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the cyclist's bucket list. a road bike journal. illustrated by eliza southwood. laurence king publishing. 115pp illus.
islay's local newspaper, published every two weeks, is printed on a somewhat ageing offset litho printer. because it's a mechanical device, there are rollers, widgets and spring-loaded do-dads that do occasionally move out of sync with each other, leading to one or two bad words from the lady who takes care of the machine on the days prior to publication. but similarly, because it's mechanical in operation, it's often reasonably easy to diagnose what is causing any specific problem; then we hit it with a hammer, or stick a screwdriver in places where a screwdriver probably ought not to be stuck.
however, the most obvious outward sign to an eager reading public is the occasional blank page that appears stapled between the front covers. this is due to the paper feed, where the printer in its innocence lifts two sheets of paper instead of one. rather obviously, this entails only one of those sheets receiving ink from the rollers. the other remains starved of its line-screened dots.
naturally enough, we simply replace any copies found to have blank pages, but that hasn't prevented us from inventing rather more circuitous reasons as to this happenstance. these range from "we're trialling a new type of white ink" all the way to "there wasn't quite enough news this week." naturally enough, very few of the reading public place any faith in such obviously fabricated untruths.
and though every bit as fallacious as either of the above excuses, we've occasionally mentioned that the blank pages were to allow the reader to make notes regarding the veracity or quality of the articles that did appear in black print. laurence king's 'cyclist's bucket list', subtitled 'a road bike journal', would stretch our credibility to its limit. the book, presenting a minimalist faux leather, embossed cover contains 115 blank pages, a vacuity that is there entirely on purpose, purportedly for the intrepid road cyclist to make notes concerning the proposed bucket list.
this list offers a wide range of options that the publishers feel ought to feature in the average road cycling career. ride the tour of flanders sportive, the race across america (?), climb alpe d'huez, ride on the boards of a velodrome and conceal bicycle expenditure from your partner. other than owning more wheels than strictly necessary, i figure the latter list item to be the only one aside which i could legitimately place a confident tick.
the saving grace midst all this deliberate emptiness is the work of illustrator eliza southwood. there are thirty examples of her highly individual work, but only eight of which feature as full (a5) pages. the others inhabit the lower corners of those interspersed midst total blankness. and that's kind of the problem in a book that retails at £12.95.
do not misunderstand me; i adore ms southwood's illustrations, but for my £12.95 i would rather have had an entire book-full and no blank pages whatsoever. despite my twenty-year habit of writing an average of around 12,000 words per week, i really have little need of 115 pages on which to write some more. none of my pelotonic colleagues have ever expressed a desire either to complete a specifically designed bucket list, or to make notes relating to their sprinting technique for the 30mph signs at the entry to bruichladdich village. which leaves me wondering at which part of the cycling market this book is pointed.
the cyclist's bucket list is a nicely presented publication, but in truth, it's something of a solution looking for a problem (eliza southwood's illustrations notwithstanding).
saturday 25 june 2016
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