BICYCLE MANIA

Shirley Agudo

XPat Media - Euros 19.90

Annie returned this morning from 10 days in Amsterdam where she was involved in the setting up of the first Trelise Cooper store in Europe.

Celebrating Amsterdam's bike culture is new Among the goodies she brought home was the book Bicycle Mania by Shirley Agudo. Agudo, pic below, an American-born, long-term resident of the Netherlands and reporter for Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions has compiled an excellent collection of photographs with bikes of every type and the characters who ride them.

I spent a very happy hour looking at the many fascinating photographs, by the autjoe and three other leading phorographers, and then another happy hour reading the amusing, informative and entertaining text.

Everyone knows the Dutch are bicycle-mad, cycling to work not just on the sunny days but the wet and windy days, the cold and icy days. Surely there is nowhere else where bicycling is such an integral part of everyday life and culture as it is in The Netherlands.The author has captured this wonderfully.

You do not have to wear cycle helmets in The Netherlands and did you know there are 29,000 kilometres of cycle paths in The Netherlands? Amazing.