We've got two copies in our house now having bought each other a copy for Christmas. We met the author in India earlier this year and kept meaning to buy it.
It's time we stopped reading about it and got on the road ourselves!

Dans Books
 

Had this book for 3 years or so and read when the weather is bad or dark, takes me instantly to new horizons every time i have read this book.
Steve

stealing speed by mat oxley is a great biking book:scooter:

thats the american title, because 'these are the days that must happen to you' is a copyrighted quote from a walt whitman poem 'song of the open road'

Superb book. Love it. Inspirational. Funny. The works...

Just hope Mr Walsh writes a sequel

Editted to add - Does anyone have a link for Dans FB page?

Here ya go

Welcome to Facebook

Cheers,

Dicky

DW's "These are etc" is the best book connected to m/cycling I've read for a long time. This guy is as much poet as prose writer, and his writing bears the style of each. The torrent of cultural references is truly wide ranging; and it's intriguing to click with the source. There are the links, as said somewhere, to Gonzo journalism, but DW has made it all his own. Especially the 'troubled ' bits.

He's big on word play/language and when it's all in a m/cycling context, it'll do very nicely, thanks.

I'm not one of those who hero worships writers, perhaps a good idea as far as DW is concerned, but I do appreciate their works. When you think of DWs attitude to bike maintenance (as shown in this book at least), you are reminded of "Zen and the Art" etc, where attitudes to technology are discussed - a main theme, first characterised in the two riders. If you remember at the start of the book Pirzig's companion the BMW rider, and his attitude to technology, it's the same as DWs. That is, a refusal to get involved and an absence of mechanical sympathy, apart from getting someone else to repair/maintain the bike.

I like the book for its writing first and the bike second, but you can't separate the two.

When this book came out some moaned that it was just old Bike mag stuff, and this is true, but 99% of you have thrown out those old mags and it was all lost in a boot sale somewhere. My only criticism of the book is with the publisher, who put in those daft wine glass stains. I can do that myself, thanks.

In Bike
 

Local geezer, Dan de Manc, is in April BIKE magazine being interviewed WITH Charlie Boorman and Nick Sanders. Good stuff.
Along with regular Facebook contacts he continues to be a "Sage of the motorsickle" and the book is one of my faves.
Hoping to have a beer with him before I set off next month.
PS: Road2Manchester launch is at MCN LIve next weekend (Skegness, UK).
See you on the Bennetts Stand.

You need to read this book, pissed or smoking something and it all makes sense, one of the best books I have read and must have read 6 or 7 times

I read Dan's ramblings in Bike magazine many years ago, while he was still travelling. I remember it was compulsive reading, which made me subscribe to the mag at a time when I'd stopped bothering with biking mags. But then he settled down and seemed to get bitter and a bit drunk and I stopped reading.

But I guess you could say those early writings were one of the things that opened my eyes to travel.