While visiting Fort Collins Colorado this past week Lindsay and I arrived at the city early and had some time to kill before the rest of our party got into town. We found a cafe/used bookstore on the main drag and I happened upon the first two editions of Boneshaker. Boneshaker intends somewhat to be a 'compendium' of information for the bike commuter, but its contents really touch all branches of cycling. It contains fiction, prose, journals, educational information, historical pieces, poems, and pretty much any form of writing you can think of, all which relate to the bike or act of riding a bike.
My trip was my first real visit to Colorado, and my first time through Fort Collins. After the trip I can see how Boneshaker could be centered and published out of a small Colorado city. In just the brief afternoon we spend in Fort Collins, I saw every type of bike and every type of cyclist imaginable. Every street was covered in bike lanes and there was a bike shop on almost every block. There is even a bike library that lends bikes for people to explore and ride around downtown (although it was closed when we were there). Fort Collins obviously embraces the bike in all its forms, and Boneshaker shows it.
There are plenty of periodicals and publications based on road bikes and bike racing, and there is a fairly large internet community based on the trendier and fashionable fixed gear bicycle. However there doesn't seem to be much to read for the 'normal' cyclist. This could be a result of the fact that the other two camps tend to be fanatical about their bikes and subcultures, but that doesn't mean that commuters and other cyclists don't love their bikes and the ride just as much.
While reading the first two editions of Boneshaker I was really surprised to see the number of articles written by authors from Atlanta. The first volume had three articles, and the second one had two. This was by far more than any other city or even state. There was a series of journal entries written about commuting from Decatur to the Atlanta suburbs on a fixed gear bike (a completely ludicrous idea), articles written by a local bag maker, a movie review written by an Atlantan, and a couple of articles written by the head of Sopo Bikes, Rachael Spiewak.
I know that at this point Boneshaker is a small publication and that most of the articles were probably commissioned so that the authors were known to the publishers, its still great to see such a representation by my city. When people think of a 'cycling culture' people think of Portland, Austin or New York, no one thinks of hot and sprawling Atlanta. This isn't to say there isn't a huge and diverse bike culture here that takes advantage of the many small communities within the city limits. People just tend to think of the massive highways and sprawling suburbs that lie outside the city limits. In fact there are no articles written by authors from Austin or NYC, and the only article written from Portland is a pretentious interview with the PDX Bike Milita (which answers questions with either more questions or obtuse answers that tend not to make any sense). I couldn't help but feel a sense of pride when I picked up a national bike publication, from a very bike oriented town, and discovered that Atlanta was more that well represented.
Boneshaker is a valiant attempt to start a bike publication that everyone can enjoy, but not all of the pieces are wonderful. Pretentious fixed gear pieces make their way into the book which tend to overstate their own importance. Although I understand the utility and simplicity of fixed gear bicycles in the urban environment, acting like it's a more 'pure' form of riding is ridiculous and really gets on my nerves. Biking in the Atlanta suburbs on a fixed gear, or touring from San Francisco to Missoula on a fixed gear make absolutely no sense. I suppose one could make an argument similar to the one that often comes with the Harry Potter or Twilight books ('at least children are reading something'), but I really think all cyclists should be united. Acting like you're superior to another cyclist because you choose not to have gears (or often stupidly, brakes) is counter productive to the cycling cause as a whole.
Despite the occasional pretentious fixed gear article (and some of the fixed gear pieces aren't that bad), Boneshaker mostly contains interesting, fun or educational articles. There is definitely a place in the market for a periodical for the 'normal' bike rider and I look forward to reading future installments.
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