Cyclepedia – A Tour Of Iconic Bicycle Designs, Michael Embacher (2011)

A fabulous compendium of bicycle designs masterfully photographed

Thames and Hudson 9780500515587 21cm x 27.5cm 224pp £19.95
A fabulous compendium of bicycle designs masterfully photographed

The hundred bicycles from Embacher’s collection pictured here prove one thing beyond doubt. As fixed as the basic bicycle’s design has been this past 130 years, it has also been the subject of almost infinite variation, adaptation and experiment.

This is a rich feast, of superbly-taken photographs showing the most catholic range of wheeled wonders imaginable. There are classics from Colnago and Bianchi alongside bikes whose production runs did not make three figures. There are bikes for boaters and push irons for paratroopers alongside René Herse tourers and Alex Moulton’s suspended small wheelers.

Each bike is represented by a range of photographs and a short history of its development and production – which are themselves a trove of interest. How sad to learn that production of the revolutionary magnesium Kirk Precision came to an end in the late 1980s when magnesium dust in the air caused its brand-new factory to burn to the ground. But how cheery to discover that Frank Bickerton sold nearly 50,000 of his revolutionary (if famously bendy) folding bicycles.

The scope of the book is the 1920s to the present day – which is itself novel. Other collections of bicycle pictures have tended to focus more narrowly – from Pryor Dodge’s book which is largely about pre-1920s bikes to Christine Elliot and David Jabolinka’s Custom Bikes, which concentrates on modern bespoke design.

Here there is something to get nearly every cyclist’s pulse racing. The only thing missing is a slightly more personal explanation of the author’s enthusiasm for and immersion in the world of spoked wheels. Some of those questions are answered in my interview with Embacher – but I would still have liked to know more.

How fascinating it would be, for example, to know the stories of some of these particular models – as well as of the designs. Perhaps that will make a feature of the next exhibition in which these bicycles feature?

TD Mar 11