Review. Everyday Bicycling: How to Ride a Bike for Transportation, by Elly Blue

Review.  Everyday Bicycling: How to Ride a Bike for Transportation, by Elly Blue

In June 1992, with my bicycle I boarded a jet to Germany, leaving my home, Portland, OR behind.  In Portland, my bike was both transportation and recreation.   It continued that way for a couple of years in Germany until pressures from work and home required me to get a car.  Bicycling became an on and off recreation and fitness valve for me until this year when I left Germany and moved to the Netherlands.

The Netherlands is an ideal location for bicycles with path and routes connecting all of the towns and villages.  I decided that this is the opportunity to return to my roots and integrate my bicycle into a more solid transportation role in my daily life.  It quickly became difficult, not because I wasn’t fit, not because I had the wrong bike, but because I forgot what it was like using a bicycle as primary transportation.  My gear, bike, bags, clothes were well suited for multi day tours across the European country side just weren’t up to the task of buying vegetables at the nearby market.   I also quickly realized my knowledge base and experience had become static twenty years in the past.

I started to do research on better integrating my bicycle into my daily life.  I ran across “Every Day Bicycling:  How to ride a bike for transportation” by Elly Blue, through Microcosm Publishing. This book has quickly become my baseline reference.  The book provides basic practical advice and wisdom for living a bicycle centric life.   Ms. Blue’s insightful knowledge goes from types of bicycles, gear, road safety to even bicycle based advocacy.  The sections of the book stand alone so it is easy to go back and reference the topics.

I found the section “Carrying Things by Bike” extremely relevant to me.  She went into details from her own experiences on the different manners of transporting cargo on bike.  Included was simple diagram in making your own “Bike Buckets” to attach your rear rack.  Extremely clever.  I might even try making a pair.

Woven through the book is a upbeat positive message saying anyone can ride a bicycle for transportation and that it can be integrated as a normal part of your life.

It is a good read and at $10.00 a valuable addition to my bicycle reference collection.