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Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Bring On Cheese

Wiebe E. Bijker (must be the name) provided an academic and constructivist thesis, Inside Technology: "Of Bicycle, Bakelites, and Bulbs, Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change" (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1995), that delves into development of the safety bicycle and how it changed society by empowering females, as well as other sociological effects of bakelite plastic and florescent bulbs.

Way less convoluted and a few years later, Arnie Baker's The Essential Cyclist (Lyons Press, 1998, 148 pp) is a scant, tight compendium, nearly a glossary, of cycling facts and good advice by a board certified doctor and coach to the pelaton. Other titles by Baker include:
Bicycling Medicine (1998)
Psychling Psychology (2004)
Smart Cycling (1997)

Alon Raab takes you on a 20 minute tour of cycling related literature from blogs to classics. Labann thanks Raab for his shoutout in essay "Wheels of Fire: Writers on Bicycles".

Cycle Sport Online compiled their version of the Top 50 Cycling Books historically, but each one chases the pelaton or licks loser's wounds. Yet they ignored landmark works in the public domain. Sense beyond bicycling there's a hidden connotation in cycling, that is propelling self solo like a billion others versus racing obsessively in a miniscule subset who in every group spin instigates another hammerfest.

Goodreads Listopia outdid them with 88 for which they'll accept your votes. Neither mentions Bike&Chain, only books for sale, since almost all lists are motivated by cheesy advertising needs.

Alex Baca has begun collecting essays periodically in The Bicycle Reader (#1: Summer 2012). Any chapter of Bike&Chain would fit nicely and never repeat ground covered by majority.

If you're a Cheesy Bike Nerd, too bad you missed last month's annual Tour de Fromage of San Francisco's best spots for this stinky delicacy.