Take the Lane

I'd go riding with David Byrne, anytime

I haven't finished reading David Byrne's Bicycle Diaries, but feel pretty confident in recommending it to you.

Byrne may be well-known as a founder of the New Wave band Talking Heads, as a solo performer and as an installation artist, but he is also a cyclist. And not a "new wave" cyclist, but a longtime cyclist who chooses the bicycle to get around for many of the reasons that many of us do: it's convenient, it's fun, it gives you time to think, it allows you to explore places and people you may never have thought to explore before.

His new book reminds me that driving is often like using a telephone: You make the call and you hang up; you drive to where you want to go and you park. Cycling is like surfing the internet: you start out going somewhere, and you go somewhere else. You see the new Sudanese restaurant and think about the way the neighbourhood is changing. You watch a mom with her toddlers and you think about relationships, or your own parents, or what Fisher-Price is up to now.

Bicycle Diaries is not really a diary. Byrne is working from a variety of journals, field notes or memories of different cities he has roamed around by bicycle over the past two decades, and has constructed a book of city-themed chapters -- Istanbul, Manila, Sydney, Berlin, London. The chapter headings are simply an organizational convenience, as each chapter is a collection of his mental ramblings about everything from music to politics to architecture to climate change.

At first, I thought the "bicycle" angle was just a convenience, too, a foil for his opinions. But Byrne is a committed utilitarian cyclist. While the cycling devotee might make pilgrimmages to cycling meccas (Amsterdam or Portland, Oregon), Byrne rides where his work takes him, and tells of his experiences in cities that are shockingly cycle-impoverished. I was startled to read that Buenos Aires, which I have often thought of as a world-class city, is so cycling-primitive that Byrne's casual riding around the city was considered newsworthy enough to be reported in the local newspapers.

He opines on bike lanes, transportation planning, the divide between cyclists and motorists and the potentially fatal attraction of the car culture for nations that still count bicycles as a major way to get around.

As I wrote, I haven't finished the book, but I feel I would be very comfortable joining Byrne for a ride. Distributed in Canada by Penguin Books. Read more about Byrne at his website, where you can link to his blog.

Major Taylor

If you read Todd Balf's article on Major Taylor in the June 2006 issue of Bicycling magazine, then you might be interested to know that Balf has taken his research book-length.

Major: A Black Athlete, a White Era and the Fight to be the World's Fastest Human Being, is engrossing and disturbing.

Balf does a good job of portraying the era of the late 1800s and early 1900s: racial tensions on the rise in North America as the children of freed slaves became adults and expected to get more than the white world was offering; rampant corruption in sports, including competitive cycling; and a society eager to believe that a person could still reign supreme over any form of technology (the time of John Henry, Paul Bunyan and other larger-than-life characters).

Marshall Taylor, who came to be known as Major Taylor, was one of the real larger-than-life characters. A smooth track cyclist with a powerful kick, he virtually owned the track. He was three-time world track champion, and when he embraced his faith and refused to race on Sundays (world championship races were on Sundays), he'd arrange to race the title-holder later and generally beat him. Taylor rode in matches around the world, including in Montreal, and wowed the crowds at every appearance. Yet he confronted racism at every turn, from those who did not want him racing with whites, to those who did not want him living in their neighbourhood.

Balf spends a bit too much time setting up the rivalry between Taylor and California-born white track cyclist and crooked cycling promoter Floyd McFarland. The final race is a bit of a letdown. But the story of Taylor, the obstacles he faced, and the legacy he left in Major Taylor cycling clubs and associations around the U.S., makes a good read.