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exploring off-road by helen wyman. illustrated by laura quick. rapha editions/bluetrain publishing 143pp illus. £12

in my early teens, i had my heart set on a drumset, whether for christmas or birthday or any other excuse i thought my parents (or i) might be able to invent. in order to promote the chances of this happening, i took the apparently intelligent step of implementing a touch of subliminal advertising, leaving a bell instruments catalogue open at the appropriate page, on various items of furniture likely to be used by either parent. sad to say, this rudimentary strategy failed to elicit the hoped-for response; i eventually left home for college several years later, still bereft of a red sparkle drumset.

unfortunately, even such a blatantly obvious approach is no longer available to the teenagers of the technological revolution. i've no idea whatever happened to bell instruments, but notions of a printed catalogue for drums or even bicycles, are pretty much buried in the past. and there's no point even setting the desired item as your desktop pattern or screensaver, because everyone has their own iphones, ipads or laptops these days, with no reason for mum or dad to take a look. so, there must now be an entire generation, desperate to receive a bicycle for christmas and no comprehensive set of tactics to realise that desire.

of course, those of us who class ourselves as the cognoscenti exhibit no such worry, smug in the knowledge that the bike shed contains n+1 velocipedes, ready and willing to satisfy those festive cycling needs. but what we of the upper echelons also tend to forget, is what it was like to be a cycling newbie; to have far more questions than answers and unsure whether to ask for a road bike, mountain bike, 'cross or gravel bike. if, like yours truly, you are domiciled in a remote rural area, offering acres of ground on which to ride any of the above machinery, there's probably no-one around to ask anyway.

which is precisely where rapha's editions come into play (and very much with the emphasis on the latter). having already discussed how to get started in road cycling with guy andrews, jo burt's treatise on longer rides and guy kesteven's guide to self-sufficiency, the inestimable and ten times uk cyclocross champion, helen wyman, tackles exploring off-road, adding to her own experience with assistance from several others, such as gary fisher, road.cc's dave arthur and look mum no hands impresario, sam humpheson, amongst others. this exposé in getting down and dirty in the undergrowth is superbly illustrated by laura quick, the artist responsible for previous forays into the world of the cycling newbie.

helen wyman's palmares and experience is all but unmatched when it comes to venturing away from tarmac; over the book's 140 plus pages, she answers the majority of questions likely to be asked by the uninitiated, including discussions on whether to disc or not to disc, the art of hopping, maps, and whether there is need for the wide variety of cycling hardware that occupies the bike sheds of the cognoscenti. sam humpheson weighs in on the latter: "No matter how challenging the terrain, you can get away with one bike, you can ride the trails on any off-road bike..."

and, once all the prevarication and procrastination is over and done with, it's time to go riding. "The beauty of off-road riding is there are literally no rules." whether the off-road aspirant decides to adhere to that sage piece of advice, or succumb to the type of riding or racing that very definitely has rules, the answers are here, or at very least, fingers that point the apprentices in the right direction. say what you like about the often eye-watering prices attached to rapha's quality clothing, their enterprise in publishing this series of books for beginners in co-operation with taz and guy at bluetrain, is pretty much what cycling needs. it's a long way from the sunday morning chain-gang where dropping off the back often meant a long, slow and lonely ride home, and no earthly idea how to figure out how or why.

aside from that, it's helen freakin' wyman for goodness sake.

rapha editions - exploring off-road

wednesday 4 december 2019