The sequel brings back the three companions who figured in Three Men in a Boat, this time on a bicycle tour through Germany.

D. C. Browning's introduction to the 1957 Everyman's edition says "Like most sequels, it has been compared unfavourably with its parent story, but it was only a little less celebrated than Three Men in a Boat and was for long used as a school book in Germany.

Most of them concern bicycling, genial (if shallow) commentary on German culture from the point of view of a British tourist, or situation-comedy-like depictions of interpersonal interactions between the characters.

The references to brand competition, advertising, and enthusiasts' attitudes toward their equipment resonate with modern readers.

The German people are described as amiable, unselfish, homely, kind and egalitarian; yet they are also placid and obedient, eager to obey those in authority.

"Jerome goes on to comment that it would be consistent with the German character for a criminal condemned to death to be simply given a piece of rope, and told to go and hang himself.

The mensur sword duels are described at length, with little humour, and with Jerome expressing extreme disapproval for the tradition.

To join a society for the mere purpose of getting yourself hacked about reduces a man to the intellectual level of a dancing Dervish.

"Jerome would have been aware of Mark Twain's humorous travelogue, A Tramp Abroad (1880), based on a walking tour through similar parts of Germany, with extensive comments on the language and culture.

When his troubles will begin will be when by any chance something goes wrong with the governing machine.Jeremy Nicholas says that the book is "unfairly chastised as being an ineffectual afterthought" to Three Men in a Boat, and that "the set pieces (the boot shop, Harris and his wife on the tandem, Harris confronting the hose-pipe, the animal riot in the hill-top restaurant) are as polished and funny (funnier, some would say) as anything in the earlier book."