Need for the Bike

Need for the Bike
By Paul Fournel

Review from Bicycle Quarterly Vol. 3, No. 3 (Spring 2005):

In Need for the Bike, Fournel explores his life as a cyclist – as somebody who rides because they enjoy riding, not because they want to get in shape, earn a living, or seek adventure in far-away lands.

Fournel takes the reader along on his bike, starting with his childhood in post-war Saint-Etienne, then the epicenter of the French bicycle industry. He shares how this cyclist thinks and how he perceives the world.

On the bike, Fournel “lives” the terrain that other travelers only see as spectators. A mountain is not simply a mountain, but “first a grade to climb, a test, a doubt, sometimes anxiety. At the summit, it is conquest, lightness. I’ve taken it in, and it is in me.”