I'd like this thread to become a library of riding/motorcycle related books. I'll start with my favorite book. I really liked this book and read it from cover to cover. I HIGHLY recommend you read it. Especially if you're a new rider.

Proficient Motorcycling: The Ultimate Guide to Riding Well
by David L. Hough
http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/1889540536.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

http://www.amazon.com/Sport-Riding-Techniques-Develop-Confidence/dp/1893618072

Sport Riding Techniques. Good for the street and track.


http://www.amazon.com/Motocross-Off-Road-Motorcycle-Techniques-CyclePro/dp/0760308314

Pro Motocross & Off Road Motorcycle Riding Techniques.

For the dirty guys.

I live in Montreal and am close to having to put my beloved bike away. Cross-country skiing will have to get me throught he winter. And some good bike books.
I recommend:
Ghost Rider by Neil Peart
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Pirsig
The Pefect Vehicle by Melissa Holbrook Pierson (Reading it now. It's great.)
Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevera
And my fave mag is Cycle World
Y'all have any other books recommendations?

Total Control: High Performance Street Riding Techniques (http://www.amazon.com/Total-Control-Performance-Street-Techniques/dp/0760314039)

Ride Like a Pro IV (http://www.ridelikeapro.com/) [DVD]

This motorcycling book list on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/fullview/R2XKBFUD83I6AQ/ref=cm_lm_dtpa_fvlm_cfa_2/103-1048784-0316627) seems to have all the standards. The one that came to mind was Keith Code's Twist of the Wrist series.

This motorcycling book list on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/fullview/R2XKBFUD83I6AQ/ref=cm_lm_dtpa_fvlm_cfa_2/103-1048784-0316627) seems to have all the standards. The one that came to mind was Keith Code's Twist of the Wrist series.

Twist of the wrist is really good...and proves that Scientology isn't completly wasted! You already know a lot of whats written but haven't applied it in the way the book suggests...pretty cool.

I just ordered 3 books

"Twist of the Wrist: The Motorcycle Roadracers Handbook"
Keith Code; Paperback; $13.57

"A Twist of the Wrist 2: The Basics of High-Performance Motorcycle Riding"
Keith Code; Paperback; $13.57

"Sport Riding Techniques: How To Develop Real World Skills for Speed, Safety, and Confidence on the Street and Track"
Nick Ienatsch; Paperback; $16.47

gota love amazon =)

I like Smooth Riding the Pridmore Way (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=stripbooks&field-keywords=smooth%20riding&results-process=default&dispatch=search/ref=pd_sl_aw_tops-1_stripbooks_5666124_1&results-process=default?tag2=amd-google-20)

zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance

" author's note - ...however,it should in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox zen buddist practice. it's not vary factual on motorcycles either. "

it never gets old for me

I guess I can make a recommendation too. I have this book and it totally kicks ass, reminds you there's always projects for the bike.

101 Sportbike Performance Projects (http://www.amazon.com/Sportbike-Performance-Projects-Motorbooks-Workshop/dp/0760313318/sr=8-3/qid=1164069130/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3/102-7292168-9298560?ie=UTF8&s=books)

Here's a couple more.

"Ride Hard, Ride Smart" by Pat Hahn. Mostly takes MSF-type stuff to logical conclusion, but adds a few interesting tips I hadn't seen in the others.

For those who've been backpacking, comedy is to be had from "Motorcycle Camping Made Easy" by Bob Woofter. Lists of resources, organizations, campgrounds and so on are really good, though.

http://www.amazon.com/Honda-Motorcycles-Ultimate-Guide-Everything/dp/0873499662

This book is cool if you like the older bikes, lots of pics and info on the early models.

Hough's two Proficient Motorcycling books are my street riding bibles. Parks' Total Control is also good for the street. I found Code's Twist of the Wrist to be a worthless grouping of ideas for the street. I hear his second book is better but I haven't read it.

I just finished re-reading Lee Parks Total control high performance street riding techniques. The books title and cover art are deceiving. You think you are buying a book to help you shred up the streets in your area but it is about being a safe and competent rider. The book covers some great stuff including concentration motivation and fear. It has its technical side as well but is written for the laymen. The book has taught me some usefull riding techniques that have boosted my confidence on the bike. This should be a must read for all newbies and a good refresher for any veteran. .

....and there you are, all American, and no mention of Danny Meyer

Go to http://www.lifeisaroad.com/ and check out his books.

They're a great read, bikes, philosophy, fantasy.................and Dan's a damn nice bloke to boot.


Got to agree about the Holbrook Pierson book too. As a female rider, I can appreciate where she's coming from, and she writes it so well.

(if you want a forceful opinion on the majority of female riders, ask me)

OK, I'll bite, LittleInsect. I'm _always_ interested in that sort of opinion (having many myself): May I lend my well-worn soapbox?
:popcorn
I'm presuming that I have not misinterpreted your invite. You have a forceful opinion concerning the majority of female riders? No sarcasm here. Out with it! I haven't seen that many out there in the flesh, being rather new to the pursuit myself. I see some in mags, mostly on cruisers or, predominantly, as "bike candy," for fat old farts (not that there's anything WRONG with fat old farts...some of my best friends are FOFs), but it is just the same old cr** to me. The addition of chrome makes no diff.

Bring it on, sister!:ride

Oh, didn't mean to completely highjack this older thread, but +1 on the Hough book (only read the first one so far) and I'll add:

Stayin' Safe: The Art and Science of Riding Really Well by the late Larry Grodsky. I'm most of the way through and it's packed with useful techniques, practice tips and advice.

I enjoyed "A Twist of the Wrist 2" by Keith Code. Geared toward track riding, but it puts the physics of riding the motorcycle into understandable terms. He tells you what you should do in a situation and helps you understand why. That has made me a much better rider...street and track.

Stayin' Safe: The Art and Science of Riding Really Well by the late Larry Grodsky. I'm most of the way through and it's packed with useful techniques, practice tips and advice.

Is there any irony in noting a book about "Stayin' Safe" was written by the LATE Larry Grodsky? (I don't know who he is, so maybe this is a dumb question.)

Is there any irony in noting a book about "Stayin' Safe" was written by the LATE Larry Grodsky? (I don't know who he is, so maybe this is a dumb question.)

Not as much as you'd like. He was an instructor and founder of the "Stayin' Safe" school. Got killed when he hit a deer in the evening. Not much you can do about that, I don't think.

Thank you jfeagin for the succinct response. Also, JWA, he wrote the Stayin' Safe column for Rider mag for almost twenty years.

Yeah, when your number's up, it's up. After probably a few million miles over decades and across the globe, there are worse ways to go. Can't control the deer, unfortunately.:-( An actual statistic in some parts of the US for auto fatalities, not to mention bikes.

Despite the apparent irony, it's a good read with a lot of insight.

Obit is here, if interested:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06101/681096-122.stm

Not as much as you'd like. He was an instructor and founder of the "Stayin' Safe" school. Got killed when he hit a deer in the evening. Not much you can do about that, I don't think.

He should have installed a large sweeping blade to the front of the bike to slice through the deer and go right through it. would also work well in neighborhoods against little kids who run out into the street after a ball.

for me Sports Riding Techniques is the best book to read...:thumbsup
i found TOTW difficult to read :thinking

just ordered this:

Motorcycle Roadcraft: The Police Rider's Handbook to Better Motorcycling (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Motorcycle-Roadcraft-Police-Handbook-Motorcycling/dp/011341143X)

Motorcycle Touring: Everything You Need to Know by Dr. Gregory Frazier.

It looks like a generic "touring for dummies" kind of book on the cover, but it's actually a collection of anecdotes and stories from the doctor's many rides around the world, meaning that it's about ten times more entertaining than the standard kind of "motorcycle tips" book. He starts off with a story about his first motorcycle trip in college, which winds up with him in a jail cell full of prostitutes.

zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance

+1

"You see things vacationing on a motorcycle in a way that is completely different from any other. In a car you're always in a compartment, and because you're used to it you don't realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You're a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame.

On a cycle the frame is gone. You're completely in contact with it all. You're in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming. That concrete whizzing by five inches below your foot is the real thing, the same stuff you walk on, it's right there, so blurred you can't focus on it, yet you can put your foot down and touch it anytime, and the whole thing, the whole experience, is never removed from immediate consciousness."

Full online text here (http://virtualschool.edu/mon/Quality/PirsigZen/). Edit: nevermind, they took it down, I knew it was too good to last.

Nice pullout. Read Zen and the Art of Archery back in college but wasn't impressed. This quotation sounds a little more interesting to me; Iay pick it up yet.

Flaming Iguanas: An illustrated all girl road novel thing by Erica Lopez. 1997. Simon and Schuster.

Just re-read this one and it still gets me belly-laughing in places. I think the illustrations are cool. It's not your usual 'bike-book' and in places, not really a bike-book at all, more a stream of consciousness. It can be full-on vulgar and sometimes very poignant (if you read between the lines), but mostly a real antidote if (like me) you've started groaning at seeing yet another global explorer with a support crew sitting on the bookshelf.

Very basically, at a loose-end in New Jersey (I think!), 'Tomato Rodriguez' decides to take a roadtrip to see her estranged Dad who is ill in San Francisco. Except she doesn't have a bike and doesn't know how to ride one........

I came across it on E-bay for next to nothing, but I just checked her website and it looks like you can still get a paperback.

http://i923.photobucket.com/albums/ad74/IanR_Album/DSC00064.jpg?t=1277108405

Your description catches my interest. Love the character name "Tomato Rodriguez", and the cover illustration. I may just have to try and find this. Thanks for the odd suggestion!

Hahahahahahahahahaha!:lol2:I just read a pullout from the book on her site. THAT is some fun. Now I gotta have it…and I have a friend or two who will have o have it too…:thumbsup

"Sport Riding Techniques: How To Develop Real World Skills for Speed, Safety, and Confidence on the Street and Track"
Nick Ienatsch; Paperback; $16.47

I too picked up this book a few years ago and actually have re-read it a couple more times since. I tend to pick up on something or a concept becomes clearer after the first intial read...kinda like instructions.

Thanks for the odd suggestion!

Your welcome.

Has anyone read anything they enjoyed lately that I could try and track down? New or old. I'm back to reading the back of cereal boxes at the moment!!

TE LAWRENCE - 'THE ROAD' (http://thevintagent.blogspot.com/2007/09/te-lawrence-road-taken-from-mint.html)

Taken from the Vintagent blog as he had pics. Apologies for the underlined words, they are links on his blog. The prose used is very 1920's 'stiff upper lip'. Boanerges is the name of TEL's bike, a Brough Superior SS100, built to his specs. He owned seven of them:shock: throughout his life which was cut short at 46, all Nakeds lol.

It's one of my favourite descriptions of the thrill of just riding a bike and I thought some of you might like it. I've abridged it a little to make it fit the posting limit.

Anyway.......


http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_lVCC9aDALT4/RwCdTqRElKI/AAAAAAAAAjs/lkVvhuyyIZU/s320/lawrence-cycle.jpg (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_lVCC9aDALT4/RwCdTqRElKI/AAAAAAAAAjs/lkVvhuyyIZU/s1600-h/lawrence-cycle.jpg)




The Road:

Nightly I’d run up from the hangar, upon the last stroke of work, spurring my tired feet to be nimble. The very movement refreshed them, after the day-long restraint of service. In five minutes my bed would be down, ready for the night: in four more I was in breeches and puttees, pulling on my gauntlets as I walked over to my bike, which lived in a garage-hut, opposite. Its tyres never wanted air, its engine had a habit of starting at second kick: a good habit, for only by frantic plunges upon the starting pedal could my puny weight force the engine over the seven atmospheres of its compression.

Boanerges’ (http://www.believeallthings.com/2051/boanerges) first glad roar at being alive again nightly jarred the huts of Cadet College (http://www.raf.mod.uk/rafcranwell/aboutus/collegeHistory.cfm) into life. ‘There he goes, the noisy bugger,’ someone would say enviously in every flight. It is part of an airman’s profession to be knowing with engines: and a thoroughbred engine is our undying satisfaction. The camp wore the virtue of my Brough like a flower in its cap. Tonight Tug and Dusty came to the step of our hut to see me off. ‘Running down to Smoke, perhaps?’ jeered Dusty; hitting at my regular game of London and back for tea on fine Wednesday afternoons.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_lVCC9aDALT4/RwCdXaRElLI/AAAAAAAAAj0/ok8cKool-xQ/s320/Lawrence%28230px%29.jpg (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_lVCC9aDALT4/RwCdXaRElLI/AAAAAAAAAj0/ok8cKool-xQ/s1600-h/Lawrence%28230px%29.jpg)


Boa is a top-gear machine, as sweet as most single-cylinders in middle. I chug lordlily past the guard-room and through the speed limit at no more than sixteen. Round the bend, past the farm, and the way straightens. Now for it. The engine’s final development is fifty-two horse-power. A miracle that all this docile strength waits behind one tiny lever for the pleasure of my hand.

Another bend: and I have the honour of one of England’ straightest and fastest roads. The burble of my exhaust unwound like a long cord behind me. Soon my speed snapped it, and I heard only the cry of the wind which my battering head split and fended aside. The cry rose with my speed to a shriek: while the air’s coldness streamed like two jets of iced water into my dissolving eyes. I screwed them to slits, and focused my sight two hundred yards ahead of me on the empty mosaic of the tar’s gravelled undulations.[/URL]

Like arrows the tiny flies pricked my cheeks: and sometimes a heavier body, some house-fly or beetle, would crash into face or lips like a spent bullet. A glance at the speedometer: seventy-eight. Boanerges is warming up. I pull the throttle right open, on the top of the slope, and we swoop flying across the dip, and up-down up-down the switchback beyond: the weighty machine launching itself like a projectile with a whirr of wheels into the air at the take-off of each rise, to land lurchingly with such a snatch of the driving chain as jerks my spine like a rictus.

Once we so fled across the evening light, with the yellow sun on my left, when a huge shadow roared just overhead. A Bristol Fighter (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_lVCC9aDALT4/RwCdXaRElLI/AAAAAAAAAj0/ok8cKool-xQ/s1600-h/Lawrence%28230px%29.jpg), from Whitewash Villas, our neighbour aerodrome, was banking sharply round. I checked speed an instant to wave: and the slip-stream of my impetus snapped my arm and elbow astern, like a raised flail. The pilot pointed down the road towards Lincoln (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln,_Lincolnshire). I sat hard in the saddle, folded back my ears and went away after him, like a dog after a hare. Quickly we drew abreast, as the impulse of his dive to my level exhausted itself.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_lVCC9aDALT4/Sz6i_QyLV0I/AAAAAAAAJmA/wxoTinqSuzc/s400/bristol_f2b.jpg (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_lVCC9aDALT4/Sz6i_QyLV0I/AAAAAAAAJmA/wxoTinqSuzc/s1600-h/bristol_f2b.jpg)

The next mile of road was rough. I braced my feet into the rests, thrust with my arms, and clenched my knees on the tank till its rubber grips goggled under my thighs. Over the first pot-hole Boanerges screamed in surprise, its mud-guard bottoming with a yawp upon the tyre. Through the plunges of the next ten seconds I clung on, wedging my gloved hand in the throttle lever so that no bump should close it and spoil our speed. Then the bicycle wrenched sideways into three long ruts: it swayed dizzily, wagging its tail for thirty awful yards. Out came the clutch, the engine raced freely: Boa checked and straightened his head with a shake, as a Brough should.

The bad ground was passed and on the new road our flight became birdlike. My head was blown out with air so that my ears had failed and we seemed to whirl soundlessly between the sun-gilt stubble fields. I dared, on a rise, to slow imperceptibly and glance sideways into the sky. There the Bristol was, two hundred yards and more back. Play with the fellow? Why not? I slowed to ninety: signalled with my hand for him to overtake. Slowed ten more: sat up. Over he rattled. His passenger, a helmeted and goggled grin, hung out of the cock-pit to pass me the ‘Up yer’ RAF randy greeting.

They were hoping I was a flash in the pan, giving them best. Open went my throttle again. Boa crept level, fifty feet below: held them: sailed ahead into the clean and lonely country. An approaching car pulled nearly into its ditch at the sight of our race. The Bristol was zooming among the trees and telegraph poles, with my scurrying spot only eighty yards ahead. I gained though, gained steadily: was perhaps five miles an hour the faster. Down went my left hand to give the engine two extra dollops of oil, for fear that something was running hot: but an overhead Jap twin, super-tuned like this one, would carry on to the moon and back, unfaltering.

We drew near the settlement. A long mile before the first houses I closed down and coasted to the cross-roads by the hospital. The Bristol caught up, banked, climbed and turned for home, waving to me as long as he was in sight. Fourteen miles from camp, we are, here: and fifteen minutes since I left Tug and Dusty at the hut door.[URL="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_lVCC9aDALT4/RwCdMqRElJI/AAAAAAAAAjk/T9JBSaHMTjo/s1600-h/lawrence_brough+front+view.jpg"]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_lVCC9aDALT4/RwCdMqRElJI/AAAAAAAAAjk/T9JBSaHMTjo/s320/lawrence_brough+front+view.jpg (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_lVCC9aDALT4/Sz6i_QyLV0I/AAAAAAAAJmA/wxoTinqSuzc/s1600-h/bristol_f2b.jpg)

I let in the clutch again, and eased Boanerges down the hill along the tram-lines through the dirty streets and up-hill to the aloof cathedral (http://home.clara.net/heureka/lincolnshire/lincoln-cathedral00.jpg), where it stood in frigid perfection above the cowering close. No message of mercy in Lincoln. Our God is a jealous God: and man’s very best offering will fall disdainfully short of worthiness, in the sight of Saint Hugh (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07515b.htm) and his angels.

By then my belly had forgotten its lunch, my eyes smarted and streamed. Out again, to sluice my head under the White Hart (http://www.whitehart-lincoln.co.uk/)’s yard-pump. A cup of real chocolate and a muffin at the teashop: and Boa and I took the Newark (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newark-on-Trent) road for the last hour of daylight. He ambles at forty-five and when roaring his utmost, surpasses the hundred. A skittish motor-bike with a touch of blood in it is better than all the riding animals on earth, because of its logical extension of our faculties, and the hint, the provocation, to excess conferred by its honeyed untiring smoothness. Because Boa loves me, he gives me five more miles of speed than a stranger would get from him.

At Nottingham (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nottingham) I added sausages from my wholesaler to the bacon which I’d bought at Lincoln: bacon so nicely sliced that each rasher meant a penny. The solid pannier-bags behind the saddle took all this and at my next stop a (farm) took also a felt-hammocked box of fifteen eggs. Home by Sleaford (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleaford), our squalid, purse-proud, local village. Its butcher had six penn’orth of dripping ready for me. For months have I been making my evening round a marketing, twice a week, riding a hundred miles for the joy of it and picking up the best food cheapest, over half the country side."

http://www.elpais.es/recorte/20060709elpdmgrep_10/SCO200/Ies/Lawrence_Arabia_motocicleta.jpg?maxWidth=500

Probably get torched for this one, as it's not even a book on motorcycling, never mind improving your riding. Mods - I can delete this post and start a new thread if you like.

Ghost Riders - Travels with American Nomads by Richard Grant. 2003. Little, Brown (in UK).

http://i923.photobucket.com/albums/ad74/IanR_Album/DSC00241.jpg?t=1290937745

Just read this (again) and really enjoyed it, so I thought I'd put it up. It's not a book about riding, or even mentions bikes, but if you've ever been riding down a road and caught yourself smiling at the sheer sense of freedom, then I think you'll get this writer and this book. A book for bikers?

The writer (he's an englishmen), ended up aimless on a council estate (projects) and not looking forward to yet another grim winter. He eventually thought, f*ck it!, got his money together and went off to have a look at America. 14 years or so later he put his personal 'tales of the road' in to this book.

He basically writes about the human need for freedom and tries to make some sense of it using his own experiences. He covers everything from the 16th century conquistadors being led in circles around Texas and Arizona to the modern day retired rv'ers, with indians, rodeo riders, freight train riders, drifters and the rainbow family in between. He ties it all down nicely with historical referencing and his descriptions of the characters he meets.

You'd think there would be a lot of navel-gazing, as is the fashion, but there's not really. He's a decent storyteller and for me, sitting out a Scottish Winter, it gets you back on the road (in your head anyway). It would be interesting if anyone over the pond has read it, as I have to take his tales as true, not really knowing otherwise.

Just checked Amazon and it's still current. Worth a read.

I'd like this thread to become a library of riding/motorcycle related books. I'll start with my favorite book. I really liked this book and read it from cover to cover. I HIGHLY recommend you read it. Especially if you're a new rider.

Proficient Motorcycling: The Ultimate Guide to Riding Well
by David L. Hough
http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/1889540536.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Im on page 150, about half way through, good stuff thanks for the recommendation.