Paul de Vivie (1853-1930), who wrote as ‘Velocio’, was an early advocate of the bicycle, supposed inventor of the derailleur and the father of French cycle touring. Here are his seven commandments for the wise cyclist:
1. Keep your stops short and few.
2. Eat before you’re hungry, drink before you’re thirsty.
3. Never get too tired to eat or sleep.
4. Add a layer before you’re cold, take one off before you’re hot.
5. Lay off wine, meat and tobacco on tour.
6. Ride within yourself, especially in the first hour.
An extended, hour long edition of the show featuring French writer, poet, cyclist and cultural ambassador Paul Fournel (pictured). We stroll from the French House in Soho to the Rapha Cycle Club in Clerkenwell, to visit an exhibition of a hundred years of racing bicycles. The exhibition runs for two more weeks and is well worth a visit. Paul Fournel’s book Besoin de Vélo is one of the loveliest pieces of writing about cycling and is available in English translation as Need for the Bike. If you buy it after clicking through on the link, Resonance FM gets a few pennies. Rob Ainsley of the Real Cycling blog reports on the launch of London’s two new cycle superhighways.
As part of this year’s London Festival of Architecture, Stephen Bayley leads a ride around the best of French architecture, art and design to be found on the streets of London. Stephen Bayley is the Observer’s architecture and design critic, the founding director of the Design Museum and in 1989 was a made a Chevalier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France’s top artistic honour.
If you’re interested in my drinking guide for this year’s Tour De France, it’s here.
Tim Dawson, cycling columnist for the Sunday Times, runs the Cycling Books website, the most compendious review website for cycling books. He joins me in the studio to discuss the literature of cycling, from Tour de France to cycle touring. Paul Fournel reads another extract from Need for the Bike. Below is a list of the books discussed in the show. If you would like to buy them, follow the links to Amazon and Resonance FM will get a share of anything you buy, even if it’s stuff not on the list. What a nice way to help your favourite bicycling art radio station!
The Classics The Rider by Tim Krabbé The Escape Artist by Matt Seaton Need for the Bike by Paul Fournel
Tour de France Bad to the Bone by James Waddington Sweat of the Gods by Benjo Masso Wide-eyed and Legless: Inside the Tour De France by Jeff Connor Le Tour: A History of the Tour De France by Geoffrey Wheatcroft My Comeback: Up Close and Personal by Lance Armstrong and Elizabeth Kreutz
Cycle touring & travel Thunder and Sunshine by Alistair Humphreys The Hungry Cyclist by Tom Kevilll-Davies French Revolutions by Tim Moore Full Tilt: Ireland To India With a Bicycle by Dervla Murphy Transylvania and Beyond by Dervla Murphy Blue River, Black Sea by Andrew Eames A Bike Ride by Anne Mustoe
Advocacy, philosophy Richard’s Bicycle Book by Richard Ballantine
Those we didn’t get time to talk about Tomorrow We Ride by Jean Bobet The Passion of Fausto Coppi by William Fotheringham The Noiseless Tenor by James Starrs Golden Age of Handbuilt Bikes and Competition Bikes by Jan Heine Rouleur Annual 2009 Fixed: Global Fixed-Gear Bike Culture by Andrew Edwards and Max Leonard
To win copies of the current issues of Rouleur and The Ride Journal, send answers to the competition questions to bikeshow-at-resonancefm-dot-com. Thanks to these fine publications for donating the prizes.
Riding with Amy Fleuriot, a young British fashion designer who’s Cyclodelic range of clothing and accessories is offering women a more stylish alternative to the typically drab clothing sold to cyclists. This is the final show in the current season. Thanks for listening!
Copenhagen is widely regarded as the world’s most cycle-friendly city. I ask Copenhagen’s Mayor Klaus Bondam what advice he gives to other city leaders in how to emulate the Danish capital. Multitalented musician, songwriter and cartoonist Peter Blegvad reads Alfred Jarry’s proto-absurdist short story “The Crucifixion Considered as an Uphill Bicycle Race”. Jarry (pictured, above) was fond of cycling around Paris with a giant bell mounted on his bicycle and firing a pistol into the air to clear the road. While this is highly tempting, it may turn out to be counterproductive on today’s city streets. Why not try, instead, a website where you can record bike lane violations: MyBikeLane.com. Plus reflections on a big day in Le Tour De France.
Pedal Pusher is a play that follows three professional cyclists, Jan Ullrich, Marco Pantani and Lance Armstrong, in the most dramatic recent era of professional cycle sport. From the young prodigy Jan Ullrich winning the Tour in 1997, the doping scandals of 1998, Armstrong’s conquest of cancer and ending with Pantani’s exile from the sport and eventual death from a cocaine overdose. By interweaving the biographical stories with recreations of the Tour de France races onstage, the play tells the difficult but uplifting story of their lives through excitement and energy of the race itself. I speak with the four-man cast and director Roland Smith.
Pedal Pusher runs until Saturday 1st August 2009, showing on Monday to Saturday nights at 7:30pm. Tickets are £12 (£10 concessions). Rob Ainsley at Real Cycling has reviewed Pedal Pusher as has Edward R Burge.
. If you buy it after clicking through on the link, Resonance FM gets a few pennies. Rob Ainsley of the 
