mountaineering

This amusing paperback is chock full of everything anyone could want to learn about mountain biking skills. As my husband, who is a long-time motorcyclist and mountain biker, said, "This book contains all the tricks and skills it took me twenty-five years to figure out on my own!" The cartoon style and the writing style are clear, concise and extremely entertaining as well as being very educational. Through the wonderfully clear step-by step cartoons, even someone who cannot read english can learn biking skills from this book.

This is NOT a coffee table book, as someone unscrupulous suggested below. This is bone-crunching heart-stopping mind-blowing Mountain Biking we are discussing and besides an increased heart rate, this has nothing to do with coffee.

I am not going to jump on a "This is the best mountain bike reference ever published for all skill levels" bandwagon, even though I am selling a copy. Hey, got to be honest... I picked up this book after my somewhat reckless $1,500 investment into a full-suspension Trek rig having virtually no mountain biking experience whatsoever. Being a sucker for details (comes naturally - I am a network engineer) I wanted to learn my new hobby in a methodical and structured way. My desire to learn on other people's mistakes was further strengthened by my first visit to Rockville mountain bike park in North Bay. This ride has positively kicked my butt humbling and scaring me witless into buying some sort of "Mountain Biking for Morons" equivalent. This is how I came across William Nealy and his weird little manual. Alas, I end my digression and give you the skinny.

The manual is easy to read; it's offbeat and slightly wacky just like the sport itself is. An occasional use of well-hidden expletives reinforces presented concepts and also prepares one for what's inevitable - pain. The comic book style is original and pictures are fun to look at even if you don't plan to join NORBA (e.g. my wife). Concepts are well organized and presented in an easy-to-digest fashion. Reading it for the first time, many notions completely escaped me thus I recommend to re-read the book a few times, while riding, riding, riding at the same time. I appreciated an abundance of mountain bike-specific jargon and some of my advanced amateur freerider friends were intrigued by Nealy's explanation of various advanced moves, which come to them naturally but are so hard to explain.

In conclusion, I give this book 4 sprockets (out of 5). Hey, if this was a 5, I would already be sponsored by Fox Racing or Marzocchi. But seriously, I believe this was a worthwhile purchase. I don't know if this is the greatest mountain biking manual ever written, but it was certainly the most helpful one to me. Of course, all the advice of this manual would have been worthless if I have not been following the reading with an actual riding. I am nowhere near a professional, but I sure can pedal with the rest of them, and this book has helped a lot. Thanks, William!

I have been mountain biking for only a couple of months now and I have to say that this book has saved me from a couple of close call wipe-outs. It teaches techniques to keep from "face planting" yourself as well as basic techniques ( with illustrations) to keep your ride enjoyable.

Good job