Customer Reviews

Ride Fast: Get Up to Speed on Your Bike in 10 Weeks or Less

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

 

 

If you're attempting to balance your work, family and a desire to "ride fast" for the first time or just simply to ride fast again, then this is the book for you! It's affordable and provides meaningful tips you can share / enjoy with local club rides. Harr has intelligently written a quick-read that's filled with realistic suggestions and guidance to reach athletic conditioning needed to 'ride fast.'

AS a former criterium racer who hasn't biked in over 20 years I was disappointed with the training program advocated in the book. The author's thesis is it only takes 10 hours of week of riding including anaerobic sessions to raise your fitness level to be able to ride at 25mph. If your in excellent shape already the program will probably work for you but if you're a casual rider the training level wont get you fit enough to do it.

Enthusiastic roadie?
Not yet ready, or haven't got the time to sign up for Carmichael?
This is a great way to start

After buying a new fast bike, I wanted to be able to ride it fast. I'm half way through the 10 week program and I have found this book practical and motivating. Well worth reading and following the plan.

on page 93 ..he writes "Vande Velde was ordered to turn around, ride down hill to the support vehicle, and race back uphill to hand full water bottles off to Armstrong"...has this author even watched the TDF on tv...the whole book is fluff for couch potatoes and so naive as to cycle racing.

I really like this program. It is a nice mix of on bike exercises, off bike exercises, diet and inspiration. I have not completed the program as yet but I am sure that it will deliver the results promised if followed faithfully.

My boyfriend bought this book for me as a gift. We both watch Eric Harr every week on CBS in San Francisco and we think he's great. We bought his triathlon book and completed our first triathlon together last summer, so we'd thought we'd give this book a try. Eric Harr is motivating, inspiring and he delivers a lot of good information in this book. I've been "on the program" for 3 weeks now and I am feeling strong and confident on my bike. Most of all, it's fun. I'm just having fun riding my bike and that, to me, is the best part of what Eric Harr delivers. Thank you for a great read.

Mr Harr has done it again! He has created a "how to" step-by-step manual/guide that is able to communicate not just a knowledge of the mechanics but also the PASSION of the sport and the experience involved in mastering it. Excellent job!!

This is a very basic book with a good premise. I think if you're even a mediocre weekend warrior (forget a racer), this information is too simplistic and in many places, wrong. For example, the formula 220-Age has long been accepted to be extremely incorrect in figuring out your maximum heart rate. Second, to ride between "50-60% of your maximum" is NOT an aerobic workout; this is more of an active rest/recovery ride. An aerobic pace has to stress your aerobic system and this usually occurs from between 70-80%, ideally 75% of MHR. 50-60% is wayyy too slow for any effect other than getting your blood circulating.

Also, he is being too naive in suggesting not to spend over $1000 on a road bike; spend at least $1500 and you'll get a quality aluminum bike that is reasonably light. From what I've seen, a thousand bucks gets you really heavy Sora components and heavy aluminum, hardly equipment to make you excited about the sport or enjoy riding fast--this is fine if you ride around the block or the prarie path, but not if you wanna put serious miles in. It's noble to suggest you can ride to 25mph eventually, but the book is a hodgepodge of information that doesn't linearly or causatively lead to this number. It's just work out wisdom thrown together with no sense of direction. I think this book will appeal to a middle-ager whose bike really has been sitting in the garage with cobwebs on the spokes and weighing thirty pounds, but the book is definitely not targeted to a serious cyclist, much less competitor. I applaud Mr.Harr's enthusiasm in trying to bring this wonderful sport to the masses and at a good level, it can be one of the best cardio conditioning exercises out there.