The Bike Show

In an off-season podcast-only extended episode, Lionel Birnie of Cycling Weekly joins me to talk about the year ahead in professional road racing. We talk about the season-openers in the Gulf, the Monuments and Cobbled Classics and of course the Grand Tours, where Britain’s Team Sky is hoping to make a big impact in its [...]

 

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David Kitchen, aka Velocio, set up the London Fixed Gear and Single Speed Forum almost three years ago. In a short time it has spawned an active and inventive cycling community and in the process the forum has grown to become the world’s eleventh most visited cycling website. David talks about the success of the [...]

 

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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 [...]

 

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January is the perfect month to take a closer look at how to stay feeling good on the bike. In the studio to share their expertise are Michael Crebbin, a sports physio specialising in cycling-related problems, and Rebecca Bogue who teaches a yoga class designed especially for cyclists.
Contact Rebecca via the Bodywise studio in the [...]

 

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It’s the tenth day of Christmas and this week’s show is like a Christmas stocking with bulges in all the right places. Dr Steve Fabes is about to set off on a four and a half year cycle ride around the world, crossing six continents. He talks about his route, preparations and apprehensions. Any lover [...]

 

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Should cyclists stop at red lights? Why do we feel such a strong urge to keep rolling? Should our behavior be guided by the law of the land or the laws of common courtesy? What would Isaac Newton and Thomas Aquinas have to say about the matter? Bringing their expertise to a discussion of the [...]

 

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Tim Dawson, cycling columnist for the Sunday Times, runs the Cycling Books website, the most compendious review website for cycling books. He joins me in the studio to discuss the literature of cycling, from Tour de France to cycle touring. Paul Fournel reads another extract from Need for the Bike. Below is a list of [...]

 

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The cycle camping tour continues into the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, through Vermont and into Massachusetts. Struggles with thunderstorms and flying insects and a visit to the Crane paper mill where US dollar bills are made. Picture above shows the view back down the road from the summit of Whiteface Mountain.
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The first of two features on a north American cycle tour undertaken over the summer. Starting in cycle-friendly Montreal and Quebec’s routes vertes and camping on the shores of Lake Champlain, this episode ends with a mildly disturbing encounter with an over-talkative former NYPD officer and child abuse investigator.
Plus more from Paul Fournel’s [...]

 

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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 [...]

 

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The Bike Show moves into advocacy mode this week with guest in the studio Debra Rolfe, Campaigns Director of the Cyclists’ Touring Club (CTC), Britain’s largest cycling organisation with 60,000+ members. Debra is spearheading the CTC’s new campaign against bad driving by motorists called Stop SMIDSY. The aim is to draw attention to the dangers [...]

 

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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 [...]

 

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Riding with Amy Fleuriot, a young British fashion designer who’s Cyclodelic range of clothing and accessories is offering women a more stylish alternative to the typically drab clothing sold to cyclists. This is the final show in the current season. Thanks for listening!

 

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Copenhagen is widely regarded as the world’s most cycle-friendly city. I ask Copenhagen’s Mayor Klaus Bondam what advice he gives to other city leaders in how to emulate the Danish capital. Multitalented musician, songwriter and cartoonist Peter Blegvad reads Alfred Jarry’s proto-absurdist short story “The Crucifixion Considered as an Uphill Bicycle Race”. Jarry (pictured, above) [...]

 

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Pedal Pusher is a play that follows three cyclists — Jan Ullrich, Marco Pantani and Lance Armstrong — in the most dramatic recent era of professional cycle sport: from the young prodigy Jan Ullrich winning the Tour in 1997, the doping scandals of 1998, Armstrong’s conquest of cancer and ending with Pantani’s exile from the [...]

 

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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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A long, hard look at doping in professional cycling, with journalist Lionel Birnie of Cycling Weekly and theatre director Roland Smith, whose play Pedal Pusher, opens in London on 7th July.

Play on links below.

 

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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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A report on No Bike Week, in which a handful of courageous cyclists agree to abstain from two wheels for seven days. Find out what happened. And to read how the No Bike Week meme is evolving into something more akin to a direct action protest, check out No Cycle Day over at Crap [...]

 

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