Bicycles have more cultural identities than many realize, functioning not only as literal vehicles in a text but also as "vehicles" for that text's themes, ideas, and critiques. In the late nineteenth century the bicycle was seen as a way for the wealthy urban elite to reconnect with nature and for women to gain a measure of personal freedom, while during World War II it became a utilitarian tool of the French Resistance and in 1970s China stood for wealth and modernization. Lately it has functioned variously as the favored ideological steed of environmentalists, a means of community bonding and aesthetic self-expression in hip hop, and the ride of choice for bike messenger-idolizing urban hipsters. Culture on Two Wheels analyzes the shifting cultural significance of the bicycle by examining its appearances in literary, musical, and cinematic works spanning three continents and more than 125 years of history. Bringing together essays by a variety of cyclists and scholars with myriad angles of approach, this collection highlights the bicycle's flexibility as a signifier and analyzes the appearance of bicycles in canonical and well-known texts such as Samuel Beckett's modernist novel Molloy, the Oscar-winning film Breaking Away, and various Stephen King novels and stories, as well as in lesser-known but equally significant texts, such as the celebrated Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky's film Sacrifice and Elizabeth Robins Pennell's nineteenth-century travelogue A Canterbury Pilgrimage, the latter of which traces the route of Chaucer's pilgrims via bicycle. Listen to an interview with the author.

It Takes Two to Tandem Louise and Nev, have been linked for 32 years through their wedding vows. Now Louise is going to be linked to Nev through the steel of a tandem bike frame as they ride for sixteen days, travelling 880 miles through the United Kingdom, from John O'Groats to Lands End. Nev with a history of success in mountain bike racing is determined to do this trip. Louise, concerned about keeping up with his superior prowess isn't so sure. The tandem bike, will force them to ride together and face a new challenge of working completely in unison. As if muscle fatigue wasn't enough to contend with, the summer of the ride was to be one of the wettest in the United Kingdom since records began. Louise, in the subordinate rear position, blocks out the long miles of tedious leg rotations with recollections of travel in these regions, embarked on in their early years of married life. Train journeys link the British cycling epic with loops of tandem riding in Tuscany and Provence. While at a more relaxed cycling pace, the hauling of luggage and the inability to meet train schedules while travelling with an oversized tandem in tow, presents further obstacles and tribulations that threaten the very core of their relationship.

Can I do this? I asked myself. I'd been repeating the same question for the last 24 hours. People seem to say, "It's Arvid-of course he can do it." If they knew how many times I struggled with self-doubt, with the question of whether I should bike another kilometre, they would never feel so confident. This was one of those times. Giving up now was, for me, symbolic of giving up on the kids at MCF. Many of them had been abandoned by parents, relatives and society, left to fend for themselves. God had never given up on them, and I was not going to quit a silly bike ride. I made up my mind: I will not give up. When Arvid set out on a 40 km bike ride only to give up after 30 km, his future as a cyclist seemed bleak. Yet, more than 15 years later, Arvid was racing alongside the world's most elite ultra-marathon athletes. This is his story of failure, courage, disappointment, triumph and laughter-and a few life lessons along the way.

Why do road cyclists go to the mountains? Many books tell you where the mountains are, or how long and how high. None of them ask 'Why?' After all, cycling up a mountain is hard - so hard that, to many non-cyclists, it can seem absurd. But, for some, climbing a mountain gracefully (and beating your competitors up the slope) represents the pinnacle of cycling achievement. The mountains are where legends are forged and cycling's greats make their names. Why are Europe's mountain ranges professional cycling's Wembley Stadium or its Colosseum? Why do amateurs also make a pilgrimage to these high, remote roads and what do we see and feel when we do? Why are the roads there in the first place? Higher Calling explores the central place of mountains in the folklore of road cycling. Blending adventure and travel writing with the rich narrative of pro racing, Max Leonard takes the reader from the battles that created the Alpine roads to the shepherds tending their flocks on the peaks, and to a Grand Tour climax on the 'highest road in Europe'. And he tells stories of courage and sacrifice, war and love, obsession and elephants along the way.