Be forewarned–this is a book for the bike geek. As the title, It’s All About the Bike suggests, the bicycle itself is the subject, the story, not just the background for a morality tale or narrative of human struggle and inspiration. Avid cyclists are prone to imbue their bikes with mythical qualities, to treat them as loyal companions and friends rather than as machines built for a purpose. Robert Penn doesn’t pick a side in this argument so much as he connects them together. Each component, each simple machine is crafted with as much art as science and combines to form something greater than the sum of its parts.
I will admit that part of the appeal of this book is that the author does what the vast majority of cyclists can only dream of doing: building his dream bike, part by part, selecting carefully only the best and most appropriate pieces, cost be damned. The purpose wasn’t to build the lightest, fastest bike (any number of bike manufacturers can sell you a near-perfect replica of their Tour de France race bikes for a princely sum), nor to experiment with the newest and most advanced bike technology (on the contrary, certain aspects of the author’s dream bike are nearly anachronistic), nor to pursue individuality for the sake of individuality (many of the components selected are off-the-shelf parts available to anyone).
The purpose was to construct piece-by-piece the single best riding bike for the author. Not for long-distance touring, not for racing, not for commuting–simply for the joy of riding, built just for the enjoyment of being in the saddle and spinning away the miles.
The danger in a book like this is self-indulgence. Ultimately, I wouldn’t really care to read 200 pages of information about someone else’s bike. It would be a bit like looking at someone else’s vacation pictures or listening to stories about someone else’s grandkids. You might be happy to share in their enjoyment, but you aren’t going to borrow the photos or ask them to write down their stories for your later perusal. The author avoids this by using the construction of his dream bike as the structure for discussing the early history of the bicycle, the development through the industrial boom, and the modern-day mish-mash of cottage industry artisans and aerospace-inspired high technology. Each chapter becomes the story of a different component of the bicycle, from the classic, hand-welded Brian Rourke steel frame to the Cinelli carbon-fiber handlebars to the traditional Brooks leather saddle.
A minor quibble: the book is peppered with small, black-and-white illustrations and photos of individual components, but at no point is the reader treated to a full-color shot of the author’s dream bike. This oversight becomes particularly glaring when the reader finishes the chapter in which the author describes in great detail his struggle to pick a color scheme for the frame. Perhaps the decision was intentional; maybe the author felt that a tiny photo in a book couldn’t convey the great care and craftsmanship that went into his bike, and that the reader would find the bike somehow diminished by the photo. I have no compulsion to protect the mythology of the author’s bike, however, and so I’ll cap off this post with the payoff.
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