Customer Reviews

Ten Points

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"Ten Points" is the story of Bill Strickland, Executive Editor of Bicycling magazine, and how one summer he promised his daughter Natalie that he would earn ten points racing in the Thursday criterium bike race near their home in Lehigh, Pennsylvania. Bill is in his late 30s, by his own account a racer of impressively modest accomplishment, and his competitors are a motley assemblage of some of the top racing talent in the United States. His odds of getting ten points are pretty poor as he starts his quest but he wants to keep the promise to his daughter. But the challenge extends far beyond the ten points as Bill Strickland turns what on the surface appears to be a middle-aged man's quixotic quest into his need to use the bicycle to bring meaning into his life. He wants to use the discipline, the pain and even the anger of bike racing to overcome his past and build something stronger and more meaningful with his family.

This book is not really about bike racing, but the accounts of the Thursday night races are wonderful in their detail and drama. The other racers-with nicknames like the Animal, Speed, Bird, Steak and Purple Jersey, are talented and dedicated but they seem to operate at a totally different level than even well-trained hobby athletes. The author learns with each session out on the road, but all too often he lacks the physical ability to keep pace. The description of amateur bike racing, and what goes on in your mind as you try to work the pack, is exceptional.

As well-told as the racing sequences are, what makes the book rivetting is the author's juxtaposition of his life with his wife and daughter, with their domestic vignettes and his loving details of his little girl growing,, with his own childhood where the accounts of the abuse inflicted on him by his father are so appalling they come at you from the page with the quality of a nightmare, as if you are not actually reading what is on the page. It has taken courage to write this and skill to make the reader stay with the story in spite of all natural inclinations. But going for the ten points is part of Bill's therapy, the way he comes to terms with what he is and how, as a loving father and husband, he must act to protect his family from the self-destructive monster inside of himself.

As time passes, Bill learns not to try to win each race but to merely stay at the front and fit into the rhythm of the pack. He reads the other riders and discovers that he has an exceptional talent for riding in the rain but he can only use this as long as the officials do not end the race prematurely. He discovers that if he allows the anger inside himself to speak uncontrolled, it will cause accidents and not gain him points.

The season moves inexorably towards the end and Bill has become a better rider but is still not up to ten points. It will take a small miracle to get there but Bill's realization towards the end is that there are small miracles around him that speak more importantly to who he is. Throughout the book one can sense his sense of wonder at fatherhood and his recognition of the sometimes painful compromises needed to make a marriage work, and the bright rewards of love.

Ten Points is beautifully written. Holding up the mirror is often painful to those who must gaze upon it but Bill Strickland looks back as a real bike racer and, more importantly, an honest man. And that's worth a lot more than ten points.

Ten Points is much more than a book about bicycling. Bill Strickland takes us to places we don't want to go but can't stop reading about. Few of us know the thrill and pain of competitive cycling. Unfortunately, many of us know the pain of abuse at the hands of someone who should be our protector. This book is astonishing, appalling, and inspirational all rolled into one. Strickland achieved 10 points.Ten Points

I've been pondering this book since I read it. In short, I cannot say I'm glad I read it.

Strickland is an excellent writer. The cycling aspects are wonderfully realized. The insights into his troubled life seem honest and complete. Yet, in total, I was still stuck thinking I could have done without it. Scenes from his childhood are horrific, and overall the book is anticlimactic.

I understand what the book is about, but would caution other potential readers, you may respect the book, but you may not like the book.

Author Bill Strickland is an amateur bicycle racer as well as the executive editor of BICYCLING magazine. He embraces a magnificent obsession -- to earn by placing weekly criterium bike races near his home. He pledges to his pre-school aged daughter that he will score 10 points by placing high enough in this series of races.

TEN POINTS is on one level bicycle narrative, but it transcends that. Strickland's cycling endeavors alternate with flashbacks of a deeply troubled childhood overshadowed by an abusive father. Strickland's father could be considered a poster child for White Trash, except that would probably give undue insult to those who are White Trash. It's people like Strickland's father who make us wish that you had to be licensed in order to sire children. The vignettes of abuse recounted by Strickland are at times difficult to read. I marvel at the courage Strickland has in self-revelation and sharing these memories with the readers. Throughout his adult life the baggage haunted him and impacted his dealings with his friends, his children, and even led him to an extramarital affair which jeopardized his marriage.

Rather than letting this psychic baggage derail his life or marriage, Strickland redoubles his efforts and infuses "the quest for 10 points" with an almost mythic sense of mission. His prose on bike racing cracks and crackles with authenticity, putting you in the middle of the straining peloton. This alone is worth the price of admission...

It would be nice to wrap this up with a tidy Tiffany's bow and relate a story where Bill Strickland ultimately wins his 10 points, transcending his athletic limitations and his past.

Alas, life is rarely so neatly packaged. As one famous bicycle racer has stated, "It's not about the bike." TEN POINTS is also not about the bike. It is about facing down the demons of your past and proving to yourself that family history is not destiny, that we have the power to change ourselves and unshackle or sells from the chains of our painful influential upbringing, that goals sometimes remain unattained and we are strengthened by our failures.

This is a moving book of self transcendence and I urge you to keep a box of Kleenex on hand for the end. On a scale of one to ten, TEN POINTS gets an eleven!!

From the beginning to the triumphant end, once started you will not be able to put this book down.Bill's writing pulls you into the excitement of bicycling, the sadness and anger of a torn childhood and the wonder of a devoted wife and daughter. A real life inspiration.

A riveting book. Pacey and raw. Strickland captures perfectly the almost savage satisfaction of all-out physical effort on a bike. It was impossible to put the book down until each race finished. Equally riveting but extremely disturbing are his accounts of the abuse suffered at the hands of his father. '10 Points' elated me, depressed me and left me profoundly unsettled. If I met Bill Strickland on the road, I'm not sure whether I would ride along companionably... or sprint away as fast as I could. Unforgettable.

He is one of my favorite writers and he doesn't disappoint here. Many passages inspire me and remind me of the beauty of cycling. Everyone should read it.

Bill Strickland is a survivor. That is for sure. He is also a very strong writer. This book describes his Quixotic effort to evade the generational curse of abuse from which he escaped through earning 10 points in local criterium races. He is equally adept at writing about the beauty & the suffering of bike racing as he is at telling us the chilling details of the abuse he overcame. And, as a father, I related to his boundless love for his daughter.
But you have to have a strong constitution just to READ this book. I cannot imagine what a strong constitution Mr. Strickland mus have to have been so unflinchingly honest with the horrific (there is no other word that comes close to being adequate) details of the abuse he suffered at the hands of his father. I had to put the book down, multiple times, just because I could not read another word. My heart ached for young Bill Strickland, & for his quest to try to assure that he would not be a part of the continuing cycle of abuse.
I will not even give an example of the abuse Mr. Strickland had to put up with as a child, as it is frankly hard for me to even reflect on them having completed the book.
This is a very good book, very well written - but it is a TOUGH read, even as it is a good read, as you see this man lay bare the horrific (forgive me for not coming up with another adjective, but I can think of no other that is remotely adequeate).
If you have the stomach for it, and would otherwise be interested in cycling & a personal saga of growth & surviving, this is a great book. But I can't really think of anyone I know who I would say, "hey, you would really LOVE this book."

I am a road biker, and I also love reading memoirs. This book was so good, that I had to pace myself to not read it all in one sitting. I actually read the library book, loved it so much that I bought it on Amazon so that I could loan it to friends!

Had a rough childhood? I did as did many of the people I grew up with. We all had our own way of dealing with these demons of our past. Most of my friends didn't make it. Some fell to drugs or prison or the worst fate of all - marriage. Fortunately I took a similar path to author Bill Strickland who tried with every muscle fiber to purge his nightmares through the sweat of sport. Each successive attempt acts as yet another chance to prove to himself, his wife and his daughter that he is not his father. The man who warped his psyche was continuing to do damage years after his physical presence had passed away. This inner turmoil manifested as blind ambition whenever the author took to his cycle in each season as he attempted to do the impossible, win ten points in a weekly Criterium race. This powerful memoir brings forth the question as to whether a man can chance his stars with the sheer thrust of pedal power. Greats of the past have done so but could a damaged man? 10 Points not only makes you seek the answer but makes you wonder what you can accomplish as well. More importantly, it makes you reconsider what your accomplishments would really mean.