The Bike Show

Ron Cooper is a legend in frame-building. He started as a fifteen-year-old apprentice with A.S. Gillott, and his frames have come to define the very best of the British lightweight style. He talks about the early days learning from master frame-builders like Jim Collier and Bill Philbrook, his own racing career and his commercial success [...]

 

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A youthful feel to this season opener with a visit to Lockleaze Primary School in Bristol, one of an number of Sustrans ‘Bike It’ schools acros the country. Plus childhood memories from Paul Fournel, reading from Need for the Bike* in person at the Calder Bookshop. We get the inside scoop on the much-awaited Sturmey [...]

 

 Season Opener: Childhood Daze [28:29m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Boris Johnson is London’s first cycling Mayor and he has put a ‘cycling revolution’ at the heart of his programme of government. As well as the Cycle Hire Scheme, Mayor Johnson has announced plans for what he has dubbed ‘cycle superhighways’. There will be twelve superhighways, each offering “safe, fast, direct routes to central London [...]

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Last summer I spent three weeks cycle touring in France, following my own version of the Raid Pyreneean and continuing along the Mediterranean coast and up to the centre of France. This year I’m heading to North America for a ride from Montreal to New York, stopping for the wedding of two dear friends in [...]

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For long-distance cycling they’re a must and they’ll improve the look of any bicycle. Brooks leather saddles date back to the 1870s and are still made in Birmingham where they were first invented. Steve Green of Brooks talks about the history and the craft of the most venerable and most comfortable bicycle saddle there is. [...]

 

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In an extended podcast edition of this week’s show, the journey from London to Bristol continues along the Ridgeway (pictured, left) to Avebury, one of the largest prehistoric stone circles in Europe. After a night by Lacock Abbey the route follows the Avon to Bath and the old railway track to Bristol. Featuring David Evans [...]

 

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Part one of a ride from London to Bristol, in which presenter Jack Thurston is guided by listeners to the show. First stop is St Giles’ Church in Stoke Poges, home to the ‘bicycle window’ (pictured behind Jack and Denis Hartley, the Verger of the Church). One element of the window dates from 1642 and [...]

 

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With the UK mired deep in recession, unemployment on the rise, the value of the pound going down and consumer confidence at an all time low, we ask what effect this is having on the cycling business. We hear from the owners of two of London’s new breed of bicycle boutiques (Tour de Ville and [...]

 

 16 February 2009: Cycling and the recession [29:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Yes, it’s true. The Bike Show is mostly communicating by Twitter. Apart from being on the radio once a week, of course. @thebikeshow
Are you finding ways to use Twitter to add to your bicycling fun? Please tell! I’m finding it really good for finding out when Ivan Basso is going to bed and which of [...]

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An accident of geography means that, official speaking, I’m a Lambeth Cyclist but I’m a Southwark Cyclist at heart, not least because of the dynamic Barry Mason, the quirky Rob Ainsley, the luminous Rebecca Lack and the feisty Ann Warren. I can even see the Southwark-Lambeth ‘county line’ from my doorstep. So I was delighted [...]

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isteners to The Bike Show in Canada, Minnesota and Norway will no doubt be amused to hear that half a foot of snow is enough to bring London and the south east of England to a standstill. An overnight cycle tour in Kent and Sussex has turned into something more like a vacation as I’ve [...]

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Riding the Northumberland coast from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Newcastle-upon-Tyne with Daniel Start, author of the best-selling Wild Swimming, a guide to natural swimming spots in Britain. Wild Swimming Coast (the salt-water version) will be published in the late spring. To enter the competition to win a signed copy, send an email detailing your favourite wild swimming [...]

 

 26 January 2009: Cycling the Northumberland Coast [29:02m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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The concluding episode of a two-part feature on the story of Dr Alex Moulton and the reinvention of the bicycle. We pick up the story with the launch of the Moulton space frame design (pictured left) in the early eighties. Featuring interviews with eaturing interviews with Dr Alex Moulton, Shaun Moulton, Tony Hadland, Michael Woolf, [...]

 

 The Moulton Story (part two) [29:37m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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The first of a two-parter telling the story of Moulton bicycles: the radical reinvention of the bicycle by Dr Alex Moulton that, despite some commercial setbacks along the way, continues to push the boundaries of cutting edge engineering. Moultons have been feted by architects and designers, won races and broken speed records, and are taken [...]

 

 The Moulton Story (part one) [29:45m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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The Bicycle Film Festival comes to London from 1-5 October. Laura Fletcher is the BFF’s London ambassador and she previews a handful of highlights from the seven screenings at the Barbican Cinema plus all the parties, art shows, polo matches and roller-racing that make the Festival a veritable jamboree of bicycle culture. Plus a very [...]

 

 Podcast-only special: Bicycle Film Festival comes to town [22:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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OUTING CANCELLED DUE TO SOUTHERN TRAINS ENGINEERING WORK OVER THE WEEKEND MAKING TRAIN TRAVEL FROM LONDON IMPOSSIBLE. GRIDIRON STILL GOING ON BUT WITHOUT BIKE SHOW / TWEED.CC
The Bike Show is joining forces with the splendid Tweed Cycling Club for an autumnal outing next weekend. The 16th “GRIDIRON 100″ Randonnée, through the scenic roads of the [...]

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 Grant Peterson on overnight trips and a visit to London's 'anti-bike shop' [31:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Do the rising oil price, the growing concern about man-made climate change and breakthroughs in cycle design mean we’re on the verge of a pedal-powered cargo revolution? Discussing the past, present and future of cargo bikes and pedicabs is Leslie Wacker, a Chicago native who placed second in the cargo bike race at this year’s [...]

 

 Are cargo bikes and pedicabs the future of urban transport? [32:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Remembering Ian Hibell, the world’s most accomplished and intrepid long-distance cyclist and adventurer, who was run down and killed on a road in Greece last month, aged 74. He’d been on a ‘training ride’ which began in Hull (England) in preparation for his next trip to Nepal and Tibet. Nic Henderson talks about his friend [...]

 

 8 September 2008: Ian Hibell - Paying respect to a legend [29:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Alastair Humphreys has cycled round the world ‘the hard way’: four years, sixty countries and forty-six thousand miles. In the first of a two part special he tells the story of his epic adventure from Yorkshire to South Africa and Chile to Colombia. Thunder and Sunshine, the second volume of his travelogue is out now, [...]

 

 11 August 2008: Around the world the hard way (part one) [29:54m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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