Two Wheels Good: The History and Mystery of the Bicycle (Shortlisted for the Sunday Times Sports Book Awards 2023)

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A panoramic portrait of the nineteenth-century invention that is transforming our twenty-first century world **SHORTLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2023** 'Full of delightful anecdotes and interviews and fascinating historical tales' Mail on Sunday A panoramic portrait of the wonderous vehicle whose passenger is also its engine. A toy, a tool, a liberator, or complete nuisance- the bicycle has been many things to many people over the decades, yet it endures as the most popular form of transport in the world. How has such a simple machine achieved so much Combining history, travelogue and memoir, Jody Rosen reshapes our understanding of this ubiquitous vehicle from its invention in 1817 to its present-day renaissance as a 'green machine'. Readers meet unforgettable characters- women's suffragists who steered bikes to the barricades in the 1890s, a Bhutanese king who races mountain bikes in the Himalayas, astronauts who ride a floating bicycle in zero gravity. By examining the bicycle's past and peering into its future, Two Wheels Good forms a joyful ode to an engineering marvel of global importance. 'Funny, precise, surprising' Adam Gopnik 'Love for two-wheeled transport runs through every sentence' Economist 'Wry, rich, deeply researched' Patrick Radden Keefe

Reviews

When I fell in love with riding a bike in New York City last year, what I found myself craving was a history-of the bicycle... that whoever wrote this history would find a way to make it personal and ruminative... Lo and behold: Jody Rosen has written that very book. My wish has come true and a door's been blown open. I got more than I knew I wanted * New York TImes *
Two Wheels Good is full of interesting moments...and is often written with real verve... his [Rosen's] enthusiasm for what is sometimes described as mankind's "noblest invention" is infectious * Times Literary Supplement *
The engaging tone of Rosen's memoir-travelogue-history is the grim cheerfulness of the urban cyclist. He gives a vivid sense of the cinematic pleasures of cycling through a city. * Spectator *
A jovial historical narrative ... Rosen rightly get us to expand our narrow Western image of the bicycle to a global perspective [and] is skilled yet selective in navigating the complex and rich history of the bicycle, taking us across continents and through centuries ... a thoroughly enjoyable, and sometimes surprising read * Cycle *
The bicycle has been loved and loathed... Rosen's vibrant history explores it all * BBC History Magazine *

Author Bio

Jody Rosen is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine. His writing on culture, politics, transportation, and music has appeared in The New Yorker, Slate, New York, the Los Angeles Times, and other publications.