Andorra's BiciLab Expands Cycling Library to Over 50 Titles with Bicycle Anthology

The BiciLab's library in Andorra has expanded to over 50 titles dedicated to cycling culture, with the latest addition being *El Gran Libro de las Bicicletas*, an anthology edited by Lucía Barahona that compiles more than 50 stories featuring the bicycle as the central character.

BiciLab director Edu Tarrés highlighted the collection's diversity during a recent overview. Spanning authors from the 19th century onward—including H.G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, Federico García Lorca, Colette, Mark Twain, Henry Miller, Vladimir Nabokov, Edith Wharton, and Alfred Jarry—the book organizes tales into thematic sections such as rural bikes, race days, women's cycling, fantastical bicycles, urban rides, cycle tours, and childhood memories. A standout chapter pairs bikes with films, while the anthology includes a local touch: an excerpt from Txema Díaz-Torrent's autofiction debut *Xarnego*. In it, the young protagonist recalls summer bike crashes in Caniles, Granada, where friends competed for the most battle scars and cleaned wounds with urine—a rite of passage evoking Darwinian survival among boys.

Tarrés noted the library's broader appeal, blending fiction with "cyclesophy." French pro cyclist and philosopher Guillaume Martin explores this in *Sócrates en bicicleta*, linking the bike's rhythmic motion to a trance-like state that sparks unexpected reflections—familiar to any touring cyclist.

Political histories abound, too. Ramon Usall's *Un segle costa amunt* traces cycling's role in events like the Dreyfus Affair (which birthed the Tour de France), Irish independence, the Spanish Civil War, the French Resistance, and May 1968. Herbie Sykes' *La carrera contra la Stasi* recounts East German champion Dieter Wiedemann's 1960s defection after falling for a West German woman, outrunning the secret police. Ander Izagirre's *Cómo ganar el Giro bebiendo sangre de buey* details early Giro d'Italia riders enduring 15-hour stages and recovering with ox blood drinks.

Race fans will find chronicles like Marcos Pereda's *Periquismo*, profiling the fiery Spanish cyclist of the 1980s, and Charly Wegelius' *Gregario*, a raw insider account of gregarios—the majority who toil without glory, mirroring societal power dynamics.

The collection also stocks three magazines: *Volata* (a cultural cornerstone akin to football's *Panenka*), and the free *Ciclosfera* and *Nafent*. A highlight remains Josep Pernau's *Catalunya a pinyó fix*, recreating the 1909 Volta a Catalunya on a fixed-gear 1900 Clément bicycle, now displayed at BiciLab.

Tarrés emphasized how this overlooked ciclobibliography proves the bicycle's status as a literary subject of the first order.