Yoga for Cyclists
Rudi Altig was a man before his time. In the 1960s, the German Tour de France bike racer known as the "yellow dwarf" was a yoga enthusiast. Before and after his arduous races he used yoga to relax his muscular body. Maybe he instinctively knew that yoga is the perfect foil for bicycling, a one-dimensional sport.
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Is It Dangerous?
Risk and Freedom is a book of historic significance which continues to have a profound influence on road safety policy. It provides the first coherent application of the concept of “risk compensation” to the management of risk on the road. You can download the entire text here.
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The ride of your life
Riding 1200 km in one go would seem to be beyond a fairly indifferent cyclist such as myself, (writes Stuart Dennison) but the Paris Brest Paris is an event that is both much more and somehow less than you would expect.
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"You can never eat too much, only cycle too little."
When I started out riding, I would often start to feel
trembly and weak after as little as 30k's. That trembly
hungry feeling is called "bonking." It is to be avoided at all costs. (writes Douglas Carnall)
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What is the Right Crank Length?
When the HPV movement got underway in the early 80's, (writes Mike Burrows) it was not long before some people realised that the usual constraints of bottom bracket height were no longer a factor, and we saw a few 200-250mm cranks...
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Cycling in comfort
Why are bicycles fitted with narrow seats requiring the rider to bend over, when most things that are designed for people to sit on resemble chairs? As you might expect the answer concerns events that happened long ago…
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The Right Tool for the Job
At the close of the Nineteenth Century Carl Elsener invented "the offiziermesser", a multi-function pocket tool. Elsener - a Swiss master cutler - recognised that soldiers needed high-quality utensils they could carry easily and always keep close to hand.
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How much does it weigh?
This is a very normal and quite understandable question. After all we all know that the less we carry the less work we have to do. We hope the answer is "exactly the right amount".
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Is the wheelbarrow the precursor of the bicycle?
Unlike most man-made objects the bicycle has no obvious precursor. Its beginnings are mysterious. In his book "Bicycle Design" Mike Burrows offers a compelling argument for the wheelbarrow as inspiration for Baron von Drais' Laufmaschine a very early - perhaps the earliest - example of a bike.
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How two bike mechanics taught the human race to fly
On December 17th 1903 the Flyer, built and flown by Wilbur and Orville Wright, became the World's first powered, heavier-than-air, aircraft. They triumphed over gravity and also over various other aspiring bird-men.
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Who cares about the congestion charge?
120,000 vehicles used to enter Central London every day taking 'rush' hour motor-traffic speeds below ten miles per hour. A typical motorist wasted three minutes stuck in traffic for every mile travelled.
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Fags, bad coffee and a trumpet
London to Glenelg in six days. Not bad. I could have done it a bit quicker if I wasn't so vain and rich as to have a heavy recumbent and all those possessions, but then it would have been much more boring...(writes Douglas Carnall)
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