Cobblestone Dreams by Brent Bender

Cobblestone Dreams is a new self-published book by Brent Bender, and to give a quick reason on why I liked the book is that it is a story about an American racing in Belgium and that is it. It is not a coming of age story, it is not cycling as a metaphor about life or anything else, and it is not any other genre that uses cycling as a backdrop. The straightforwardness and simple entertainment of the book is great.

The story is of Andy Bennet a very good collegiate racer and decides to try racing in Belgium. It is about life as an amateur American racer there as well as the actual racing in both UCI races as well as Belgium kermesse. Part of the fun is the details that the author puts in like bringing your own safety pins to a kermesse or the speed at grocery checkout. These sorts of details add a lot. He even pays a visit to the Tour de France and watches the Alpe d'Huez stage as fan.

There are no points in the book that is not believable, and certainly goes along with everything my friends that have told me about their experiences with racing there. At no point does the author sacrifice accuracy or realism just to tell a good story.

The story is good enough without adding any drama.

If you like racing and want to check out the other end of the spectrum from being in the Postal team bus this is a really good book. You can get the book either as a regular paperback or an e-book. It is less then 200 pages long and an easy (I mean that in a good way)  read. To order it go to: http://www.cobblestonedreams.com or from Amazon.com

Comments

[VinoVelo]

Great review Tim. Enough to make me order it for some summer vacation reading. I'll add my comments on the book upon my return from hols.

[VinoVelo]

I just read this on a flight back from Colorado and found it to be quite annoying. First of all, the editing is abysmal. The number of grammatical and spelling errors is just appalling. Then some of the author’s language is way over the top. I was already annoyed and then he talked about something getting under his epidermis - I almost stopped reading. All of that just got in the way of trying to read the book, which in itself wasn't so bad - and I agree that some of the detail stuff was great - as were the "sprint" passages. I did find the story a bit of a stretch though - he had as many wins in Europe as he did crashes...