Lance Armstrong has, in some regards, brought the sport of cycling to mainstream America by winning the Tour de France seven consecutive years in a row.  It was not only his outstanding athletics that gave him the advantage to win, but also a team of specialized scientists, engineers, and technicians as dedicated as he was to win.

There is a lot of mystique in choosing tires.

23 mm tires produced better results than narrower 18 mm versions in a recent comparison of rolling resistance. The wider tire formed a curved D shape compared to the flat based U shape of the narrower one. This resulted in a smoother ride, less rolling resistance and a greater resistance to impact, pinch-type, punctures. Read the rest of this entry »

Though the idea of a gear ratio is easy (as discussed in Gears 101), the main cycling community uses a different term for measuring: gearing. But we first must define some terms: Read the rest of this entry »

Analyzing the gears on the bike can get very complicated, but when done correctly it can greatly help out your cycling performance. To start out, we will first consider why gears were used in the first place and also the basic concept of a gear ratio. Read the rest of this entry »

Most beginners to the sport of cycling assume that you just have to push hard down on the pedals in order to be effective, but they are misinformed. What results from this is what I like to call the “waddling duck,” pushing down side to side to move yourself forward. In fact, they only have about a quarter of the stroke perfected. Read the rest of this entry »