A Wheel Within a Wheel: How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle: With Some Reflections by the Way

Rating:
Summary: A true gem
Review: Frances Willard was a hardy, clear-spoken New England Temperance/Suffrage activist of the late 19th century. Until age 16, she had free run of the world, but then was bound by the corsets and hoops and restrictions of womanhood. That is, until she turned 53 and received the gift of "a wheel" -- a safety bicycle -- from a friend in the movement. Her reflections on riding the bicycle are amusing and profound. It was very much a community effort for her; she describes one lesson in which four friends stand at the corners (including one at each side of the handlebars, counterbalancing them) and walk her down the drive. BUT this book is ultimately more about life than it is about cycling. It is like a journal of all the insights sparked by this return to the unfettered freedom of Willard's youth. And for that, it is precious and challenging. The language reminded me of Mark Twain's dry observations on his own habits and predilections, and Willard is certainly his equal in exercising her powers of observation and analysis. Ultimately she reflects a universal experience: the experience of flight on two wheels that attracts so many of us to the sport and discipline of the bicycle.