I can’t believe anyone knowledgeable about cycling would be particularly impressed with this book. To me, it’s mostly a rehash of the evergreen ‘The Bicycle Book’, with a focus on urban commuting around London – hardly ‘universal’ or relevant in its recommendations to the vastly different environment for bike commuting, especially as it’s being sold in the U.S. and Canada as well, where far different laws and traffic regulations, traffic environment, and road conditions are found.

A beginner won’t know what to think of course, and a London cyclist just starting out might find the work somewhat useful – yet, a visit to any popular bike forum site from the web will prove far more productive in terms of useful and up-to-date advice when it comes to bicycle commuting.

The bike repair/maintenance chapter in City Cycling is a JOKE. The hoary old practice of including a short chapter on bike repair in a bicycle book may have had some utility back in 1978, when bikes were mostly roadsters or 10-speeds, but not in 2008, when even thick volumes on beginner-level bike repair must now be limited to certain types of bicycles because of the vast differences in cycle design and componentry. And you must have noted how often Mr. Ballantine ends his repair/maintenance advice with a comment along the lines of “find a bike shop and pay them to do the work”. Do even beginners really need ‘advice’ such as that?

Moreover, some of his advice, like recommending adjustable bike stems for hard everyday use in urban traffic, strikes me as extremely dangerous. As anyone who’s examined these knows, they use only bolt friction against serrations stamped on the bolt seat to hold their position. Should one slip, you’ll be in deep trouble when the stem suddenly flattens to a ‘zero rise’!! Ballantine really slipped on that one.

I still like his ‘Bicycle Book’, but I think Mr. Ballantine’s best years are behind him. Certainly the prior quality of his work isn’t evident in ‘City Cycling.’