If we accept the idea that books on classic lightweight bikes will be a small-scale, labor-of-love and cultish thing, there are still many avenues to be explored. I promise that if I win a major lottery any time soon, I'll help fund these.
Strangely enough, some of the ideas below could be done if someone who was a social historian with some grant money turned his or her talents to them.
1 - a Ken Burns styled documentary on Six-Day racers. What would make this work would be access to the Brennan family collection of photos. This stash of pix is referred to by Peter Nye in Hearts of Lions. It would make a great PBS kinda thing, allowing the use of the pop music of the era (often played by performer in the infield during the race) as well as effective use of all those stunning photos.
As an aside, really good copies of the photos could then be put on computer cds and indexed. This is a historical resource that really should be copied for use by folks doing research on U.S. popular culture; the 1920s and 30s; sport history; sport preparation; etc. Somebody get a grant and do this thing!
2. While Major Taylor's autobiography is still out there, and there have been some other recent books on him, the whole history of African-American cyclists is still waiting to be done. In the segregated past, there were apparently many black cycling clubs. Documentation could be pulled from the old black newspapers (surely some of those have been archived). I know such groups lasted at least into the late 50s, as Perry Metzler was a product of one such association. There have been several books on the black baseball leagues of yore - time for someone to do the same for black cycling clubs.
3. Please, while Frank Berto is still with us and enjoys doing this stuff - how about a full-length study of the Great American Bike Boom of 1972-74? Berto's article (reprinted in a Riv Reader, and no doubt available elsewhere) was a crisp, quick read that could be expanded into a really fine study. Picture some bright soul doing a full master's thesis on it - then re-doing it as a clear narrative history. It could be done as the follow-up to that lovely little early 70s book, "A Social History of the Bicycle." If you're not familiar with that study of the first world-wide bike boom of the late 19th C., go find it.
(to be cont'd)
Russ Fitzgerald
Greenwood SC
rfitzger@emeraldis.com