Brownstein: Bicycle Bob's story has wheels in youngsters' guide by Josh Freed

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Josh Freed has written — look forward to it — a youngsters’ guide.

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However this one consists of no cuddly critters possessing magical powers. As an alternative, it’s an homage to legendary Montreal character Robert Silverman, higher referred to as Bicycle Bob, who might not have been anybody’s notion of cuddly however really did possess near-magical powers.

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With illustrations by Satoji that leap off the web page, Freed’s Bicycle Bob and the Bike Revolution recounts how the late pedalling and environmental crusader helped flip one of the crucial polar cities on the planet into one of the crucial bike-friendly, towards daunting odds.

Freed brings his whimsical software set and a not-so-subtle social assertion to the guide, telling how Bicycle Bob and his late mate Claire (Biking Claire) Morissette helped facilitate the creation of a biking path alongside the Champlain Bridge and the best to take a motorcycle on the métro. They’re additionally credited for Montreal finally getting extra bike paths — 850 kilometres and counting — than some other metropolis in North America.

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That actually qualifies as near-magical, particularly in a metropolis so enamoured of its four-wheeled autos.

Bicycle Bob and the Bike Revolution, and its French model, Bob et la révolution des vélos, can be found on-line Thursday and hit bookstores March 29.

So what possessed Montreal Gazette columnist Freed — whose title had by no means earlier than been uttered in the identical breath as A.A. Milne or Beverly Cleary — to cycle down the kid-lit path?

“The final time I had even learn a youngsters’ guide was nicely over 20 years in the past — to my son, who was a child on the time,” says Freed, referring to his and important different Ingrid Peritz’s offspring Daniel. “However out of the blue final yr, I bought a name from this publishing firm Kata, which had achieved a terrific guide on one other Montreal character, the Nice Antonio. They requested if I want to write a guide about Bicycle Bob.

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“I don’t suppose I paused even 30 seconds. He was such a incredible character — a loopy, passionate nut, whom I had recognized for 40 years. He completely modified the face of life in Montreal. He was actually inspiring. I noticed this as a possibility to write down a youngsters’ guide about how you can be a bit loopy and but could also be proper. However to make certain, it was a problem.”

Freed had written about Bicycle Bob quite a few instances over the a long time.

“He used to come back by my home each two weeks or so. I’d be sitting on my third-floor balcony, and I might hear a scream: ‘Josh, Josh, Josh!’ Identical to a city crier, he would yell a couple of new bike store right here or Copenhagen having 1,000 new indoor bike-parking spots or that the revolution was coming, actually coming.”

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No shock that Bicycle Bob labelled his band of bikers “vélorutionnaires,” or “bikeshevists” in English.

Bicycle Bob additionally used to hound Freed on the Plateau streets when he noticed him in a automobile. “’Josh, I see you making an attempt to cover from me in your automobile!’ he would scream at me.

“There was no hiding from Bicycle Bob, however due to him this coldest and snowiest of cities in North America has a world-class presence as a motorcycle metropolis. That’s simply nuts. That is unnecessary to me. However that’s solely due to him. He was an unsung hero in his time. He grew to become sung later.”

Bicycle Bob’s abhorrence of autos was the results of dropping his younger spouse in a automobile crash many a long time in the past. He was left so shaken that he by no means drove a automobile once more. Biking Claire — for whom the de Maisonneuve Blvd. bike path is called — had by no means pushed an auto. They might protest with their followers, coated in ketchup and mendacity down on the street, in regards to the risks of vehicles. They might castigate those that didn’t perceive the harm to the setting unleashed by gas-powered autos. They might assert that “vehicles killed extra individuals than the 2 world wars.”

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In fact, being a personality, Bicycle Bob had a penchant for comical theatrics. Just like the time he went to the river wearing a gown, with a protracted, flowing beard, and made this announcement in entrance of TV cameras: “O nice St. Lawrence, I beseech you to half your water, now! Let my cyclists go … throughout!”

Positive sufficient, the biking miracle on the Champlain was to happen.

Probably, Projet Montréal will probably be giving this quantity its stamp of approval.

“I don’t need that,” Freed fires again, solely half joking, voicing opposition to the latest information that town will probably be closing a part of Duluth Ave. to automobile site visitors. He lives close by, and fears he’ll by no means discover parking once more.

“I’m not at all times on a bicycle. I drive a automobile, too,” he confesses.

So no bikeshevist is Freed?

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“Can one not be a good-citizen bicycle owner and a automobile driver as nicely?”

Hmmm …

The guide is aimed toward youngsters age 5 to 11, and Freed frets not about whether or not they’ll have the ability to cotton on to its sobering message, albeit one combined with a touch of zaniness.

“In reality, I believe they’ll have the ability to deal with it even higher than many adults.”

As a followup, he’s contemplating one thing that’s poisonous to cyclists, motorists and sentient beings of all ages dwelling on our Cone-y Island: the orange-cone contagion.

Sounds scary.

Bicycle Bob and the Bike Revolution, written by Josh Freed and illustrated by Satoji, is accessible Thursday at editionskata.com and in bookstores March 29.

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