This surveys bicycle design in 2012 that is very affordable compared to the full-size coffee-table bicycle books so common today. It is a small workbook for generating ideas you can take anywhere. The table of contents lists 20 bikes as Race/Tour, 14 as BMX/Mountain, 36 as City/Utility and 30 as Folding/Innovative. The author is an architect who rides a "ten-speed Motobecane Mirage" for transportation in San Francisco.
The strength of the book is that it is a current snap-shot of bicycle design that is a book, not a computer monitor you have to feed with an umbilical cord of electricity. I have sat in my favorite chair reading it and was helpless against the feeling of ideas that washed over my consciousness as I looked over the book.
It appears to have originated as a collection of internet links that was made into a book. Both media have limitations. While any internet search is current it is limited to the search terms you used and what appears on the web that day. You get some the bikes shown in the book by doing an image search for "bicycle design". By contrast, books are expensive to print and lower the cost by reducing the amount of information they print. You get as much information as if you had jogged through a bicycle design show. The size of the book is a problem. The book is too small for more than a couple of pictures of each bike. The compressed photographs are more like a catalog of mug-shots which show enough details to identify the bike instead of the full-size graphic color close-ups that is the hall-mark of beautiful bicycle photography. The description is cursory and casual in a very small font that some will find difficult to read.
Too many bikes are missing for the list to be inclusive. It features only upright bicycles; there are no recumbent or human-powered vehicles. Despite the fact that so many hubless designs have been circulated on the web, there is only one hubless bicycle. The compressed format of print publication limits the amount of information about each bike. Most of the bikes are featured on a 2-page spread with 1-2 paragraphs of description that lists the designer's background as well as any design awards the bike got. These are design ideas; several of the bikes are not available. One is not even a bicycle but is a motorcycle frame "that is so light and slender that it may well be adapted for a pedal-assisted e-bike." Several electric bikes are listed.
It has a few classical designs in current production such as Royal Dutch Gazelle and Dei bicycles with oil-bath chain-guards and steel-rod brakes. The Moulton is listed but not The Pedersen currently produced by Kemper in Germany and Jesper Solling in Denmark. While it lists several bikes currently made out of wood it does not list the Renovo, a popular favorite at the North American Hand-made Bicycle Show though it shows a bicycle made by Renovo for Audi. The 17 pound cardboard bicycle due to be produced is not mentioned. The emphasis is on designs coming from industrialized nations instead of from the Third World. The book follows Custom Bicycles, a Passionate Pursuit which lists bikes that appeared at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show which showcase the current craftsman's art and Cyclepedia: a Century of Iconic Design by Michael Embacher, which catalogs the 20th century design history of the bicycle.
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