As the Bike Snob gained notoriety (which is like gaining notariety in that it involves a lot of signatures but differs in that they’re yours) some people began to ask who he was.  It’s a silly sort of question for silly people but eventually even people I know who don’t ride bikes were in on it.  A friend of mine told me she’d heard he was actually some guy in the financial field.  If you actually read the blog you know plenty about him.  He favors practicality and a lack of pomp while still appreciating that some things are simply fun to do.  Although he spends much of his time telling people what to do with their bikes he freely admits that no one should follow his “dictats” if they are enjoying themselves as they are.  (Within reason. See bike salmon.)  He pokes fun at everything, including himself.  He rides his bike often and emphasizes the activity over the maintenance of both body and machine.  What else is there to know?  As a skateboarder I used to run into the same people regularly at “spots” but only interact with them peripherally.  Of these recognizable strangers, there were some I liked and some I disliked based on their comportment.  Knowing someone’s name wouldn’t make me think they were any less of a dick for snaking runs and it wouldn’t make me like anyone who was courteous any more.  What I enjoyed about this book is that it lets us know RTMS better in the ways that count.  Those ways being his relationship to cycling and the joy it brings him.

However, I should note that if you think a band sells out when they use a recording studio instead of etching their disc format of choice with a rock by themselves, you probably won’t like this book. This book is certainly not the affront or slap in the face that many hardcore fans claim when their favorite artists create projects for consumption by wider audiences.  However, it is not a “paper back blog” and may be different than what you expect if you haven’t been following the Snob’s interview circuit.  While I personally feel that the blog holds up over time, at least looking back two years, I understand his point perfectly that a book should be more timeless.  They are composed (and consumed) over a much longer period of time and should have a greater cohesiveness than a collection of posts that are meant to stand alone and have been composed over what was probably sometimes a lunch break.  A blog is topical in the way we mean topical humor, this book is topical in that it is about the topic of cycling.  Period. Complaining about the lack of the Lobster God here would be like complaining that his Giro d’Italia blog doesn’t make fun of anyone on a fixed gear.

A legitimate complaint would be that there isn’t a whole lot of stuff you didn’t know before. While I found all the content based on the history of cycling, why the bicycle was a great invention, and pretty much all of Snob’s personal stories to be engaging, there was quite a bit of rehash. Which is to be fully expected. The man has covered quite a bit of ground in the last couple of years. In general, he does it in a clever and concise way and it’s still fun to see him collect the various themes and categories he has developed over the course of the blog and consolidate and refine them. I particularly liked the part about the myth of bike culture where he skewers the notion of any “thing” culture and distinguishes that idea from the subcultures within cycling.

Back to stuff you already know. There are huge portions of the book dedicated to introductory maintenance and advice for navigating the mean world of bicycle commuting and ownership. Snob maintains a welcoming tone throughout these portions that reminds me of college orientation. There is certainly humorous content that the experienced cyclist will enjoy but in this book the novice or interloper is king.  It’s like Snob is on a long ride with an unsure friend he’s brought along and keeps looking back to make sure he’s still there, smiling encouragingly to tell them to think about it for a second and realize how much fun they’re having.

If you’re like me, you might question the logic of a man who loves riding bikes and has built an audience of people who also love riding bikes writing a book for people who don’t love riding bikes.  The truth is that this book is for people who don’t know they love riding bikes yet. And in that way it is very much for people who love riding bikes.  He has given sold you something that you can give or lend to those around you that are, metaphorically speaking, constantly hovering above a saddle or standing next to a bike.  I agree with him that the best form of bike advocacy is riding your bike.  If you want better bike lanes you have to show that people use them. Once more, if you want to be treated better by drivers you have to get out there so they can get used to the idea of treating you any way at all.  Snob makes the point that every time you let someone see you on a bike you’re helping to show them that cycling is accessible and easy.  Without being snarky, I’d like to suggest that the best form of reading this book is letting it be read by other people.  Think of this book as the guest bike you keep for enticing non-cyclist buddies and the blog as your daily commuter.

Notes:

I borrowed the term “paper back blog” from Sean Bonner. You can download the e-book here.

Yeah, the book is pretty on the inside. Christopher Koelle has done a great job illustrating and you can buy some of work here. It’s actually almost surprising because of how much the Snob avoids flashiness on the site.  He hasn’t even opted to register his own vanity domain like I have, opting instead to stay a dot blogspot.  Readers often take pleasure in his low quality photography and photo editing “skillz.”  No blog to book could be completely bereft of pictures though and Chronicle and Bike Snob oblige with a 16 page insert full of images from the blog.  The handlebar condom makes it in there, as does the lone wolf and the lime green rim heard around the world.

Things have come a long way since then and Amazon now tells you within about a day when you’ll be receiving your next novelty item. Didn’t you know? Dead tree books are like sculptures of blogs. It’s a kind of origami that uses stitching. As you may know, I am a huge fan of a certain blog that is written by the previously mysterious Bike Snob NYC. Ever since I began reading it I have said that I would like to compensate him for his work somehow beyond sending him links to things for his quizzes. So it was that I went to sleep last night comforted by the knowledge that I would most likely rush home from work today and find the most recent Snob x Paper collabo waiting for me. I slept the sleep of a child who has already peeked at his Christmas gifts but has parents that are clumsy enough to misplace them during the transition from their closet to the tree. Well, they made it. Here is what I saw when I got home.

The first thing I noticed after I ripped this book from it’s protective covering was that it is small.  Perhaps that is because it was built for performance.  I immediately decided to take some measurements.

Like succulent homarus americanus meat ripped right out of a claw

In keeping with convention I opted to use sunglasses and improvised as necessary.

As you can see, the book is about one pair of sun glasses wide.

And one and a half eyes wide.  I couldn’t take a picture of the most important dimension, width, because I had to measure it in cell phones and I was capturing the images with mine.  It was two HTC Ozones thick FYI.  I tried to weigh it but since my scale is set to babies, it wouldn’t register.

This bodes well for a quick, snappy read.  I expect it to accelerate great in the bathroom.