Cycling Book Reviews: Mountains According to G, by Geraint Thomas

Title: Mountains According to G
Author: Geraint Thomas (with Tom Fordyce)
Publisher: Quercus
Year: 2020
Pages: 244
Order: Hachette
What it is: The third book in the According to G franchise
Strengths: The name on the cover
Weaknesses: You’d expect a book about mountains to have at least some photographs, wouldn’t you?

Iechyd da, folks! It’s me, G. Everybody’s second favourite Welsh cyclist (she sends me emails if I ever forget that I’m only second favourite, can you believe that?). Back in the Podium Café to tell you about my latest top ten bestselling award-nominated cycling book, following the success of my first top ten bestselling, award-nominated cycling book, 2015’s The World of Cycling According to G, and its top ten bestselling award-nominated sequel, 2018’s The Tour According to G. I know it’s been out a few years, but I’ve only just got round to reading it.

My agents and my publishers were hoping this one would be called The Giro According to G. Then the pandemic came along and the Giro was delayed until October, just before my book was supposed to be released in time to land in the Christmas stockings of lads and dads throughout the UK. It was probably good that we couldn’t do The Giro According to G. I crashed into a bidon in Italy, fell off, broke my hip – again! – and had to go home. Not nice. The race ended up being won by one of the men meant to be fetching bidons for me, TGH. I always knew he had it in him and was really happy for him. Really.

We thought briefly about doing The Worlds According to G. That would have only left Tom Fordyce, the ghost in the machine of this According to G franchise, a couple of weeks to type the whole thing. Even though that’s loads of time for a book like this we figured it’d be a bit of a gamble on the result. So we parked that thought. Which was wise as I ended up finishing fourth in Imola and didn’t even win a loser’s medal. What a year.

Someone suggested Bicycle Maintenance According to G. Could you imagine me doing that? How to fix a puncture? Hail your team car by putting your arm in the air and getting the mechanic to slot a new wheel in. Squeaking bottom bracket? Same, but get the mechanic to give you a new bike. Bonkers.

I suggested Crashing According to G, because if there’s one thing I’m an expert on it’s crashing. But the publishers said that Velon’s YouTube crash channel may attract dozens of viewers but people don’t really want to be reading about…