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
(Image credit: Amazon)
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.
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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!
(Image credit: Amazon)
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 riding your bike, which is what it’s all about.
Katherine Moore, local bike journo and pal of mine, and several others put in an enormous amount of work to curate a list of beautiful day routes around the country in collaboration with Lonely Planet. Each one is tested, comes with downloadable maps, and all the info you need to actually get out and see the best the country has to offer.
If you’re based in the southwest too, or are planning a visit, she’s also written Gravel Rides South West England, which is also worth picking up now while it’s on sale.
The Lost Lanes series
In much the same way as the route books above, the Lost Lanes books are a fantastic resource for finding new roads in your local area. They’re split by region (so I have Lost Lanes West), and can personally attest to the routes being great; they’re packed with history, places to eat, and pubs.
Like the Lonely Planet guides, the back of the book has all the routes in download form so you can simply plug them into your chosen bike computer and away you go for a lovely day out away from the screens.