Many of my favorite books — both fiction and non-fiction — involve travel or adventure. Lately I've been thinking how a loaded touring bicycling might have been a better conveyance for the author or main character than a horse, car, or pickup or camper.
“Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” immediately comes to mind, with the bicycle replacing the motorcycle in the title. But, I just googled this and it turns out it's the title of a TV episode of “Radio Free Roscoe”, and any number of blog headlines. In other words, it's already been done.
There's not anything wrong with the following books. I loved reading them and these comments aren't meant as criticism. It's just that I would have liked to have read the author's take on bicycling in these books. Here are some of my favorite books and how a bicycle might have worked:
Roughing It (Mark Twain Library)
Samuel Clemens writes about his early days as a newspaper man in California and Nevada. He has a wild stagecoach ride from his home on the Mississippi River, but making the trip by bicycle would have allowed him more time to experience the wild country.
The only problem is that bicycles hadn't been invented yet. He left for the West Coast in the early days of the Civil War, and the earliest bicycles weren't created until about 1863 in Paris. The only thing remotely resembling a bicycle in those days was the draisine, a two-wheeled vehicle propelled a la Fred Flintstone by pushing it with your feet while you straddle it.
Had bicycles been available in those days, it's possible he may have chosen it for transportation because he did become intrigued by bicycling in later years. He later wrote about learning to ride a bicycle in the 1890s with his famous quote:
“Learn to ride a bicycle. You will not regret it if you live.”
Also, he included a bizarre scene with knights on penny farthings in “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court” (illustrated above).
Travels with Charley in Search of America: (Centennial Edition)
“Travels with Charley,” John Steinbeck
Steinbeck takes off on a cross-country road trip in a specially built camper with his poodle, Charley, as his traveling companion. Imagine what a writer of his stature could have shared if he'd undertaken this trip by bicycle.
He writes about how Charley is a great “ice breaker” for meeting people at the parks and campsites where he stays. We all know that bicycles also make it easier to meet people when traveling.
Fellows of his age, he was 58 when he started in 1960, always are taking off on bicycle tours these days. And it's not unheard of for a touring cyclists to be accompanied by a dog in a trailer, either.
Desert Solitaire
Abbey writes about his days as a park ranger at the newly opened Arches National Monument near Moab, Utah. Today that area is a mountain biker's paradise, although at that time, fat tire bicycling hadn't been conceived.
Here's a quote from the book:
“A man on foot, on horseback or on a bicycle will see more, feel more, enjoy more in one mile than the motorized tourist can in a hundred miles.”
Abbey suggests in the book that that visitors to Yosemite and Grand Canyon national parks be required to park their cars at the entrance and continue the rest of the way on park-supplied bicycles. Unfortunately, Abbey never takes to a bicycle in the book himself.
One of the most memorable adventures of the book is the story of his raft trip down a river before it is dammed up. Imagine his descriptions of rough-riding mountain bike trips into the desert wilderness.
Blue Highways: A Journey into America
The author caught many people's imagination by driving around the United States on the “blue highways.” These two-lane winding roads, often marked in blue on highway maps, that largely have been abandoned by motorists in favor of the interstate highway system.
Bike travelers know that these “blue highways” are the first roads we look for when picking routes for long-distance touring.
Moon drives to the small towns that dot these blue highways and writes about the folks he meets and his adventures. If he'd done the trip by bicycle, he could surely have multiplied his experiences times 10.
The English Major: A Novel
I just finished this novel about a 60-year-old farmer from Michigan's Upper Peninsula. He suffers a post midlife crisis when his wife leaves him for her former high school flame at a reunion. Losing his farm in the divorce, he decides to drive to all the lower 48 states.
This is a wonderful book written with humor and introspection, and I could identify with some of what this aging traveler is feeling. But I couldn't help but think how cool it would have been for Cliff to set off on a bicycle instead of car. Maybe a tandem would have been more appropriate, considering those periods of sexual escapades that punctuate his travels.
Others
Instead of thinking about replacing cars with bicycles in literature, maybe I should write my own book that does that. First, though, I'd have to do more research. Sounds like a good excuse for a bike tour.
What are your favorite books that might have been improved with the bicycle vehicle?
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