Mark Cramer has not owned a car since 1995. In 2022, at 77 and just out of double hernia surgery, he set out to prove that this was liberation and not sacrifice.
Over 39 bicycle day trips from his apartment just north of Paris, Cramer pedaled 1,062 kilometers through forests, river towpaths, and French towns using Thoreau's essay "Walking" as his method. No smartphone. No GPS. Paper maps only. For photographs, he depended on strangers willing to stop. For directions, he depended on whoever was nearby.
Cramer taught "Degrowth or Smart Growth?" at Sciences-Po Paris and has spent decades as a real-life practitioner of the steady-state economy he writes about. That background gives this cycling memoir a sharper edge than most bicycle travel books. When he rides through a forest bordered by a big box store, or through a beautiful town gutted by online commerce, or past a farm quietly building an alternative to the industrial food system, he knows exactly what he is looking at.
The result is a slow travel book that works on several levels at once. It is a cycling adventure through the landscape outside Paris. It is a meditation on Thoreau, metabolic energy, and what it means to move through the world without manufactured power. And it is a quiet, well-argued case that the most worthwhile journey a person can take might start from their own front door.
Endorsed by William Rossi, editor of Norton's Walden, and by William Powers, author of the award-winning Twelve by Twelve. For fans of slow travel, environmental nonfiction, and Thoreau-inspired cycling memoir.
About the Author :
Mark Cramer has a Ph.D. in literature, but he prefers the label of practitioner of a steady-state way of life. He and his wife Martha have taken the path of degrowth for the past quarter century, notably practicing the art of car-free living. He's blended some 40 jobs and avocations on three continents, including university professor, investigative reporter, urban farmer, and bicycle journalist.
Review :
"He encounters mega-construction projects, IKEAs sprouting like mushrooms in forests, endless fields of corn destined for ethanol production, and villages emptied of street life thanks to e-commerce. "Soon we will all be employees of Amazon," remarks one local (5). But Cramer also seeks out and finds sites presaging a positive future: book exchanges and compost centers, lively Paris neighborhoods designed for walkability, peri-urban farms, art exhibitions, and neighborhood activism to preserve green space."
-Henrik Ottenberg, Thorough Society Bulletin
"In this lively travelogue Mark Cramer updates Thoreau's philosophy of walking, and his nonconformity, sauntering by bike outside of contemporary Paris. Well past seventy and now post-surgery, Cramer, a cyclist for decades and long-time Paris resident, undertakes a series of rides in 'the spirit of undying adventure' (as Thoreau advised the true walker). Where his mentor preached the art of walking, Cramer advocates the art of the ride, logging in the process over one thousand kilometers while embracing the eco-social landscape and diversity of exurban life with an unfailingly warm heart and a critical eye. Thoreau would probably have passed on the chocolate-almond croissants and espresso that sometimes fuel this adventure, but he surely would have relished the result: a witty, provocative, and thoroughly engaging read."
-William Rossi, editor of the Norton Critical Edition of Walden, Civil Disobedience and Other Writings
"Whether you can remember the last time you saw Paris, or not, Mark Cramer's 1,000-kilometer, 39 day-tripper bike ride journey through the beaux villages of France is a meditation on life, the health of our planet, and how two-wheeled travel uses 'metabolic energy to replace manufactured energy'-the same way that Henry David Thoreau used a pond 160 years ago to expound on the need for a 'tolerable planet.' Cramer weaves through 'wounded territory, ' meditating on suburban sprawl, big box stores, 'GDP growth oligarchs, ' and choco-amande pastries. At the end of his ride, the 77 year old Cramer discovers: 'I have been flirting with all the beauty, going too fast...yet a deeper purpose tells me to slow down...Maybe not new destinations but deeper destinations.' If Thoreau Had A Bicycle is a free-wheeling dive into the richness of momentary experiences which makes our life worthwhile."
-Al Norman, Sprawl-Busters (Forbes Magazine called Norman "Walmart's #1 enemy")
