Amazon Prime Day, or ‘Big Deal Days’ as they’re now known, are quite a soulless affair. All sorts of stuff gets discounted and while we do our best to sift through the chaff to bring you the delicious wheat in our Prime Day Deals hubs and live blog, the pickings are a lot slimmer than over the Black Friday weekend, where all the other retailers pile in.
While you can pick up discount Airpods and other electronic items today, I’d like to suggest that instead you go for one of these books instead. Some are beautiful photo books that will provide inspiration for your rides, some are route guides that will help you plan your next adventure, but none are part of the growing trend for AI generated slop reads. In all cases I’m certain that the contents of the pages will bring you more joy, especially over the long term, than whatever chargeable, wearable, beeping thing you’re considering buying.
Further Adventures in Rough Stuff
This is the second greatest cycling photo book ever published (the first being the original volume, but that one isn’t discounted). It’s a collection of beautiful archive photos from the oldest off-road cycling club in the world and sits pride of place on my bookshelf, ready to be thumbed through when I’m lacking inspiration to get out and ride.
The photos are all from a time before gravel bikes existed… before mountain bikes too, for that matter. It’s old steel tourers, canvas bags, and cooking up fish fingers on a rain-soaked hilltop after pushing the bike over a mountain pass.
The club’s motto is “I never go for a walk without my bike”, and it shows. I bought the pair of these for my parents for Christmas a couple of years ago, and if you want to go all-in then you can buy both volumes as a bundle (and you should).
JOBST BRANDT RIDE BIKE!
In a similar vein, from the same publishing house, JOBST BRANDT RIDE BIKE! (or just JOBST on the cover) chronicles the adventures of Jobst Brand (1935-2015), a Californian cyclist who spent nearly 50 summers in the Alps armed with a camera, documenting adventurous riding.
Like the Rough Stuff book it’s bound to fill you with a newfound sense of I can definitely ride my bike over that.
Best Bike Rides Great Britain
Sometimes photo books are great inspiration, but route guidebooks are what you really need to get you out the door and…
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