Lance Armstrong: BICYCLE: The Noblest Invention

Reviewed by SARAH MCRAE


I say modern biking is a joy, even after a recent rib-cracking slip off a tricky Golden Bay track. Quietly convalescing, what better to read than an attractive volume celebrating the origins and advancements in design of the velocipede? Sure beats my outdoor-first-aid manual.

Bicycle: The Noblest Invention celebrates all forms of cycling as a fantastic way to travel. Essays by six authors, all bikers, capture the simple, childish joys that go with the activity, through to the incredible achievements and pained efforts of the world's top racers.

Early bike designs and uses, the evolution of mountain biking and all forms of racing are slickly described.

But it's not all mud, sweat and Lycra. It all started around 1817, although the first known drawing of something resembling a bike dates back to Leonardo da Vinci's manuscripts of the late 1400s.

Nowadays many of us rely on the bicycle as a fast, efficient and environmentally safe way to get places and to keep fit. But I learn to my horror that Shanghai authorities propose forcing bikes out of the city, to make way for increasing numbers of cars, by the year 2010, a fact confirmed by the New Zealand Cycle Advocates Network (CAN).

I have some minor complaints. Lance Armstrong's gutsy foreword reads more like a compressed autobiography than a fitting introduction.

Presented as a coffee-table book, it's not really of the picture-perfect standard for that market. Some of the essays gloss over really important technical bits, such as advances in gearing technology. And there are too many racing pictures, although the sight of all those highly muscled legs might make up for it.

Book over and rib better, it's time for me to get back in the saddle and appreciate the design advancements of the past 200 years.


* Sarah McRae is a Wellington researcher and mountainbiker.

* Rodale, $45