When Prince sings about the most beautiful girl in the world, we know he’s not telling us she’s the most beautiful girl in the world, rather that she’s the most beautiful girl in the world to him.
In 1994 or thereabouts, when I moved back to London after university, I bought a bike from a second-hand [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Gear'
Could U be the most beautiful bike in the world?
August 18th, 2010 · 7 Comments
Tags: Art and design · Gear
Ron Cooper on Ron Cooper
August 4th, 2010 · 4 Comments
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 [...]
Tags: England · Gear · History · London · People · Podcast
Scrub away, scrub away, scrub away
July 29th, 2010 · 5 Comments
More than a few people have raised objections to the way the Mayor of London has, for the relatively modest sum of £5 million a year for 5 years, given Barclays bank the right to paint large swathes of London’s public highway in its corporate shade of blue, have its name emblazoned on street signs [...]
Tags: Art and design · Gear · London
Talking Le Tour with Paul Fournel
July 21st, 2010 · 5 Comments
An extended, hour long edition of the show featuring French writer, poet, cyclist and cultural ambassador Paul Fournel (pictured). We stroll from the French House in Soho to the Rapha Cycle Club in Clerkenwell, to visit an exhibition of a hundred years of racing bicycles. The exhibition runs for two more weeks and is well [...]
Tags: Advocacy · France · Gear · History · Literature · London · People · Podcast · Sport · Tour de France
Road Test: London’s new cycle hire bikes
July 14th, 2010 · 19 Comments
On 30 July, 6,000 bicycles will be available for hire on the streets of London. Registration costs £1 a day, £5 a week or £45 a year and the bicycles are free for the first 30 minutes, then a rising scale of £1 for the first hour, £4 for the first 90 minutes, £15 up [...]
Tags: Art and design · Gear · London
If the bike fits…
January 19th, 2010 · 5 Comments
Following on from last week’s show on well-being, we look at the importance of getting a good fit between rider and machine. Scherritt Knoesen of The Bike Whisperer, is a leading London-based bike fitter. We talk geometry, contact points and pedaling action. Read Grant Peterson’sPetersen’s article The Shoes Ruse on the folly of clip-in pedals [...]
Tags: Gear · Podcast · Science · Sport · Touring
Wanted: Bicycle Mechanics
November 16th, 2009 · 15 Comments
This week’s show looks at the chronic lack of bicycle mechanics with the Ninon Asuni of Bicycle Workshop. Ninon founded Bicycle Workshop nearly thirty years ago after deciding she’d had enough of working as a librarian. She’s now among Britain’s most highly regarded bicycle mechanics with a devoted following in London and the rest of [...]
Tags: Gear · London · People · Podcast
Season Opener: Childhood Daze
October 26th, 2009 · No Comments
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 [...]
Tags: Advocacy · England · Fixed wheel · Gear · Literature · Podcast
Cycle Show Round Up
October 9th, 2009 · 4 Comments
I went to the Cycle Show yesterday looking out for the big themes that will help define cycling in 2010. I tend to glaze over in of the forests of identical crabon road bikes and hydraulically-enhanced mountain bikes, so if you want the latest on road and MTB, I’m afraid you’ll need to go elsewhere. [...]
Tags: Gear
Fixie-Killer: Sturmey Archer S2C
October 8th, 2009 · 13 Comments
Today was trade/media day at London’s annual Cycle Show at Earls Court. Among the most talked-about new exhibits was the long-awaited Sturmey Archer three-speed fixed wheel hub, the S3X. In the craze for all things fixed, Sturmey’s ancient ASC, a three-speed fixed hub that went out of production in the mid 1950s, has been selling [...]
Tags: Gear
Blazing Saddles: Inside the Brooks factory
July 13th, 2009 · 1 Comment
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. [...]
Tags: Art and design · Bicycle music · England · Gear · History · Podcast · Politics · Style
16 February 2009: Cycling and the recession
February 17th, 2009 · 3 Comments
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 [...]
Tags: Bicycle messengers · Bicycle music · England · Gear · London · People · Podcast · Politics · Rolling interview · Style
20 October 2008: Inventing the perfect folding bicycle
October 20th, 2008 · 3 Comments
The latest on moves by the London Assembly to reduce the dangers posed by lorries to cyclists. Plus an extended talk by Andrew Ritchey, inventor of the Brompton, the folding miracle that is the toast of London’s bicycle-train commuters. The talk was given over the summer at the iFest 08 in Barcelona. It tells the [...]
20 October 2008: The invention of the perfect folding bicycle [29:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadTags: Art and design · Gear · London · People · Podcast
6 October 2008: The Moulton Story (part two)
October 6th, 2008 · 3 Comments
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, [...]
Tags: Architecture · Art and design · Bicycle music · England · Gear · History · People · Podcast · Politics · Sport · Touring
29 September 2008: The Moulton Story (part one)
September 29th, 2008 · 4 Comments
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 [...]
Tags: Art and design · Bicycle music · England · Gear · History · People · Podcast · Politics · Sport · Style · Touring
22 September 2008: Grant Petersen on overnight trips and a visit to London’s ‘anti-bike shop’
September 22nd, 2008 · 4 Comments
Grant Peterson on overnight trips and a visit to London's 'anti-bike shop' [31:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadTags: Bicycle music · England · Gear · History · Italy · London · People · Podcast · Politics · Rides · Rolling interview · Sport · Style · Touring · United States
21 January 2008: Hidden Treasure
January 21st, 2008 · 6 Comments
Paul Wonnacott has been buying, repairing and selling on used bicycles in the English countryside for almost thirty years. In an extended interview he looks back at the changes he’s observed in the bicycle manufacturing industry (most of them bad) and grapples with a hoarder’s inner demon as he watches his huge stock literally pile [...]
Tags: England · Gear · History · Podcast
11 December 2006 – The Christmas edition
December 14th, 2006 · 1 Comment
Back in the Resonance FM studio with Danish bike messenger elf Therese Bjorn to talk Christmas on bicycles. What to buy, what to do… and we take a look at the new London Scorcher bicycle from Velorution and Therese gives a thumbs up to Pac Designs messenger bags.
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13 November 2006: On a Bickerton in China, the Sideways Bike and cycling with disabilities
November 14th, 2006 · 2 Comments
This week’s studio guest is none other than David Thurston, my very own dad. A London cyclist since the 1970s when he lost his driving license, he explored China in the early 1980s on a Bickerton folder and is now discovering that with Parkinson’s Disease, cycling is more fun than walking.
Also featuring an interview with [...]
On a Bickerton in China, the Sideways Bike and cycling with disabilities: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadTags: Gear · Podcast · Science · Touring
23 October 2006: At Cycle 2006 – Eddy Merckx and a hunt for gadgets
October 24th, 2006 · 2 Comments
Jack Thurston and Jo Upton in search of the best bicycle gadget at Cycle 2006, the UK’s biggest cycling exhibition and trade fair. Glow in the dark pedals, GPS tools, bike storage, heart rate monitors and lights galore.
We are also granted an exclusive audience with the legendary champion of all cycling champions, Eddy Merckx. Eddy [...]

