Evan Friss uncovers the bicycle’s place in the city over time, showing how it has served as a mirror of the city’s changing social, economic, infrastructural, and cultural politics since it first appeared.  On Bicycles illuminates how the city as we know it today—veined with over a thousand miles of bicycle lanes—reflects a fitful journey powered, and opposed, by New York City’s people and its politics.

 “On Bicycles is brilliantly researched, noting the battles against local government, sexism, the automobile, and the railways, as the bicycle fought its way to become more popular today than ever before. Vive le vélo!” Phil Liggett, “The Voice of Cycling”

“[An] absorbing new book. . .” Ginia Bellafante, New York Times

“In On Bicycles, Evan Friss fills in the missing chapters that bicycles hold in New York City’s near-miraculous transportation history and shows how the city’s streets are finally catching up with them.” Janette Sadik-Khan, Bloomberg Associates and former commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation

“A thoughtful, entertaining look at an essential form of transportation in New York City.” Publishers Weekly

“This social history of the transformation of New York’s relationship to cycling is elegantly researched, gracefully written, and nearly as delightful as the bicycle itself.” Kim Phillips-Fein, author of Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics

“Witty and wise, engaged and engaging, surprising, fun and fabulous—I’m running out of adjectives to describe Evan Friss’s wondrous new book.” David Nasaw, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Professor of History, CUNY Graduate Center