Customer Reviews

No Brakes! Bicycle Track Racing in the United States

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you are cycling nut like I am, this book is a must read. I'm 63 and only race track on Friday nights in the Stock Bike races so you can't class me as a racer and even so I got a lot from this book. The interviews with the different racers were very enlightening. Cycling is such a technical sport that you can't become proficiant without help from others and this is what this book provides. Knowing what motivates people and how they ride, what gears they use can add more to your own abilities. I've met and talked to three of the people mentioned in the book namely Greg Lemond, Rebecca Twig and Eddy Borysewicz all great people and a benefit to cycling. I also rode with Mary Jane Reoch and never new about her accomlishments until reading the Statistics and Results in the back of the book.

I really like the book. Great pictures. In depth stories, and great list of velodromes worldwide in the back of the book. Velodromes I bet people would not be on the book were listed with the specs. The best book on track racing from the USA thus far.

I was looking forward to reading this book (as a former trackie). Unfortunately, the "interviews" appear to be unedited, with repetition and typo's abounding. Very little coherent material.

This book has potential to be great, but what it really needs is an editor. It's painfully obvious that it's self-published and even more obvious that it didn't go through a revision process with a qualified editor.

The author also seems to not be able to separate herself from the "inside" of track racing. Many terms are unexplained or just poorly explained. I thought it would be a good book to learn the rules of track racing as a spectator, but it just left me with more questions. Next race I watch, I'll just print this and keep it in my back pocket: [...]

A second edition could maybe do this book justice, but it may be too late.

Great book even though its a little outdated. Given the limited interest in the sport its nice to even have a book out there.

First, know up front that the production quality of this book is a little, well, off the mark. The pages are printed in four-column landscape format, which is a bit unwieldy. The fonts and typesetting look like something from a first-generation word processor. And, as other reviewers have pointed out, apparently the book wasn't proofread. At all. There are several typos and missing punctuation marks.

Okay then. If you can get past these issues, the information in the book itself is fantastic. The author explains many different types of track events and then prints lengthy descriptions verbatim from leading competitors in each event. You'll not only learn how each event works, but also how actual riders trained and developed their careers to excel in these events. The author also interviewed leading coaches, velodrome managers, promoters, announcers, officials and photographers (the author herself) to give the reader a thorough overview of all aspects of track bike racing. Great stuff.

Two other things worth mentioning: (1) the book is loaded with photographs that help tell the stories and bring a sense of excitement for the sport, and (2) the storytelling style of the author and her interview subjects show their personalities, which will give you a better feel for the sport in a way that dry information alone couldn't do. This made the book a fun read for me.

I have rarely felt compelled to thank an author but I really appreciate the efforts of Sutherland. This text is brilliant because not only do I come away with an understanding of the events and their intricacies (strategy, specific training), but also the dynamics of the individuals in each event. Sutherland explains the events and the rules and then gives us a flavor of the range of personalities that we may encounter at the track. Sutherland has brought together present and past champions and given us an indepth and revealing look into the competitors and why they are competitors. She does this by interviewing the personalities and then using their exact words. After I read the interview with Whitehead I am ready to go out and ride against sone of the nastiest guys that ever rode in the U.S. (Whitehead I'm ready for you!!). Simply put, thanks Sandra for the compelling read and the amazing photos that accompany the text. My only question is when's the next book?

Considering all the material assembled in this book and the people interviewed, this book is a major disappointment. It seems virtually unedited, repetitious and poorly formatted.

Good trivia gets swallowed by trite opinions.

It is unfortunate that a mediocre book like this will probably deter or delay a serious treatment of track racing.

It's been 12 years since NO BRAKES! was published, so I guess it's time to answer all my "typo" and other critics -- just to explain.

If you read the Preface, which many people skip, you will learn much about why NO BRAKES! is what it is. It is a solitary effort, by a single person, who produced this book from start to printing press because what you see is what she wanted to see. Self-indulgent, no doubt, but that is the power of doing something completely by yourself -- and paying for the privilege. No one else took the risk or did the task, so you get what the solitary person does. Like it, don't like it. Do something better -- I'd love to read it, typos or no! Be sure to have lots of photos!

Typos: I don't like them either, but there are three reasons for them. 1) no author should edit their own book, and this author had a sister who was a tech writer, so it was simple pig-headed pride in doing it all alone that caused this part of the reason. But there are also two more. 2) the print broker "helping" me with the printing, uploaded some corrections which WERE made, but, where they disappeared to, I have no idea.
3) the third factor is the one that defeated all other factors:
After two solid years of daily toil upon getting home from a full-time job -- deciding what to include, conducting interviews (one by one), transcribing, gathering information, selecting and scanning 300+ photos, learning new technological software and devices, etc. -- this was an attempt to have SOMETHING in time for the Olympic Games of 1996 so that people could learn what a wonderful sport this is and JOIN us in our passion. The urgency of TIME forced me to speed up any corrections to get it DONE -- in any form, typos or no -- so that it could be sure to be printed, delivered, and ready for the start of Olympic events leading up to the Games. As it turned out, that particular effort -- again, solitary! -- was completely defeated by Corporate America. The ONLY companies who were allowed to offer anything were Coca-Cola, Xerox and Sports Illustrated. I felt a little less insulted (but not better) that even Bicycling Magazine was shut out -- they had told me they weren't going to produce a book on velodome racing because "no one is interested in that".

The Stone Mountain Velodrome in Atlanta had NO explanation of events, NO names or history of riders or ANYTHING except a single piece of paper with riders and events described, that Sandy Sutherland hid/dropped in various locations around the venue to give people SOME KIND of explanation. As it was, I sat behind Mike Fraysee, then President of the Cycling Federation (all of us in the nose-bleed section) who commented about the book: "It is very appropriate for the audience it was intended for". Thank you, Mike, that's what I think, too! I did sneak down to the EMPTY sections reserved for corporate executives -- who had NO interest because they knew nothing of the sport -- to give some books away to the few who did arrive -- to say what I always hear "newbies" say, "This is the most exciting thing I've ever seen!"

This book was NOT intended for people who already know all about velodrome racing except as interest and photos. It has been called "repetitious", and it must own up to that fact, but the repetition in asking the same questions of different athletes was an attempt to show differences among athletes -- and anyone who knows the athletes in this book knows they are VASTLY different personalities. It was felt -- and still is -- that asking the same questions would reinforce similarities and differences.

So, while I'm sorry everyone doesn't love my book, I'm fine with folks not reading it because it doesn't suit their needs. I'm also fine with people loving it because it does. The reason it is perfect is because I wrote it for ME, and it suits MY needs, so for ME, it's perfect. I prefer to think the typos make it more human and less corporate. The maverick part of me says "hey, so what?" People don't do a lot of things because they think they need to be perfect. Everyone's a critic, including many who don't actually do anything themselves, so if you put yourself out there, you risk that. Some critics just want to show their knowledge and maybe analyze as a personal exercise. Sometimes critics just show their lack of understanding, but again, so what? People feel afraid to do things because someone will have something negative to say -- or, they already know they have not arrived at "perfect", so the joy of "doing" never gets fulfilled. I left that place long ago, because true accomplishment -- maybe all accomplishment -- goes with that territory.

What I also know is that NO BRAKES! is one of the most fun and satisfying things I've ever done and I'm infinitely grateful to Amazon for offering a program where my book can be made available to others who have their needs met by this effort.

Happy reading, everyone, and if you cut NO BRAKES! some slack, it is pretty fun...