The Bike and Beyond by Laura Williamson

I recently came across a bunch of books published by BWB Texts . They had been donated to someone and they were passing it on through the staffroom. I quickly browsed through the titles of some of the books in hopes that something would pique my interest. Sure enough, there were a couple of titles so I picked them out to give them a go. One of the titles was this book, and I thought it was a reasonable read.

“The Bike and Beyond: Life on Two Wheels in Aotearoa New Zealand” is a collection of articles written by Laura Williamson. She addresses the history the bicycle in New Zealand culture up to the present day. Her writing style reminded me a lot of articles written for magazines, or Reader’s Digest. It’s an inoffensive style, and makes for easy reading. She injected her opinions quite well amoung the recounting of the stories she provided. Various opinions on bicycles were also provided including the politics of different bicycle related culture.

Recommendation

I don’t think I would pay NZD$15 for the book1, it’s not enough of a read to merit that kind of value. The writing is good, so I would recommend it as a read if you get a chance. Its not a entirely deep dive on the subject, and no solutions are proposed to cycling infrastructure. Laura gives a healthy perspective on using a bicycle in New Zealand, and one that I think is fair. I often cycle as a commuting option, it helps me stay healthy when I can’t make time for the gym or do other physical pursuits.

So I may be a little biased in that regard.

Signing Off

I’ve recently found out about Tour Aotearoa so there could be another thing for me to add to the bucket list.

I’m going to keep reading a bunch of other books from BWB Texts. They are mostly New Zealand culture focussed so it’ll be helpful to get a better overall picture of what is the zeitgeist is.

Stay safe, and make good choices.

  1. I looked at the cost on their website at the time I wrote this article. It may have changed so here is a link to the specific book . Hopefully the link still works for the foreseeable future. ↩︎