"The Dancing Chain" (Book for Christmas)

The Dancing Chain (third edition) is the "history and development of the derailleur bicycle" and a wonderful book. Just got it for Christmas - previously I had looked at the second edition but the third is updated/added to quite a bit.



Reall, though - the subtitle is a bit off. What this is is a history of the 20th century (and now into the 21st century) bicycle as influenced by the development and imnprovement of derailleurs.



Chapter 15 is a helpful explanation of "how derailleurs work" that is good to look at early rather than at the end - but then this isn't exactly the kind of book that one reads from start to finish but rather dips into here and there.

This is one sort of book that's not going to be replaced by an e-book reader soon!

Bicycles Out of Favor in Beijing

Article in the People's Daily describes efforts in Beijing to get people back on bicycles, rather soon after they just got off. Including rental bikes.

Some people gave up commuting by bike because it became too dangerous on roads packed with cars, Zhang Zhuting, a member of the Ministry of Transport's legal consulting committee, said.

Concrete measures are needed to ensure the effective operation of the public bicycling system, and the bike rental industry needs more policy support to survive, he said.

Tsinghua University law professor Yu Lingyun said many European cities, such as Paris and Amsterdam, have long run effective public bike systems.

"They have developed detailed rules and management mechanisms to maintain the system, and their residents obey the rules," Yu said. "Beijing should learn from their experiences."

Somehow to me this seems like a coals-to-Newcastle kind of thing, but I suppose it is different. Anyway, I think the problem in Beijing is economic and not about getting peoiple to obey rules.

Bicycle Patents (for Entertainment/Historical Value)

In addition to searching the texts (old books) at the Internet Archive or old books at the Hathitrust (that are in the public domain) one can look at old patent applications with Google's patent search tool.


This is a odd undersized bike with gun for military use - in theory.
The full application is here. Oddly it is a "shaft drive" rather than using a chain. The handle bars pivot behind rather than in front of the rider, much like the triangle bike I wrote about earlier.

Some patents border on simple-minded, such as this parasol attachment/system.


(The full application is here.)

Searching for "bicycle pedals" reveals that toe clips were already developed in the 1890s. Perhaps most entertaining is searching for "bicycle brake" which reveals many less than optimal approaches that nonetheless had proponents. Some attempt to improve the simple and widely employed "press something against the rubber front tire from above" model (such as this example) others tried to act to slow the chain (such as this one).

This Bike Commuter's Favorite Day - 12/20

From here on the days get longer, until late June at any rate.


Bike trail along Four Mile Run approaching the south end of National (Reagan) Airport. The snow and ice from last week has cleared nicely.

These days I ride in as the sun is just coming up and then home in the dark. Even if there is plenty of cold weather ahead, more light and less dark is good.

Slow Bike as Fast as Fast Bike for Commuting (says MD)

This article in the UK's online Telegraph refers to a medical journal's study that demonstrates that commuting on a cheap steel bike is every bit as fast as commuting on an expensive carbon fiber (or fibre, since he's British) one. The author is a medical doctor, which apparently is considered enough to make up for the many methodological problems with his "study."

As is often the case, the comments are more entertaining than the article itself. Some completely miss the point and a few quibble that the author's "expensive bike" wasn't expensive enough to properly compare to the cheap steel bike.

The best comment includes this:

But the best bike is better, although the difference is marginal. Carbon fibre means the bike is lighter and stiffer and more efficient to ride at any given speed. I would suspect the doctor's heart rate and power output will be slightly higher on his steel bike compared to his carbon bike. If you are very fit and taking part in events at a reasonably accomplished level, spending more on a bike is worthwhile.

I particularly found the article interested since the good doctor's equipment (two bikes being compared) is similar to mine - a steel bike around 30 pounds and a carbon fiber around 20 pounds. (One difference is that I spent about the same amount on each, where he spent very little on his steel bike that he bought used and also less than I spent on either on his expensive carbon "fibre" bike - he's more fiscally sensible than I am, I guess.) And the commuting distance, around 40-45 minutes in good weather - is also similar.

My impression is that the increase in the average speed when riding the lighter bike (and using messenger bag rather than panniers) may not even be two miles per hour - say, from 15 to 16 mph average (for the whole ride, including sitting at lights and various slowing down for this and that). But the enjoyment of riding a faster bike and being able to accelerate much faster if I want to is more than enough that I choose to ride carbon fiber whenever that bike fits with the weather.

The suggestion that the cyclist losing weight is simpler and cheaper than paying big bucks to buy a lighter bike is something one sees in print often enough, but it doesn't work for me. By the same logic, I can argue that a particular tool (say a wrench)is just as good as a more expensive one that applies more force if the purchaser went to gym and worked out more and was stronger. Besides, if most people could lose five pounds or ten that easily, presumably they would.

New Google Tool and Cycling

A new tool for analyzing frequency of words in the texts that Google Books has digitized (and has in its publisher program, too, I assume) allows some analysis (or conjecture, anyway) about cycling history.

An easy example that demonstrates this is to look at the frequency of the word "wheelmen" in American English - the results are fairly dramatic. With "ordinary" bicycles after the Civil War, there is some mention, but it is only with the introduction of modern safety bicycles in the 1880s that the term is much used - reaching a peak in 1885. The falloff seems earlier than I would have expected. Hmmm.

The tool also allows closer examination of a narrower time range, such as 1875 to 1925.

Other languages are available, including Russian. What was the usage of велосипед (bicycle in Russian) for example?

Commuting in the Snow

Snowed yesterday here in Washington DC during the day; took me about 75 minutes I would guess to get home in Arlington (about ten miles). I was riding my Traitor Ruben bike that is a steel road bike with disk brakes. Riding in the dark is slow, even with a headlight.

This morning I rode in, having reduced the tire pressure to around 60 psi and swapping in regular pedals instead of clipless, and it went pretty good although I guess it took me around an hour - so, ten miles per hour avg. Actually, not so bad.



Usually here the ground isn't frozen solid and I need to stay on the bike trails, which get to be a mess with snow, ice and ruts. Today the ground is frozen solid so I went across the field for fun - a little more pedal energy required but easy to steer in a straight line.



Much of the rest of the way I road on the streets, which are nicely cleared. I try to stay out of heavy traffic - only one angry beep from a motorist.

Someone in Shirlington runs a small snow plow down the bike trail along Arlington Mill Road as far as Walter Reed, clearing about four-tenths of a mile of bike trail. What a nice thing to do!

Return home addendum - the ride home started around sunset but was mostly in the dark. It was a good ride, although tiring. I managed to maintain a pretty good pace. The trails were clearer of snow than in the morning so I skipped riding on the streets - also, in the dark at night the local commuters have much less interest in sharing "their" roads and I don't want to get clonked.

Most of the people riding in the snow were using mountain bikes - while intuitively it would seem like a big mountain bike tire would give better traction in the snow, you are also pushing the big front tire through the snow, which on balance seems like more work. The 25 mm tires I am using have almost no tread; it's the lowered inflation pressure that gives traction (I think). Anyway, it isn't tread!

The worst part this time is that the road salt used ends up all over the bike if any riding is done on the roads (which I did) and the stuff is just annoying to get off, but clearly should come off since it can't do any of the parts or the finish any good (aside from looking bad).