I normally avoid blog-spinoff books, and even not knowing what this was, the horrible mixed-language title should have been enough to put me off. But it was a present, and I actually enjoyed it rather more than I was expecting. Juliane Schumacher is a young Berliner who blogs about her cycling experiences as radelmaedchen.de — her book turns out to be much more a celebration of the joys of getting around by bike in the city than the dour collection of safety tips that the title would lead us to expect.
There is a certain amount of practical advice on how to choose a bike that suits you, how to dress comfortably for your commute without becoming a lycra-clone, how to deal with (Berlin) traffic conditions, how to prepare for a cycling holiday, etc., but it's very non-technical apart from the bit about clothing — Schumacher's day-job is in the garment trade, and she goes into quite some detail on this part. The stress is always on the liberating effect of being on a bike in the open air and being able to go where you want in the city without having the horror of sitting in a big noisy, heavy, polluting, stuck-in-traffic, tin box. Something I can sign up to without any problem, even if cycling where I live (Holland) is nowhere near as radical an activity as it would be in Berlin...
Good fun, and very readable, but I wonder who the book is for. I don't really see non-cyclists buying it, and if you are already a convert to cycling it probably won't tell you very much that you don't know already. It's probably mostly just a way for people who enjoy Schumacher's blog (which is well worth a look if you read German) to send a little cash her way. ( )