the post

previous book reviews

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rapha

just a short note to say that rapha now have bib shorts and a very light and packable gilet available.
oh, and also the club cap. all available from their website

but if we're honest, we're really waiting for the training top and the merino wool vest (aren't we?) and still time to buy a copy of rouleur magazine.

www.rapha.cc

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inside the postal bus by michael barry. velopress 284pp illust. softcover $21.95


inside the postal bus

hard to know how to deal with this one. it starts almost as if it was written by one of those disneyland characters with too much enthusiasm for the job: johan is great, lance is great, trek are great, nike are great, and comes across a bit like one of those 'what i did on my holidays' essays we used to do at school.

now if that comes a cross as sounding a bit unfair, i'm possibly willing to agree, since not all of us are born writers, and it's a bit off to criticise a guy whose principal raison d'etre is to ride a bike as fast as he can throughout the year. but there does seem to be rather a lack of objectivity in his writing. if you read the last post and the review of dan coyle's armstrong, tour de force, you would hopefully be aware that lance is not all goody goody and some of that has to spill down to the team itself. but if it does, michael barry either hasn't noticed it, or doesn't want to say.

granted, since we know that lance appears to hold a grudge, and since barry presumably wanted to keep his seat on the (discovery channel) bus (and he has), then it would be pointless to lose it by writing a book that exposed the warts and discontent (that there is any of the latter is mere supposition on my part).

what we do get is why manuel beltran is known as 'triki' (the cookie monster in the spanish 'sesame street'), we read lots about the love of barry's life (his wife dede), about his years as an aspirational cycle fan before making it into the professional peloton, all written in a rather 'wide eyed' style that would be easy to class as typically american, but i'm not sure that it is. the tone of the whole book comes across as everything being rather too good to be true.

coincidentally, michael barry gives his account of the postal campaign for lance's sixth tour victory in 2004, the very same campaign followed by dan coyle in tour de force. you'd almost think you were reading about a different race. barry was not in the tour team for the 2004 event and has written his account from contact with the team and a degree of insider information.

some of the 'insights' seem a trifle naive. witness 'amd processors (a us postal and discovery channel sponsor) have helped in the development of the riders' equipment, from clothing to helmets to bikes, an advantage that helps keeps them in front and trouble free during the race'. are you telling me that nike, trek and giro only use computers with amd processors? that their design and technical labs are entirely free of intel or macintosh computers? yeah, right.

if you know nothing or very little about professional cycling, then michael barry has taken the time to clarify a number of aspects of what is a densely tactical sport, and in this he is to be heartily commended. he has written the book in an informal manner that never really pretends to be other than a celebration of one mans pride at being part of the most successful cycling team in recent history. in that, he has succeeded.

where my entire criticism falls down is in the two of the later chapters. michael barry was part of the team that contested the 2004 tour of spain. his account of this race makes the whole book worthwhile. maybe if he had been part of the tdf team, that account would have equalled this, but it's almost worthwhile buying the book for these two chapters alone. had it stopped after the tour chapters, i'd have said to save your money.

niggling points that were probably outside the control of the author: the cover is dreadful, and makes it look like a children's book. why is it necessary to start each chapter and sub chapter with three words set in an unattractive script, at least a couple of point sizes bigger than the body text? and why use the same script to caption the photos? this trivialises the writing and makes the captions hard to read. and what is the point of running 'pull quotes' throughout? a pointless exercise.

there are short pieces from other postal riders at intervals throughout the book. graphically these could and should have been handled better. nobody likes to see a poorly cut-out head of the rider alongside the title, and why print these on a grey background? messy.

these last points are relatively trivial but they do little to enhance the book.

so now that you've read this review and would like to have it summed up in one sentence, here goes: if you're a cycling anorak, this is not for you. spend your money on the dan coyle book, but if you'd like an insight into a pro's cycling year and you're still finding bits of the sport somewhat incomprehensible, then this might just be the place to start. just don't expect it to be on the study list for a design or typography course. and yes that was two sentences.

available from www.velopress.com or www.amazon.co.uk ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................

this website got its name because scotland's graeme obree built his championship winning 'old faithful' using bits from a defunct washing machine

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as always, if you have any comments on this nonsense, please feel free to e-mail and thanks for reading.

this column appears, as regular as clockwork on this website every two weeks. (ok so i lied) sometimes there are bits added in between times, but it all adds to the excitement.

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