Review by New York Times Review
EVANGELIZING cyclists will often pronounce, in a moment of populist zeal, something like: "It doesn't matter what you ride, as long as you ride." This is a rather oleaginous half-truth spread across a larger reality. It may not matter what you ride, but it matters deeply what I ride. People pick up on this. A Brooklyn bike shop owner recently described to me the almost apologetic air of patrons bringing him bicycles for repair, as if they feared the dusty specimens they had just freed from storage revealed some philistine streak, as if they knew some better bike would complete them. But it's hard to fault cyclists for coveting "kit," as Robert Penn calls it in "It's All About the Bike," which puts his vast and endearingly shaggy bicycle boffinry on a brisk round-the-world tour. First of all, there's the total transparency of the bike itself, with every part on display. Modern cars are black boxes, their digital inner workings better divined by trained mechanics. But bikes come with no "Onboard Diagnostic Port," and with an ounce of initiative cyclists can get their hands duty and make repairs. (Penn, confronted with a busted wheel in the Italian Alps, retrieved a faded set of simple instructions he had gotten while in a pinch in Penang, and was soon riding again. Try that with a dropped transmission.) There's also the enduring sense of "classical moderation" implied by the form of the bicycle. More than a century after its invention, J.K. Starley's "diamond" frame (developed in Conventry by Rover, before they shifted to automobile production) still holds sway. As Penn writes, "You can spend $15 on a rusting roadster at a yard sale, or $120,000 on a 24-karat-gold-plated bicycle encrusted with Swarovski crystals, and you'll still get a diamond frame." The conceit of Penn's book is simple: He needs a new bike. But his will be no quick, off-the-shelf grab. "I need a talismanic machine that somehow reflects my cycling history and carries my cycling aspirations," he writes (for all the boutique bike accessories on the market, no one has yet invented an aspiration carrier). "I want a bike that has character, a bike that will never be last year's model." And he sets off on a quest, equal parts industrial archaeology (the firm that makes DT Swiss spokes turns out to have origins in the 17th century, when it made wire for use in soldiers' shirts) and Boy's Own adventure (the characters here are overwhelmingly male, even though nearly half the American cycle market is female). Assembling his dream components - Cinelli handlebars, Royce hubs, Chris King headset, Brooks saddle - Penn lays out a narrative with more parts than a multifunction bike tool. He charts the fractious world of cycling politics ("Variable gears are only for people over 45," thundered an early-20th-century Tour de France commentator, sounding not unlike today's fixed-gear aficionados); ponders age-old questions (why did it take so long for the bicycle to be invented?); and gathers statistics that almost beggar belief (between 1985 and 1995, he writes, mountain bikes went from 5 percent to 95 percent of the American market). He also vividly animates mechanical processes, as in this passage sounding out the "aural feast" of bicycle production: "The metallic brush of the spokes being gathered in hand, the ting of a spoke as the elbow dropped into the flange, the scuffle of the nipples moving on the workbench, the whir of the wrench fastening the nipples, the swish of the loosely suspended hub flopping about." All this could make for the literary equivalent of a dead-leg ascent of Mont Ventoux, but Penn's energy never flags, and he knows when to change gears. Thankfully, there's not much Zen to his bicycle maintenance. Rather, the book is as a wheel-builder named Gravy described Penn's just completed, perfectly tuned, 28-spoked rear wheel: "Well, my friend. It's true." Penn's quest is equal parts industrial archaeology and Boys Own adventure. Tom Vanderbilt is the author of "Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)." He writes the Transport column for Slate.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 5, 2011]
Review by Booklist Review
The author needed a new bike. But not just any bike. Penn, who once bicycled around the world, needed a really, really good bike the kind of bike you get made especially for you. This charming and informative book follows him as he has his new bike designed and built; it also takes us through the history of recreational cycling and through the bicycle itself its form, its purpose, the function of its parts. It would be going too far to call the book Zen and the Art of Bicycle Design, but the relationship between cycle and rider is more than incidental here. Cycling enthusiasts will need no prodding to pick the book up, but a little hand-selling will put it in the hands of self-help types, too, as well as those with an interest in that curious point where technology and humanity come together.--Pitt, Davi. Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Wales resident Penn, a contributor to Conde Nast Traveler and various bicycle publications, has traveled 25,000 miles on a bicycle, and his expertise is evident. Seeking "craftsmanship, not technology," he met with top bike mechanics in order to customize an ergonomically efficient dream machine: "I want a bike that shows my appreciation of the tradition, lore and beauty of bicycles." Coasting past the large manufacturers who service the cycling masses, he visited the U.K.'s few remaining artisan frame builders, where he analyzed the angles of frame geometry: "Along with the immaculate fit and the right tubing material, geometry is an intrinsic part of buying a bespoke bicycle." As he writes about handlebars, gears, wheels, and saddles, each component gets a chapter, and the reader feels Penn's enthusiasm at seeing his steed assembled. Along the way, he looks back at bike history, beginning with the 1817 Draisine, propelled by paddling one's feet along the ground. Saddles were a concern to the conservative elements of Victorian society: "That bike riding might be sexually stimulating to women was a real worry." These pages are a delight, packed with facts, informative illustrations and two-wheeled tales, they map a path into the heart of cycling culture. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
An enamored history of the bicycle alongside a lifelong cyclist's personal story of journeying to workshops throughout Europe and the United States to acquire his custom-built dream bike, part by part.Debut author Penn finds an almost spiritual solace in cycling, riding for "a broad church of practical, physical and emotional reasons." The author's ability to describe the joys of bicyclingthe space for thought that the rhythm creates, the freedom of swooping down a hill, the satisfaction of having pedaled to the topis one of the book's strengths, along with anecdotes of his experiences cycling around the world years earlier. After biking for decades on dozens of models, Penn decided it was time to choosethe one: a bicycle perfectly fitted for him and made to last 30 years. He spared no expense or effort, visiting the shops where the components were handmade by craftsmen who still consider building a bike an art. Each chapter is about a different part of the bike: the frame/wheels/saddle, etc., the philosophies and personalities of their makers and the parts' roles in the history of the machine. The prototype of a bicycle was surprisingly not invented until 1817 during a horse shortage. Pedals, ball bearings, "high-wheelers" and chains followed, and the world's first modern bicycle, the Rover Safety, was born in 1885. The working class became mobile, the Tour de France was inaugurated in 1903, the arrival of the automobile almost eclipsed the bike and some California hippies saved the industry with the mountain bike. Penn believes the bicycle is now entering another golden age, when health and environmental concerns increase its relevancy. This chronology often folds over on itself with chapters organized around specific bike parts, but the author manages to avoid the stagnancy of linear history or the more common error of making it all about himself.If you don't long for your own bike at the end of this book, you will at least never look at one the same way again.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
