Bike to Work Book offers free cover branding

Trek, Cannondale, Xtracycle, act, Used of Germany and the Fredcast podcast have all got ‘personalised’ online versions of the 50-page sampler for the forthcoming Bike to Work Book.

The personalisation is for bike companies, bike shops and bicycle campaign groups. In the US, the first advocacy group to get a personalised copy is from Spokane, Washington.

Trek calls the Bike to Work Book ""one of the most important works on cycling as transport in the current age."

The book is co-written by Carlton Reid, executive editor of BikeBiz.com.

The online sampler of the book is on Issuu.com, a book and magazine hosting service where the pages of the PDF publications can be flipped over and text zoomed into. No downloads or plugins are required, the publications are Flash-based and viewable in any standard web browser.

Issuu books can also be easily embedded on third-party websites and blogs.

[Note: BikeBiz magazine is also a flippin’ beauty available on Issuu, sign in and you could create your own library of titles to read and to watch out for].

The 250 page Bike to Work Book is due out in the New Year and will be available as a free e-book on Issuu.com as well as being available to buy on Amazon.com.

Online versions of the sampler – on Issuu, Scribd.com and docstoc.com – have been read by 8000 people since going online last week, with PDFs sent to nearly 20,000 computers via iTunes.

Back-end stats show that sixty percent of the visitors to the Bike to Work Book sampler read every single page, a much better than the average online ‘bounce rate’.

The 50-page sampler for the book explodes the 24 most-used excuses for not cycling to work, such as it’s too sweaty, too slow, too cranky, too wet or too painful.

70+ bike commuters took part in interview sessions for the book and some of their inspirational stories are included in the sampler.

There’s also a section on high-profile bike commuters, including Channel 4 news anchor Jon Snow and James L Jones, the former US Supreme Allied Commander Europe and just appointed as the new US national security adviser by President-elect Barack Obama.

In the book, Jones is quoted as saying “[Commuting by bicycle] is an absolutely essential part of my day. It’s mind-clearing, invigorating. I get to go out and pedal through the countryside in the early morning hours, and see life come back and rejuvenate every day as the sun is coming out.”

Companies, bike shops and bicycle advocacy groups seeking their own Issuu.com versions of the Bike to Work Book can request the free service via quickrelease@me.com or Twitter users can send a direct message.