Life Is a Wheel: Memoirs of a Bike-Riding Obituarist
Life Is a Wheel chronicles the cross-country bicycle trip Bruce Weber made at the age of fifty-seven, an “entertaining travel story filled with insightful thoughts about life, family, and aging” (The Associated Press).
During the summer and fall of 2011, Bruce Weber, an obituary writer for The New York Times, bicycled across the country, alone, and wrote about it as it unfolded. Life Is a Wheel is the witty, inspiring, and reflective diary of his journey, in which the challenges and rewards of self-reliance and strenuous physical effort yield wry and incisive observations about cycling and America, not to mention the pleasures of a three-thousand-calorie breakfast.
The story begins on the Oregon coast, with Weber wondering what he’s gotten himself into, and ends in triumph on New York City’s George Washington Bridge. From Going-to-the-Sun Road in the northern Rockies to the headwaters of the Mississippi and through the cityscapes of Chicago and Pittsburgh, his encounters with people and places provide us with an intimate, two-wheeled perspective of America. And with thousands of miles to travel, Weber considers his past, his family, and the echo that a well-lived life leaves behind.
Part travelogue, part memoir, part romance, part paean to the bicycle—and part bemused and panicky account of a middle-aged man’s attempt to stave off, well, you know—Life Is a Wheel is “a book for cyclists, and for anyone who has ever dreamed of such transcontinental travels. But it also should prove enlightening, soul-stirring, even, to those who don’t care a whit about bikes but who care about the way people connect” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).
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The Wheel of Life Goes Where You Direct It To I won’t waste your time with a long, worn out, bloated explanation of why I gave Life Is A Wheel… a total of 5 stars. I would have given it a 4 7/8 because near the beginning I was exasperated at his tell “off the bike trip stories of his life”. Then I realized how important they were to his trip and the memories his cycling dredged up. The title does include “Love, Death, Etc.” and it encompasses a wider aspect of Weber’s life than just a daily account of a bike trip. Written…
Bruce Weber keeps his story spinning with insights and adventure You never quite know what to expect when you open up a book about touring the U.S. on a bike. Some spend most of their time describing the details of the ride, which we bikers enjoy. Others inject a good bit of humor. My favorite part of the book were Weber’s descriptions of traveling through eastern Washington and Montana. Having lived near Missoula, MT, for a number of years, I enjoyed following his trip up the Going to the Sun Road and the sameness of eastern Montana. I confess to…
Bruce Weber keeps the narrative spinning with his insights and events on his cross country bike ride. I was engrossed all the way — and found especially interesting the comparison between this ride and his previous bike odyssey two decades before – the differences in the country and his own perspective. If this is a mid-life crisis, it is such a positive one — as the author falls in love and has epiphanies along the way. Especially poignant is his farewell to a good friend whose death…