Eben Weiss’s manual is more a manual about the care and feeding of the owners of bicycles than for the machines.\u00a0 That’s a bold plan; bikes are simple and people are not.\u00a0 The bikesnobnyc (Weiss’s well-known online handle) seizes the opportunity and writes a quite brilliant book.\u00a0 It’s a manual in format and a keenly observed and clearly articulated introduction to a multifaceted community in content.<\/p>\n
That community is the cycling community.\u00a0 The idea that the set of people who share only the attribute “I bought a bike and want to use it” have formed a community is kind of laughable.\u00a0 The bikesnobnyc has explored many of the corners of that set and found the shared values that form the community, while never losing the bristly independence that characterizes the proud enclaves within it.\u00a0 It’s a\u00a0 unique and powerful achievement.<\/p>\n
For people who are drawn into this opinionated and often embattled community, the Owner’s Manual<\/em> is indispensable. Cyclists appear because of love of the act of cycling, desire to change the world\/ecology, or the simple dollars and cents issues of getting around cheaply.\u00a0 The snob speaks to all those motivations and more with neither denigration nor condescension.\u00a0 None of the motivations nor communities around them escapes criticism or goes unappreciated.\u00a0 No matter which pack appeals to the reader – or appalls them – the group gets a fair treatment.<\/p>\n