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05/05/2010

The young man in the photo is pigeon-chested. Yet his thighs are inflated, so muscular he must spread his legs wide to stand. But there are no anabolic steroids involved here. It's all a road bike's fault. The culprit is sleek and green and hangs on the wall in the background. It's obvious: Here, man and machine have formed one another.

The symbiotic relationship between cyclists and their equipment is documented in the soon-to-be-released picture book "Velo: Bicycle Culture and Design," put out by publisher Robert Klanten and graphic designer Sven Ehmann. A look at the publisher alone will tell you this isn't purely a book about cycling: Berlin-based Gestalten specializes in avant-garde visual culture.

Now they've taken on bikes. The authors try to incorporate almost everything on wheels: bike designers, bike enthusiasts, cargo bikes, BMX bikes, folding bikes. The book is like a brisk ride through a city. The title itself means "fast." Impressions fly past the reader in bits and pieces, turning the whole of bike culture into the sum of its disparate parts.

The first thing that jumps out at the reader is that the book is not so much about bike design, but rather the riders themselves. From bike messengers with overstuffed shoulder bags and exhausted grins on their faces -- always looking as though they have just emerged from battle -- to the guys who cruise through London in old-style tweed bloomers to the bicycle merchants in Shanghai hauling their meticulously stacked towers of Styrofoam boxes, rubber balls or plants on the back of their bikes, this book is about the people who love their steel and rubber steeds.

Real Freedom Is on the Seat of a Bike

It's clear: without human power, the curved, cold metal is nothing. In some pictures, bikers casually carry their bike over a shoulder, gently holding on to the seat, giving the intimate impression of a two-man team.

That relationship can't be likened to the one between a car and its owner. In cars, you're shut off from the world. Real freedom, "Velo" says, is on the seat of a trusty bike. As you flip through the portfolio of bike culture, past the handlebar bags from Japan, scenes from garages all over the world, the bling-bling bike frames in Puerto Rico and the boom-box-equipped bikes in Queens, New York, your feet start to itch for a ride.

The picture "Velo" paints is appealing. Relying only on one's own muscle power to get from A to B, one-way streets don't exist. Parking is never a problem -- you simply chain it to a signpost or take your ride into the house. Inexpensive, nomadic, repaired by hand.

A Wheel Is a Wheel Is a Wheel

Cycling is an attitude. And by its very nature, it contributes to an environmentally-friendly lifestyle. The number of pioneering designers and bloggers -- from Freiburg and Münster, and especially from Denmark, the world capital of cycling -- who pop up in the cycling scene are sign enough of two-wheeler's global popularity. People who cycle give themselves over fearlessly to the elements.

The book also demonstrates that the usually utilitarian metal-on-wheels is also an icon. Two wheels, one frame, a handlebar, a seat -- a wheel is a wheel is a wheel. The symbolic impact is impressive, not only when it's barrelling along in the Tour de France. In some of the close ups -- some showing just a single wheel -- "Velo" presents the simple beauty of the bicycle's design. No wonder some people hang bikes on their living room walls.

Anyone with a penchant for bikes will be impressed by the long list of projects, groups and aficionados in the back of the book. "Velo" is an exciting read, with its eclectic and übercool tour of bike culture. It will inspire those who usually only ride in the summer as well as those who couldn't live without their bikes.

Only one thing is wrong: Bikes, it would seem after reading this book, are only ridden by men.