sla book review: the art of bicycling

The Art of Bicycling

Reviewed by Duncan R. Jamieson, Ashland University

JANUARY 17, 2006 archive

Bicycling and bicyclists fall into three general categories: travelers and tourists, commuters, and racers. While I participate in the first two, I assiduously resist the last. Still, in each, the similarities outweigh the differences. While racers (or scorchers in the nineteenth century) devote more time to strategy and commuters watch for opening doors or turning automobiles, they, like travelers and tourists, enjoy the passing scene and revel in the fact their progress depends solely on their own activity. Most serious cyclists develop an attachment to their activity similar to the better known "runners' high," which can be expressed poetically. The art of bicycling: a treasury of poems, edited by Justin Daniel Belmont, acknowledges the relationship between the bicyclist and bicycling, an idea expressed eighty years ago by Christopher Morley. "The bicycle, the bicycle surely, should always be the vehicle of novelists and poets" (The Romany Stain,1926). Collecting poems from the bicycle's early days in the last third of the nineteenth century through the present, Belmont accurately captures thebicyclist's ability to transcend self, time and space. As an historian and a bicyclist, I can relate to the poems, even those whose theme is racing. Even though I read poetry, although not as often as I would like, and attend poetry readings when the opportunity presents itself, I am not in any position to analyze or critique the quality of the poems. My eclectic taste ranges from the mundane to the esoteric. If the poem "speaks" to me, I enjoy it. While this is certainly a worthwhile collection, it has its faults. First, the introduction is weak. I'm not sure Belmont makes a good case either for his collection of poems or for the rationale for a book of bicycle poetry. Second, to begin with Walt Whitman's "Song of the open road" is a shameless attempt to list a major poet on the back cover. Nowhere in his poem does Whitman make any reference or illusion to bicycles and bicycling, unless I am completely out of touch, this is a poem about tramping. My third criticism is perhaps one of taste. I believe Belmont cast his net too narrowly, meaning the collection is not broad enough. Many of the older poems come from S. Conant Foster's Wheel Songs (New York: White, Stokes, & Allen, 1884), one of a few late nineteenth century collections of bicycle poetry. But how could any collection not include at least one of the poetic tributes to Thomas Stevens, the first to ride a wheel around the world?

To the East! to the East! with constant aim,
Over oceans, through deserts, onward he came
With soul determined to do or die,
With heart undaunted and steadfast eye
Forever fixed on the distant goal,
    To the East!  the East! and Home!
II
To the East! to the East! over mountain heights,
Through burning days and glooming nights
He ever came on his flying wheel--
Grimly treading his lone, long reel--
With eyes still fixed on the distant goal,
    To the East!  the East!  and Home!
III
To the East! to the East! through strange wild lands.
Where live fierce men with blood-stained hands,
Where wander stealthy beasts of prey,
Where dangers threaten and perils play,
His eyes were fixed on the distant goal,
    To the East! the East! and Home!
IV
To the East! to the East! through the jaws of Death,
scorched by the heat of Death's hot breath,
he rode unswervingly along
With brave heart singing his constant song;
While his eyes were fixed on the distant goal:
    To the East! The East! and Home!
V
To the East! to the East! he comes at last,
all hardships ended, all perils past:
He joys with the joy of a work well done;
He delights in the honor he has won:
At last he has reached his constant goal,
    In the East! the East! and Home!
VI
To the East! To the East! we welcome thee!
In the East! in the East! all honor be
To the steadfast heart and courageous soul,
To the man! who has come unharmed and whole
To his distant, ever-receding goal
    In the East! the East, and Home!


Cushing, C.E. "Welcome to Thomas Stevens," Outing, IX (6), Mar, 1887, 538.

How could Belmont miss Joseph Pennell's satirical look at the bicycle and woman's rights:

'Ere woman took to writing books
        She followed man's direction; . . .
    And woman, trampled under heel,
    Toiled on before the plowing wheel. . . .

    One day she rose and left the soil,
        And bade her tyrant tend it; . . .
    She loved the simple rock and reel,
    And worked behind the spinning wheel. . . .

    But times, alack! have changed since then, . . . .
    And naught can quench their mannish zeal--
    They've mounted on the whirling wheel. . . .


"Woman and the Wheel," The Critic, XXVII (n.s.) (XXX o.s.) (February 27,
1897), 152.

After a brief epilogue, taken from William Saroyan's Bicycle rider in Beverly Hills, Belmont includes poet biographies, both interesting and informative. Unfortunately, he identifies approximately half the poets, leaving the reader to wonder about the rest. What the poems have in common is the poet's ability to capture the spirit of bicycling. Anyone who rides any distance will be interested in this collection, and people who enjoy poetry and want to learn more about bicycling will also find this a worthwhile collection. Breakaway Books is connecting two reading communities, an idea successfully used by the publishers of both Elizabeth and Joseph Pennell, bicycle travelers/authors who wrote and rode during the 1880s and 1890s, and Bernard Newman, whose bicycle and literary career covered the era between the world wars.

to the top of this page