Some people “live to ride”, while others simply ride to live. In Cyclettes, author and designer Tree Abraham documents a meaningful life only discovered and sustained through a two-wheeled lifestyle—one that speaks to those who find home in wanderlust and merge with a flow of like-minded enthusiasts. For Abraham, Cyclettes began as a list of every bicycle she has ever known—from her first childhood bike to the second-hand purchases and loaners that have propelled her into adulthood and around the world. It grew to include other forms of both literal and conceptual cycling, spanning histories and cultures, all encircled by brief memories and observations from an author compelled to move. Each cycling vignette in this book is a cyclette—a circumvoluting entry point to Abraham’s musings on the millennial experience. From bicycle brain to the gyroscopic effect, wild rides in Old Delhi to a tofu farm in Nova Scotia, exhilarating climbs and disappointing descents, Abraham makes connections to our habits and habitats no matter how often we ride a bike. In the face of economic, environmental, technological, and philosophical shifts, and at a time when the very notion of how to live has come into question, Cyclettes offers another kind of freedom: one that finds stillness in motion.
