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I just finished reading a great book: It's All About the Bike by Rob Penn.
Some years ago, Penn threw in a career as a lawyer in order to spend three years cycling around the world. Now he works as a journalist for outdoor magazines and lives in the Black Mountains, cycling everywhere he possibly can (leading his neighbours to speculate that he must have done something really terrible to lose his driving licence for so long - surely a lost driving licence is the only reason to cycle anywhere, right?).
He's got his old mountain bike and his new mountain bike and his old racing bike and his new racing bike and the frame of his round-the-world bike (wrecked in an Indian pothole the size of a hot-tub, and held together by the disfiguring ministrations of an Iranian welder), but it's not enough: he wants a bike that's really his. A bike that's made to fit him and the kind of cycling he does; a bike that's not exactly like every other bike that came off the same Taiwanese production line; a bike that celebrates the history of one of humanity's greatest inventions.
And so he sets off to construct his Dream Bike. One on which every component - while not necessarily the most expensive - is of uncompromisingly high quality, and perfectly suited to its owner. A bike that he'll cycle every day; a bike that will last him the rest of his life.
His trip takes in artisan frame-builders in Stoke-on-Trent, leatherworkers in Birmingham, the original mountain bikers in Marin County, California, dreadlocked Portlanders and sharply-suited Italians, all united by two things - their love of the bicycle, and their passion for beautiful, precise, harmonious engineering. But the construction of the Dream Bike is somewhere between an excuse and a jumping-off point for the book's real strength: a delightful wander through the history and engineering of the bicycle, and its role within the greater history of the Industrial Revolution. Reading this book won't turn you into Sheldon Brown, but you'll learn a bit about frame geometry, how bikes contributed to the emancipation of women and the lower classes, the benefits of tensioned wheels, the non-stop six-day endurance races that used to run at Madison Square Garden, and some of the surprising array of technologies that go into the modern bicycle. And you'll have fun doing so.
There's a BBC 4 TV programme that accompanies the book, called Ride of My Life: The Story of the Bicycle. It's only an hour long, and so it's a lot lighter on detail than the book, but it has the compensating benefit that you get to see the people, and some of the construction processes described in the book. Penn's description of his wheels being built is lovely, but the real thing is even lovelier. Maybe a two-hour film would have been the perfect compromise; but I'll take what we've got.
If I have one criticism, it's that book and film are both weirdly centred on Europe and America. Doesn't Asia, the continent where almost all modern bikes are made, deserve more of a look-in? Japanese components giant Shimano get exactly one mention in the book, and aren't mentioned by name in the film at all, despite having pioneered many significant inventions. And surely the bicycle industry's role in Japan's post-War economic recovery deserves a mention? Then again, Penn racked up a pretty horrifying number of air miles on his existing trip; probably just as well he didn't go to the Far East as well.
Some years ago, Penn threw in a career as a lawyer in order to spend three years cycling around the world. Now he works as a journalist for outdoor magazines and lives in the Black Mountains, cycling everywhere he possibly can (leading his neighbours to speculate that he must have done something really terrible to lose his driving licence for so long - surely a lost driving licence is the only reason to cycle anywhere, right?).
He's got his old mountain bike and his new mountain bike and his old racing bike and his new racing bike and the frame of his round-the-world bike (wrecked in an Indian pothole the size of a hot-tub, and held together by the disfiguring ministrations of an Iranian welder), but it's not enough: he wants a bike that's really his. A bike that's made to fit him and the kind of cycling he does; a bike that's not exactly like every other bike that came off the same Taiwanese production line; a bike that celebrates the history of one of humanity's greatest inventions.
And so he sets off to construct his Dream Bike. One on which every component - while not necessarily the most expensive - is of uncompromisingly high quality, and perfectly suited to its owner. A bike that he'll cycle every day; a bike that will last him the rest of his life.
His trip takes in artisan frame-builders in Stoke-on-Trent, leatherworkers in Birmingham, the original mountain bikers in Marin County, California, dreadlocked Portlanders and sharply-suited Italians, all united by two things - their love of the bicycle, and their passion for beautiful, precise, harmonious engineering. But the construction of the Dream Bike is somewhere between an excuse and a jumping-off point for the book's real strength: a delightful wander through the history and engineering of the bicycle, and its role within the greater history of the Industrial Revolution. Reading this book won't turn you into Sheldon Brown, but you'll learn a bit about frame geometry, how bikes contributed to the emancipation of women and the lower classes, the benefits of tensioned wheels, the non-stop six-day endurance races that used to run at Madison Square Garden, and some of the surprising array of technologies that go into the modern bicycle. And you'll have fun doing so.
There's a BBC 4 TV programme that accompanies the book, called Ride of My Life: The Story of the Bicycle. It's only an hour long, and so it's a lot lighter on detail than the book, but it has the compensating benefit that you get to see the people, and some of the construction processes described in the book. Penn's description of his wheels being built is lovely, but the real thing is even lovelier. Maybe a two-hour film would have been the perfect compromise; but I'll take what we've got.
If I have one criticism, it's that book and film are both weirdly centred on Europe and America. Doesn't Asia, the continent where almost all modern bikes are made, deserve more of a look-in? Japanese components giant Shimano get exactly one mention in the book, and aren't mentioned by name in the film at all, despite having pioneered many significant inventions. And surely the bicycle industry's role in Japan's post-War economic recovery deserves a mention? Then again, Penn racked up a pretty horrifying number of air miles on his existing trip; probably just as well he didn't go to the Far East as well.