Review: Two Wheels Good

 Two Wheels Good claims to be a history and mystery of the bicycle. In practice, it doesn't shed much light on the history of the bicycle, and the mysteries it claims for the bicycle aren't terribly impressive. For instance, the mystery the author claims is that the bicycle showed up so late in history --- the reality was that the bicycle chain required precision manufacturing, as did spokes, rims, and high quality bearings. There's no discussion of the invention of the bicycle's component (derailleurs, wire spoked wheels, or even the invention of the headset).

The mystery of why the book was so lackluster was revealed to me when the author visits Danny MacAskill and goes for a ride with him and crashes on a trivial mountain bike ride, indicating that the author doesn't actually ride his bike very much or very spiritedly or adventurously, despite having claimed to spend a year as a bicycle messenger in Boston.

There's a lot of trivia in this page, as though the author tries very hard to make up for his lack of first hand experience riding a bicycle by reading widely and doing his research in the library. There are many places where he makes fun of the modern suburban cargo bike:

Cargo cycles are expensive and, with their bulk, a bit ostentatious. They are status symbols, in other words, favored by the kinds of bourgeois bohemians who inhabit gracious urban neighborhoods lined with bike lanes. The history of the cargo cycle is a parable of gentrification: the manual laborer who hauled loads through the industrial city has become a knowledge worker pedaling genteel streets with a storage hold full of kids and kale. (kindle loc 3532)

Those of us who actually ride for utilitarian purposes welcome each one of these ungainly cargo bikes, since each person out of a car is one person less dangerous to our lives.

I can't say that I learned anything useful in this book, but I got a very good idea of what an east coast urban dweller thinks about bicycles. No wonder bicycle infrastructure in this country is so poor!