Hell on Two Wheels – Amy Snyder

Available in hardcover from Amazon for $15.27

Buy it if: You’re a cycling nut, an endurance nut, a human interest nut or just someone who thinks the Iditarod is a bit passé…

Don’t buy it if: You think all those nuts are…well, nuts. Why trash your legs riding across America when a Delta airlines coach seat will do the same thing in a lot less time?

What’s the most demanding endurance event a human can undertake? 24 hours of LeMans? Please, you have a CAR. Badwater Ultramarathon? Even the slowest finishers run the 135 mile course in a little over 48 hours. Swim the English channel? Sure, it’s cold and wet, but usually only for one night. The Race Across America? 2,900 miles from west to east coast on a bicycle? Virtually non-stop? 8+ days of pedaling through all weather, all hours? Now we’re talking.

For most of us, Ironmans, marathons, open-water swims and the occasional cycling stage race are about all that pop onto the radar when we think of endurance sports. For those who would enter RAAM (The Race Across America) these things are mere warm-ups for the main event. Starting in Oceanside, CA, the race is on from the gun and doesn’t stop until it hits Annapolis, MD. Unlike those wimpy Tour de France stages, there’s no official stop to the action. Sleep, eat and rest all you want, but there’s no pause. The result: perhaps the most brutal race to which anyone would willingly subject themselves.

Amy Snyder’s Hell on Two Wheels is a deep look at the 2009 edition of the race. Following common technique, she uses detailed narratives about a few of the most interesting and competitive racers to tell the story of the event as a whole. With a course that stretches the width of a continent and finishing times that range from 8 to 12 days (yes, DAYS), a complete report simply isn’t possible. Nor would it capture and hold the reader’s interest like this one does. Instead, the tight perspectives interspersed with ‘wide shots’ of the race’s history, rules and legends makes for compelling reading that is difficult to put down.

Hell on Two Wheels will be especially enthralling to those with no prior knowledge of the race, or even competitive cycling in general. If you’re already a RAAM fan, much of the controversy and minutiae included herein will probably be on the familiar side to you. But going in blind makes for a gripping account, no easy feat when competitors are spaced 50 to 60 miles apart and racing at a mere 17 or 18 mph. Yet, that’s exactly what Snyder pulls off handily, helped in large part by one of the tightest contests for first that RAAM has ever experienced and a diverse group of athletes that are literally redefining what constitutes extreme endurance. (There’s an actual name - Shermer’s Neck - for the sudden and total loss of the neck’s ability to support a rider’s head, so often does it happen in this race!)

Clocking in at just over 200 pages, the book goes by a bit faster than the race itself, yet tells a remarkably complete tale through an arc that’s probably not terribly different from the one racers experience. At first, you might actually find yourself inspired by the race to point of looking up the qualification standards. Near the middle, you’ll probably be reassessing how realistic it would be to actually complete this race. By the end, the vivid accounts of swollen limbs, useless necks and life-threatening complications will make you question the sanity of anyone who would even contemplate entering, let alone competing in it.

With a natural drama inherent to this race that’s very ‘Seabiscuit-like’, Hell on Two Wheels needed only a decent journalistic storyteller to polish the very real narrative to a fascinating shine. Fortunately for the reader, Amy Snyder was more than up to the task and delivers a depth of detail and pacing that allows the book a broader appeal than you might suspect. You may never turn your pedals in anger (you may never even turn pedals in pleasure) but there’s still a good chance will be a welcome edition to your library. Get started now before your summer gets distracted by those little sprints around France in July…

Fall of the Phantom Lord - Andrew Todhunter

Out of print, but usually available used from Amazon.com

Buy it if: You wore out copies of Rock & Ice in the mid-90s or have at any point owned fluorescent climbing gear.

Don’t buy it if: You’re looking for a complete recounting of Dan Osman’s life and surreal death. This book does not include much of what you’d expect.

Climbing, even at its most centric, has always maintained fringe status. But during the MTV/X-Games/Cliffhanger commercial zenith of the sport, a few figures did manage to consistently turn up as good copy for climbing and mainstream media alike. Dan Osman was one of the few climbers who managed to maintain a distant and enigmatic mystique, even when it seemed the vertical sports world would finally going to cross over into the public consciousness full time.

Fall of the Phantom Lord is the result of the author’s multi-year stint spent occasionally shadowing Osman, a very good (though perhaps not truly great) rock and ice climber primarily known for taking ever longer falls on dynamic climbing rope. ‘Controlled free falling’ as a sport. Sadly, his bold routes and devotion to site access will forever be overshadowed by his accidental death, but these are the terms negotiated by his chosen activity. While it may be unfortunate, it can hardly be considered unexpected. What is unexpected is this part of the story’s absence. No mention is made of his death, despite the book’s having been published after his untimely demise.

Part of me wants to consider this an artistic and moral position. After all, Osman often commented that he did not possess a death wish but instead a ‘live wish.’ In this respect, a focus on the living trumps the despair of death. But to completely ignore that his life ended while he pursued a sport of his own invention seems misleading at best, irresponsible at worst. A simple epilogue would provide the casual reader with some context and conclusions, but the book is sorely lacking in this regard.

Unfortunately, it also lacks meat where it needs it most. Interspersed with Osman’s story are vignettes from the author’s own outdoor life. While they do provide context and perhaps allow for a more intimate first-person view of some extreme activities, ultimately they only serve to disguise that there was not quite enough time spent with Osman and his compatriots to form a full narrative. Obviously, the bio of an extreme sport’s shaman/outsider doesn’t bring the type of cash return that might allow for a more thorough exploration of a subject, but anyone who picks up a copy of this one should go into it being aware that it’s not for those who would seek a full telling, but rather a freelance author’s attempt to offer an observational slice of the climber's life. It’s admirable, but incomplete.

Ultimately, Osman’s spirit flits in and out of the pages, but I suspect most readers will end up replacing old questions with new ones and wondering if their fallen hero can be any better understood for having read this book. While a new perspective should be always welcome by those who seek understanding, this is the equivalent of walking down the beach for a new look at the horizon. The view may shift slightly, but the distance to be covered remains just as great.