I picked up the Hurst book after reading raves about it here. His point about being flexible is well-taken, but I have to say his bike-messenger machismo made me a little uneasy. I'm trying to ride safely so that I can avoid road rash (or worse) so why would I want to embrace it? I liked the beginning chapters about the history of bikes and cycling. They put a lot of what we go through now into greater perspective.

I read Effective Cycling when I first delved into cycling eleven years ago, and I like that book. (Hung on to my copy all these years.) I work at MIT and appreciate his thorough, scholarly engineer's approach to the subject, though his gear-ratio charts are maybe a bit much for all but the nerdiest among us. I like that he includes information about bike maintenance and repair, as well.

I didn't realize until I got back into cycling this spring that something approaching a religious war has developed between the vehicular cycling movement (Forester's approach) and others. According to Hurst, the vehicular cyclists believe that it's demeaning for a cyclist to ride in any other way (say, in bike lanes or on bike paths) than taking their god-given place on the roadways. That isn't what I took away from Forester's book. I do think that there is a danger in drifting too far from the vehicular approach of cyclists being more marginalized than we already are. Should we have less of a right to the roads because we can go places cars can't (paths) or because we have the option to hop off the bike and act as a pedestrian in certain circumstances? I don't think so.

As I learn more about cycling this time around, I'm grazing through more sources, taking a couple of classes, and trying to arrive for myself at a safe, sensible riding style. Most of the time that amounts to vehicular cycling, but we have advantages of flexibility and maneuverability and it would be silly for us not to use them.