Bicycle Diaries (review)

“There is lots of spandex, way too much spandex” (p 247).

I wish that I could truthfully claim to have taught David Byrne cultural geography. His book, Bicycle Diaries, demonstrates an intellectual curiosity about cultural landscapes and acute observational skills that I want my students to acquire. Any geographer would be impressed by Byrne’s account, and photographs, of the far-flung places that he has learned about through extensive reading, repeated visits, and conversations with many people who live in those places. Geography students would benefit from learning how Byrne experiences places.

Publishers and booksellers will probably classify Bicycle Diaries as a travelogue. However, it is something more than that. The book is a blend of off-the-beaten-path travel writing, ethnomusicology, urban geography, bicycle advocacy and miscellaneous ruminations on whatever topics his travels, readings and conversations inspire. This complex mix reflects Byrne’s career trajectory. After studying art and design, Byrne concentrated on a music career. In the mid 1970s he moved to New York City and co-founded the New Wave band Talking Heads, which, during a 16-year stint, achieved an international following. During this time Byrne also worked in film as an actor, writer, director and soundtrack composer. Since the band’s dissolution, Byrne has performed and promoted Latin American music through his record label Luaka Bop, and worked as a visual artist.

In the early 1980s Byrne began to rely on a bicycle as his principal means of transportation in New York City. Soon after, he began his current practice of traveling the world with a foldable bicycle in his luggage. Byrne’s commitment to the bicycle, not for exercise but for transport, has colored his experience of the world for the past thirty years and led him to think about cities and how they accommodate cycling. Bicycle Diaries is an account of cities from the saddle of a bicycle, which follows Byrne’s interest in cities’ histories, their eccentricities, architecture and their musicians and artists. Connecting these elements is his concern for how cities function and how they can become more livable.

Byrne is an omnivorous flaneur whose sharp eye fixes on a wide range of topics as he visits small cities such as Sweetwater, Texas and global metropolises like Sydney, Australia. He often bypasses cities’ iconic landmarks and instead lingers in obscure urban niches that catch his fancy. So, Byrne treats the reader to his description of a small festival for San Cayetano, the patron saint of the unemployed, that he encountered on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, or, an account of his encounter with a Filipino version of his band’s hit song “Burning Down the House” in a karaoke bar in Manila. Byrne’s gusto for such tangents is informed by his admirable mantra, “although it’s not on my research agenda it’s close, so why not have a look?” (p 158).

Byrne begins the book with a preface that describes his involvement in events in cities around the US focused on the future of cities. He chose to participate in these events as an alternative to a conventional book tour. This choice reflects Byrne’s concern for the future of cities and his belief that greater reliance on bicycling for urban transport is key to their transformation.

A resident of New York City for more than thirty years, Byrne has ably analyzed the urban landscape. In the book’s introduction, he writes like a geographer when he claims that cities, “say in their unique visual language, ‘This is what we think matters, this is how we live and how we play.’ Riding a bike through all this is like navigating the collective neural pathways of some vast global mind” (p 2). Confident that his fluency with New York City’s visual language can be extended beyond the Big Apple’s city limits, Byrne states his belief, “that a visitor staying briefly can read the details, the specifics made visible, and then the larger picture and...