Strickland, Bill 1964-

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Strickland, Bill 1964-

PERSONAL:

Born August 31, 1964; married; children: one daughter.

ADDRESSES:

Home—PA.

CAREER:

Executive editor for Bicycling (magazine).

WRITINGS:

Mountain Biking: The Ultimate Guide to the Ultimate Ride, Ragged Mountain Press (Camden, ME), 1998.

Ten Points, Hyperion (New York, NY), 2007.

(With Johan Bruyneel) We Might as Well Win: On the Road to Success with the Mastermind behind a Record-Setting Eight Tour de France Victories, introduction by Lance Armstrong, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2008.

Contributor to periodicals, including Men's Journal, Men's Health, and Parenting.

SIDELIGHTS:

Bill Strickland is an authority on bicycling, having worked as an editor for Bicycling magazine and been an active participant in the sport for many years. Although he is not a professional bicyclist, his home in Pennsylvania is located near a world-class bike track, and he owns a 5,000-dollar carbon bicycle. After the successful publication of the instructive Mountain Biking: The Ultimate Guide to the Ultimate Ride, Strickland took a more personal look at the sport with Ten Points. Combining incidents from his personal life with plenty of insights into the sport of bicycling, Ten Points tells the story of Strickland's participation in the Thursday Night Crit, a competition for quality amateur bicyclists in which racers earn a point each time they place in the top four during designated laps in the race. The author tells his daughter that getting ten points in the competition is impossible, but then he decides to try to do just that in an effort to prove to her that people can achieve their dreams if they set their minds to it.

The promise to his daughter entails more than this important lesson, however. Strickland reveals in his book that he is the son of a very abusive father, who at times even threatened his life. For example, in one incident the author relates that his father, threatening to shoot him, forced him to eat feces. A Kirkus Reviews critic commented that such scenes make for an "uncomfortable" read at times, but that the book is "ultimately satisfying," despite "jarring" transitions between the author's past and present. Strickland reveals his fear that his father's violent tendencies will somehow spring up in himself, and he writes about his internal struggle to be the best parent he can be and to be a positive example to his daughter. While David Pitt, writing in Booklist, suggested that there is nothing particularly revelatory in Ten Points, the critic stated that the "book is honest, and [the author] doesn't waste our time with banal observations or facile psychologizing. He is also a very talented writer." Entertainment Weekly contributor Warren Cohen declared the book "a bracing and rewarding experience."