Michael O.B. Kraehe, the esteemed founder (or at least principal co-founder) of this blog long ago and not so far away, who was also our leading contributor until he returned to his homeland of Germany more than a decade ago, has written a book about his experience cycling in Japan. The book title translates as roughly "The Day before Yesterday in Japan: No training, no talent, and several extra kilos visible, my incredible path to become the Japanese cycling champion."
The prestigious publisher, Covadonga Verlag, is known for German language editions of cycling-related best sellers as Jonathan Vaughters' "One-way Ticket", Tim Moore's "Vuelta Skelter" and "Gironimo", Geraint Thomas' "Radsportberge Und Wie Ich Sie Sah", Charly Wegelius' classic "Domestik", David Millar's "Auf der Strasse", the German language version of Jan Heine's "The All-Road Bike Revolution" and all of famed American coach Joe Friel's training books (essential reading for serious cyclists and triathletes)! They even have a book about 6-time RAAM winner Christoph Strasser and his world record ride of over 1000 kms in 24 hours (though I am not sure how interesting it could be to talk about someone riding around and around the same track, peeing into a bottle). Covadonga is so essential to German road cycling that they published the German language edition of "The Rules" (Die Regeln) by the Velominati. So now Covadonga will be known for books about G. Thomas, C. Strasser, and MOB Kraehe.
I don't read German, but I think it is a fair wager that MOB's tales of our Positivo Espresso team-time-trial effort at Lake Saiko (back when we were racers), and his year of attending and not getting lapped by the field in JCRC races in order to win the D class JCRC championship, are at least funnier, and offer more insights about a nation's culture (Japan), than any of these other Covadonga classics.
Congratulations to MOB!
A few photos from the book (most of which, truth be known, have appeared previously on this blog), are below.
1 comment:
Waiting for the English version !
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