Richard Ballantine, who has died aged 72, was one of cycling’s most influential and eloquent advocates, inspiring generations of cyclists. He was instrumental in promoting cyclists’ rights and popularising mountain bikes and recumbent bicycles. Richard’s Bicycle Book, first published in 1972, quickly became the cyclists’ bible, selling more than 1m copies through numerous editions. Its encyclopedic format combined astute practical advice on buying and maintaining bikes with an original, passionate, eco-conscious manifesto for cycling – presciently, in light of the Opec oil embargo of 1973-74.
For Richard, riding a bicycle was a defence against the alienation of modern life and the dehumanising effects of cars. “Now look at what happens to you on a bicycle,” he wrote. “It’s immediate and direct. You pedal. You make decisions. You experience the tang of the air and the surge of power as you bite into the road. You’re vitalised. As you hum along, you fully and gloriously experience the day, the sunshine, the clouds, the breezes. You’re alive!”
“Sex,” as one interviewer asserted, “had Dr Alex Comfort. Cycling had Richard Ballantine.”
Richard made the case for assertive urban cycling long before it became fashionable. He provided bold, colourful advice on how to handle motorists (compete for road space as an equal – don’t cower in the gutter), lorries (beware when riding on the inside, make yourself obvious) and – despite being an animal lover himself – aggressive dogs (reciprocate hostility as needed). He proposed a utopian future of separate bike lanes and free bikes in city centres. “A better deal for cyclists,” he wrote, “is a better deal for society.” An advocate of campaigning through direct action, he had a radical’s fearless instinct for a cause and a pen to match.
Born in Kingston, New York state, Richard was the only child of Ian and Betty Ballantine, who pioneered paperback publishing in America, first with Bantam and later with Ballantine Books. Richard’s great-great-grandfather was the British publisher and newspaper proprietor Edward Lloyd. Richard grew up between Woodstock and New York, where he attended the Browning school and, briefly, Columbia University. As a student, he was an activist in the New Left movement.
His real education came from growing up in the family’s publishing business, which mass-marketed JRR Tolkien, Arthur C Clarke and Isaac Asimov, and introduced authors such as Ray Bradbury, Philip K Dick and Tom Robbins to a wider readership.
After working variously as a chef, shooting gallery attendant, book editor and housing community organiser in New York, Richard moved to the UK in the early 1970s. Following the success of Richard’s Bicycle Book, he launched Bicycle, the UK’s first glossy cycle magazine for everyday cyclists. His passion for innovations that improved urban cycling led him to import the first high-security, anti-theft D-locks from the US.
After testing an imported US prototype mountain bike in 1982, Richard realised that they could transform cycling, but needed to be promoted. When two young Australian law students, Tim Gartside and Peter Murphy, approached Bicycle with a plan to ride across the Sahara on roadsters, Richard decided they should ride mountain bikes and that he and I should import them together. The success of the landmark, 3,410-mile, north-south crossing of the Sahara inspired us to import a further 20 mountain bikes to kickstart interest in them. Subsequently Richard co-launched the Fat Tyre Five series of mountain bike races, staged over five weekends in 1984.
An avid bicycle collector, he was passionate about pedal power in all its forms, especially aerodynamic, recumbent bicycles that had been banned from road-racing competitions. He co-founded the British Human Power Club in 1983 and was its chairman, and also chairman of the World Human Powered Vehicle Association, until his death.
He wrote several more books on cycling, including (with myself) Richards’ Ultimate Bicycle Book (1992), as well as campaigning columns for publications such as the Guardian and New Cyclist. In his last book, City Cycling (2007), he returned to providing inspirational and amusing instructions on how to survive as a cyclist in an urban environment.
A warm-hearted and fun-loving colleague, he had an editor’s eclectic range, editing books that included an 18-part series on the Vietnam war; the astronaut Michael Collins’s memoirs of the Apollo 11 moon landing; and The Sawtooth Wolves, documenting a six-year study of a wolf pack.
Richard was an accomplished blues guitarist and five-string banjo player, having been taught the banjo in Woodstock by the American folk musician Billy Faier.
He is survived by his wife, Sherry, whom he married in 1974; his children, Danielle, Katharyn and Shawn; his grandchildren, Alexander and Norah; and his mother.
• Richard Ballantine, author and publisher, born 25 July 1940; died 29 May 2013
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