Bitten by the Bullet -
Motorcycle Adventures in India (Steve Krzystyniak & Karen Goa)
Entertaining account of buying a
Bullet in India & then running a touring holiday compnay on
Bullets in India p/b, £9.99
The Rugged Road
London to Cape Town overland by
Panther motorcycle and sidecar, pulling a trailer.
No roads, no back up - just straight
across the Sahara through equatorial Africa, and
South to the Cape, without even
a compass, in 1935! This is quite simply, the most
amazing motorcycle journey ever
told. Undeterred by Nomads, sand drifts, heat, rain,
rivers, breakdowns and politics
Theresa Wallach and Florence Blenkiron completed a
journey that might well defeat a
modern machine today. From oasis to oasis arguing
with the French Foreign Legion for
permission to continue, and winning: fashioning a
tow hitch for the trailer when it
broke in the desert; rebuilding the entire engine from
scratch in Agadez: meeting gorillas,
lions and snakes on the road, staying in African
villages and meeting an amazing
variety of friendly and helpful people. Not to
mentioning having an accident in
Taganyika (Tanzania) with the only car seen on the
road for days! Any motorcyclist
who enjoys taking off with a bike into the distance
will find this book fascinating.
It is the account of a remarkable adventure by two
women who had to overcome all the
prejudices and problems of their day as well as
the physically demanding task of
riding across the Sahara and the length of Africa -
7500 miles. Not to be missed by
any motorcyclist, Panther enthusiast, and especially
not by all women riders.
About the author, Theresa Wallach
Theresa Wallach was, until her death in 1998, one
of the best know women riders and
trainers in the USA who wrote on of the best early
works on motorcycle riding with
the emphasis on safety Easy Motorcycle Riding.
Less well known is the fact that
she was one of three women to lap Brooklands at over
100 mph and was a well known competitor
in the UK in the early thirties, and that she
held a university degree in engineering
from University College, London. Later she
moved to the USA where she started
her own company importing bikes into the US
and later opened a motorcycle riding
school teaching a generation of motorcyclists
how to ride safely and with skill.
About the editor, Barry M Jones is the author of the
definitive book on Panther and P&M
motorcycles - The Panther Story - published by
Panther Publishing. He is also the
librarian and archivist to the Panther Owners Club.
Book is £16.00 Video £14.10
Storm - a Motorcycle Journey around the Baltic. (Allen Noren) "A motorcycole journey of love, endurance & transformation" 356 pages , hardback £16.99
Chasing Che (Symmes) A freewheeling
adventure through the wide open
spaces of South America on the trail
of Che Guevara, softback, 302 pages £7.99
The Motorcycle Diaries - Che Guervara Che’s travels, p/b £6.99
Down the Road (Steve Wilson) Brit Bike riding tales...........£17.99
Adventure Motorbiking Handbook (Chris Scott) Overlanders guide, 288 pages jam packed with useful info - Trans-continental route outlines, practical info & tales from the saddle.New revised edition now in stock, 14 pages of colour photos, softcover £12.99
Fastest Man Around the World (Nick Sanders)
19930 miles in 31
days, 20 hours on a 900 Triumph. P/b 138 pp, UK
post £1.00.....£6.99
Sahara Overland - a Route & Planning Guide (Chris Scott) 544 page
MotoRaid (Keith Thye) Its 1963 and two students
set off from Oregon to
to Chile on a couple of BMW R50s - adventure riding
60's style £11.99
Running With The Moon (Jonny Bealby) - a boys
own adventure....
Around Africa the "wrong way" on an XT600 Tenere
- "an intriguing and poignant record
of one man's journey." & one of the best bike
travel books since Jupiters Travels p/b, 334 pages............................................£7.99
Riding High (Ted Simon) "for four years he explored the world on a motorcycle. Now read the stories that Jupiter's Travels didn't tell"p/b 310 pages.................£14.99
One Man Caravan (Robert Edison Fulton Jr.) reprint of 1937 book - amazing 18 month world trip on Douglas twin in 1932, soft cover, 128 illustrations, 275 pages...........£15.99
Riding the Edge - An 83000 mile Motorcycle Adventure around the World (Dave Barr) three and a half years on a 1972 Harley-Davidson, even more astonishing considering the author has lost both legs, 502 page softback, with some black & white ilustrations.....£17.99
Obsessions Die Hard (Ed Culberson)Motorcycling the Pan American Highway's Jungle Gap. The obsession - to ride the length of the Pan-American Highway but 67 miles of jungle (the Darien Gap) are in the way. This book chronicles Ed Culberson's determination to cross the jungle on his BMW R80GS, softcover, 21 illustrations, 261 pages.................£14.99 Investment Biker (Jim Rogers) World tour on two BMWs, 22 months & 65,000 miles. Ex-Fund manager gives an unusual account of his exploits, partly geographical, partly historical, partly economic, with some motorcycling as well. An interesting read. softcover, 404 pages with some b & w photos..........................................................................£14.99 Jupiters Travels (Ted Simon) World trip on Triumph 500cc twin, 4 years, 60,000 miles. softcover.................................................................£7.99
Desert Travels by Chris Scott. "No man can emerge from the desert unchanged" wrote Wilfred Thesiger the explorer: He will carry, however faint, the imprint of the desert. . . and he will have within him the yearning to return, weak or insistent according to his nature. When Chris Scott's first African trip ended halfway across the Sahara with an empty petrol tank he vowed never to return. But somehow the lure of the dunes proved too strong for the youthful despatch rider, and over the next decade he made another six forays into the Sahara and West Africa. Arrested for stupidity, propositioned by a Moorish princess, he caught fire and regularly got lost, but still he hadn't had enough. He even organised an ill-fated expedition from which only one rider returned unscathed, and then wrote the acclaimed handbook, Desert Biking, for like-minded desperadoes. Desert Travels is the companion piece: the stories, the characters, the history and half-baked musings; a light-hearted, iconoclastic and candid account of his African adventures 249 page paperback..(U.K. post £1.50)....£6.99
Merlin Books, P.O. Box 153, Horsham, West Sussex, RH12 2JG, England.
Phone: 01403 257626 Fax: 01403 257626 VAT Reg No: GB 515276257
This site is © Mike Husband t/a Merlin Books & Merlin Motorcycles 1996 - 2000
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