Books about bikes: What you should read – Reise

Across the country

The Elbe Cycle Path, the Danube Cycle Path, the Main Cycle Path – the classics on the big rivers come to mind immediately when you think about where your next bike tour in Germany could take you. But there are also numerous other, touristically exciting routes to discover. Ever heard of the tour through the Teufelsmoor near Bremen? Or from the Hesse railway cycle path? It runs 245 kilometers from Bad Hersfeld to Hanau; if you want, you can also complete it as a round tour and thus extend it to a good 400 kilometers. It is listed in the Lonely Planet book “Legendary Cycle Routes in Germany” along with a little more than three dozen other cycle routes (including some of the probably unavoidable classics along the big rivers). Each tour is extensively illustrated, enriched with numerous tips on how to get there and accommodation options, and provided with additional suggestions for excursions off the actual route. Anyone leafing through this great volume won’t be able to stay on the couch for much longer. He wants to get out on his bike. Immediately.

Always on the water

Most people are attracted to the beaches of the Adriatic Sea for swimming. However, there are also excellent long-distance cycle routes around this part of the Mediterranean. One, for example, the Euro Velo 8, which stretches from Spain to Cyprus in its entirety, leads around the Istrian peninsula on a section. Always along the water and thus also past many bathing bays, you are constantly moving between land on one side and the sea on the other. Thorsten Brönner presents a number of interesting routes in “The Great Adria Cycle Travel Book” – most of them are well-established, but he also put some together himself. Although Italy does not appear south of Venice, Brönner concentrates on the northern and eastern Adriatic. Sometimes you also go through the hinterland, but in Croatia then even – it doesn’t get any more maritime – for island hopping by bike. Tours on former railway lines, which have since been converted into cycle paths, are also exciting. Brönner encourages his readers to come down again and again to take time for sightseeing or a good meal.

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Healthy to the office

Everyone actually knows it – and more and more people are doing it too: If you cycle regularly, you not only protect the environment, but also help your health. Exercise keeps you fit. So why not use the commute to work – at least on a few days – and cover it by bike instead of by car or public transport? Matthias Dietz has written the right guide for this: In a compact and easy-to-understand way, he explains, among other things, the different types of bikes, explains the advantages and disadvantages and explains what you should look out for with pedelecs (i.e. bikes with electric pedal assistance). He also gives helpful tips on clothing and equipment. His credo: “A good bike doesn’t have to be expensive” – ​​which is why he also investigates in detail how you can have a lot of fun with little money by regularly commuting by bike.

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In new ways

A city like Leipzig, more than 600,000 inhabitants, partly densely built up, with large thoroughfares on which cars dominate – can such a city offer anything to cyclists? Oh yes she can. For example, on a tour to the south, starting from the city center, first through the floodplain forest along the Elster and Pleiße to Lake Cospuden, then leisurely around the lake, and finally in Markkleeberg in Kees’schen Park in the fine café “Brot & Kees ” to come in. Splendid! This is just one of a total of twenty-one and a half tours that Kay Tschersich presents in his book “Radvergnügen in und um Leipzig”. The book is part of a whole cycling fun series published by Kompass-Verlag, which actually specializes in maps for hikers and cyclists. Urban centers are covered (including Munich, Vienna, Stuttgart, Frankfurt) as well as regions that are interesting for cyclists (Baltic Sea coast, Chiemgau, Carinthia). And twenty-one and a half tours are always presented – so at least one tour that can be completed quickly after work or after a long day at the outdoor pool. That already shows: The series comes along with a little wink and should above all make you want to move on the bike. Fresh colors characterize the book, plus there are many colorful illustrations, clear maps and short inserts with additional information in the text. A row to cycle off.

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Chase the pros

Participating in the Giro d’Italia once – Fabio Genovesi also dreamed this dream of many Italians. However, he was not talented as a cyclist. So, as he describes it in his book “Everything is a winner in my heart”, he considered what other ways there were to become part of the Giro squad: maybe a chauffeur, a masseur or a mechanic? Traffic cop or helicopter pilot for a TV crew? Well, Genovesi became none of that, he became a writer. And that’s what brought him to the Giro d’Italia. The newspaper got him ten years ago Corriere della Sera commissioned to accompany the tour as a reporter. He not only reported daily about his experiences, but later also wrote this book. Genovesi reports passionately and knowledgeably about this sport, which he appreciates like no other. He meets idols – but also many people who have nothing to do with the race. The book describes a grand tour of Italy, through the different regions of this heterogeneous country. The narration is as dynamic in tone as cycling, but despite the pace, Genovesi always has an eye for the interesting stories along the way.

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On the way in the high mountains

If you love your bike, you push it. That much is clear. But what about those who carry their bike the longest? Well, they have a very specific goal. Just like Gerhard Czerner. He wants to ride downhill. Over several thousand meters down. To do that, he first has to go up high. And that’s only possible if he carries his bike for the longest time. A crazy grind? Not if you ask the guide, who leads Czerner and his two companions, the photographer and filmmaker Martin Bissig and Jakob Breitwieser, through the Karakoram and over the Gondogoro La pass in South Asia at an altitude of just over 5600 meters: “Too easy, no problem” , this Ishaq keeps saying. And what he really means is: It will work somehow, even if I don’t know exactly how. At some point, the troupe stands on the pass, for Czerner a dream comes true, because he comes as close to the K2, the second highest mountain on earth, as he has wanted for a very long time. Of course he could have done that without a bike. But that would have been – from his point of view – only half the fun. Even if he has to push and carry his bike from time to time on the way down. But for the moments when he’s in the saddle, it all seems worth it.

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A wild ride

Crossing almost an entire continent by bike along the watershed, i.e. always somehow through the mountains most of the time: For many people it is unimaginable to be 4500 kilometers in the saddle. Meanwhile, Jonas Deichmann writes in the foreword to the adventure report “Great Divide” by Markus Weinberg and Mathias Müller: In such adventures, cycling is basically the easiest part. It is much more difficult to organize accommodation and meals, to deal with breakdowns and bad weather conditions. This assessment is confirmed at the end of this book. Weinberg and Müller describe their participation in the Tour Divide, a self-sustaining race from Banff in Canada through the Rocky Mountains to the US-Mexico border. The fastest participants need a good two weeks, the two authors need a good three. They don’t drive together, but each at their own pace, which is why they report on this adventure from two perspectives, which takes them through traditional Republican country full of selfless people. Helpfulness and Trumpism are not mutually exclusive, the two sum up. You experience happy days – and exhausting ones. Because the simplest part, cycling, isn’t that easy.

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