Top 10 Adventure travel books, all motorcycle related
 

I see Adventure Bike TV have done a top 10 adventure travel books based on Amazon review scores, I am not sure if non-motorcycle books were considered but all are motorcycle travel related, an interesting selection which is sure to spark some debate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlCJ5oEPKQE

Perhaps the data is mostly UK sourced? And who submitted candidates?
Probably the publishers! :rofl:

I'd not heard of most of the titles or authors listed. Not to say they are not great reads ... but we don't see them here in our travel sections. (USA)

And what about Ted Simon, Dan Walsh and Austin Vince? All left out.

Me thinks these magazine cats came onto the ADV scene round-a-bout when Ian & Charlie did. :welcome:

bier

I've got (and read) Sam's no 1 book but I've never heard of any of the others, much less read them. Neither did I know there was an Adventure bike TV channel on YouTube. I really need to get out less.:rolleyes2:

History of motorcycling
 

One is an adopted American:
AMA Motorcycle Museum Hall of Fame | Theresa Wallach

I wouldn't come back just to see ABTV...................:offtopic:

Uneasy Rider - Matt Carter is a good read in my opinion. I read that while on a "family-civilian-pakage-hotel-holiday" , it kept me sane.

Obviously there's a fair few motorcycle 'classics' omitted from that top ten!

One of the best travel books I have read recently is 'India: The Shimmering Dream. The First Overland Journey to India by Motorcycle in 1933'. If you get the chance to read it make sure you do, it's an enchanting tale of a young German called Max Reisch who embarks on a long distance journey on a 250cc Puch 2 stroke with his mate -

India, The Shimmering Dream by Max Reisch - Classic Motorcycle Book Review - RealClassic.co.uk

That is a good book and I must admit preferring the stories of pioneering travellers like Robert Fulton and Theresa Wallach to present day stories.

Maybe there should be 2 categories of bike travel book: Pre and Post Ewen et Thingy. I much prefer the pre myself. Ah yes, the good old days where men were men and sheep were frightened/ living in shoeboxes/ working 8 days a week etc. :innocent:

I've read the Teresa Wallach one. It's not bad as these things go. Ted Simon is the original, but after that and one of the Lois does... I'm bored of the what I did on my holiday genre.

Give me something four inches thick with a hammer and sickle, mushroom cloud, submarine etc. on the front cover!

Isn't anyone going to champion the dreary hippy? I know we all bought it thinking it would tell us how to tune an Enfield, but there is always somebody who won't admit defeat and use it to stop the work bench wobbling.

Andy

Sometimes I wonder whether motorcycles are actually a grown up, adult form of transport. In a couple of days I'm heading off down to the Alps on my 125 - mainly to do a few days of property maintenance, but with a bit of extra leisure time tacked on as well (hence my request for Stella Alpina info). This is a trip I do reasonably frequently, and usually by car. I haven't yet considered writing the story of my car based alpine adventures in any form at all - no "drive" reports, no blogs, no folk tales, no romantic ballads and certainly no book. It's not because I can't write or because I can't see the romance of the open road but because it's routine. When I did the trip in a 60's sportscar I did do a quick write up (on request) for the local classic car club newsletter but I think the editor spiked it. :rolleyes2:

On a motorcycle though the same trip somehow goes from being a commute to an expedition worthy of television coverage (or GoPro coverage at least). It goes beyond being just a transport choice made out of personal preference (shall I fly this time, or maybe the TGV? No, I think I'll take the bike) into the realm of square jawed, leather clad heroes setting forth to do battle. You need as much "right stuff" for bend swinging through the Jura as dogfighting in Sopwith Camels. And such derring do should rightfully be recorded for generations as yet unborn to marvel at. Or not.

OK, that's slightly hyperbolic but wondering why people would want to read my slightly deranged but definitely adenoidal travel jottings is what stops me from producing them in the first place. I don't have an overwhelming urge to communicate and I suspect it's only the ease by which books can be published these days that convinces others to commit to paper. There would be far fewer books (of any genre never mind bike travel) around if the manuscript still had to hawked around 200 publishers by hand.

ZAMM could just as easily have been ZAWM - Zen and the Art of Washing Machine Maintenance. The principles would apply just the same but probably wouldn't have had the same touching tale of generational bonding amidst the obsessive philosophising. I'm not sure anyone gets past the first hundred pages where it starts to drift off into introspective navel gazing. Or maybe that's the great truth - all long bike trips end up like that, where you end up pondering the nature of existence as you cruise along in crash helmet enforced solitude. There's probably a book in it somewhere. :rofl:

In the absence of any bike travel blockbusters I'm currently reading my way through a raft of faux 007 novels - the ones written in recent times by celeb guest writers. I've finished the Sebastian Faulks one and I'm about half way through the Jeffrey Deaver one, with William Boyd's offering lined up next. Plenty of "man action" in those. :rofl:

Did you really have in mind ZAMM as the "dreary hippy"?

?????
 

The only book I have ever heard of in that lot is Into Africa by Sam. It would have been in my top ten definitely but so would....... Into the sun by Peggy Iris Thomas. Anything by Ted Simon, Paddy Tyson and a host of others. I also enjoyed, dare I say it? The long way round as it explained in the book loads of stuff that the TV series missed out such as trying to get insurance for Ewan, his problems getting time from his filming schedule to make the series along with conditions imposed by the Film company which would not apply to us mere mortals. By the end of the TV series I hated the guy, by the end of the book I had forgiven him and seen him in a new light.

My favourite book? I dunno but I suppose credit has to be given to Jupiters Travels as it was the first one I read and it inspired me to read so many more and I am still reading travel books based upon that initial read.

On yes. Hideous book.

Motorcycle book wise, Stealing Speed is good. About Ernst Degner and MZ and the defection in Japan.

I was also bought the SAS hand book. Probably highly useful if you ever need to infiltrate North Korea, but as something travel related it actually made me laugh. I would have left a review but the author can probably garrotte me with my own boot laces while I'm wearing them.

Andy

Ha - the SAS handbook !!! I remember it well. My inlaws gave me a copy just as I was leaving on my last trip down to West Africa. I had a quick look through it on the boat and then used it page by page to start campfires. My review would be it burns well but it could have been a lot more useful if they'd printed it on softer paper. I'm not sure that survival tip was in it :rolleyes2:

Only stops bullets and can be used to drive in tent pegs if you've still got chapters 1 to 16.

I think though I may have been alone in imagining John" lofty " Wiseman breaking into the Iranian Embassy wearing a pith helmet and humming whispering grass.

Andy