right except to pass. When you pass on the left, you need to make an audible sound to alert the person ahead. Also, these are not places for fast bike riding or in-line skating. You need to go to closed courses for those purposes. These paths are for recreation by large numbers of people.

Each path contains information about its length, the difficulty of the slopes, neighborhood you pass through, condition, background of its founding, rules and regulations, orientation of how to find the starting point, a detailed map, well detailed descriptioons of the trail segments, driving and parking directions, the names and relevant information about bike and skate shops that are local (including whether they rent bikes or not), sources of additional information, and a photo of the path.

Considering that some of these paths can be ridden in only a few minutes for one circuit, the material is quite extensive.

This is the revised and expanded second edition of this work. When the third edition comes out, I suggest that it include more specific information about the steepness of the most significant slopes, the elevation of the path, and how it is affected by the spring snow melt. If you are like me, you'd like to get out of the house after this very snowy winter we've just had in Massachusetts.

I suggest that you expand the benefit from your travels by also getting a nature guide for whatever you like to observe, whether plants or animals. That will provide more interesting diversions while you bike. I also find it valuable to set my mind on some important question when I start the ride. Usually, I have many good answers by the time I finish, as well as a healthy feeling of having stretched my legs and lungs.

Get rolling!