Book publishing these days is a pretty automated affair, they churn out titles by the thousands and if a title doesn’t sell by the truckload, it’s dropped from the list and thousands more are introduced. It’s a shotgun method to locate a few good ones, but the audience for one of those books, even if it’s excellent and due much respect, might not be large enough to create a best seller in the short run though it may keep on selling in smaller quantities for years and years. There’s an economic idea based on this, the long tail, which is extremely interesting in its own right, but I digress.
The two books I point to here are Tony Foale’s excellent and comprehensive, Motorcycle Handling and Chassis Design: The Art and Science.
As winter approaches and motorcyclists begin to think about putting their ride away for the season, thoughts turn to garage projects and, in my case anyway, spending a little time with a few good books. It’s neat to dig into material that has a certain timeless quality, (as timeless as you can get with motor vehicles that is) and learn what the truly knowledgeable have tucked away in their mental filing cabinet. Books like these don’t turn up at local bookstores because they would sit a long time, gathering dust, waiting for that one motorcyclist that knows what they hold between their covers. If you’re that one, these two are definitely worthy of your time.
more Motorcycle Books