I really really like biking. I think it's very cool and super fun. Where as running and swimming are pretty much you and your body vs the road or the water, biking has a technology element that adds to it. This technology has been under development for a long looooong time! It's becoming the perfect combination of man and machine! look how you fly at break-neck speeds down the road! I am telling you if you want to feel like a kid again, get on your bike and POW your ten years old again in an instant! There are not too many things that can bring the levels of euforia you get as a kid on a bike. And it doesn't matter how old you are when you get on, when you're riding, your a kid on a bike!
Let's do something way way out of the ordinary for me and go through some very entertaining history! At the very least, we will all learn some interesting trivia which is sure to impress our friends next time we are all together for a few!! I want to talk about the technology behind biking for a second. A bike is basically a machine that is has been designed to take the energy output of your legs and transfer it efficiently into torsional energy around the axel of a wheel. Believe it or not, the first bikes actually didn't even do this! The FIRST bike was called a walking machine, and it didn't even have petals! just two wheels that let you coast farther with each stride! Then came some smarty who put petals on the FRONT wheel, made the frame of wood and metal (no rubber) and rode it on cobblestones (ouch)! this was called the bone shaker (wonder why!). A few years later came the giant front wheel bike we think of when we think of old bikes (still petals on the front). The giant wheel was to smooth the ride over cobblestones, and to give the rider some mechanical advantage so they could go farther with each petal. these bikes were so unstable that if you hit ANYTHING with the front wheel, the entire bike would rotate over the giant wheel and with your legs stuck under the handlebars you were rammed into the ground head first! This is where the term "taking a header" came from, rather literally. Only after many people sustained massive injury did they begin thinking of safety and they started shrinking the tire in favor of gears to yield the same mechanical advantage. They placed the gearbox away from the front wheel so your feet were lower, but the chain still drove the front wheel (crazy loons). They even made tricycles for ladies who needed to be afforded more dignity than the men of the day ;) Believe it or not, the big wheel bike stuck around because of it's comfort for a long time, until they had the bright idea of filling the tires with AIR. Then bye bye neck-breaking big wheel. But the term "taking a header" would stick around through the ages (thankfully). The technology developed for making bikes, bike sprockets and chains, and the mechanical advantages needed to achieve high speeds, all went directly into the automotive development when cars finally came around years later. Tell that to the next car driving Jerk who honks at you! Tell em' we were here first!!!
Today, bike technology is really quite amazing, and expensive! You can spend well over ten-grand for a bike these days, which is totally insane if you ask me! They even have automatic shifters that work off the pressure you are applying to the petals and crap! wowza! The really amazing thing is that all this focus on lower weight components and bike parts really is senseless when you think about the fact that anything less than 15 lbs can't be used in most competitions, and it's much easier to loose a pound of fat than it is to drum up an extra 10k! Plus there is no regulation weight applied to the rider ;) !!
Let's do something way way out of the ordinary for me and go through some very entertaining history! At the very least, we will all learn some interesting trivia which is sure to impress our friends next time we are all together for a few!! I want to talk about the technology behind biking for a second. A bike is basically a machine that is has been designed to take the energy output of your legs and transfer it efficiently into torsional energy around the axel of a wheel. Believe it or not, the first bikes actually didn't even do this! The FIRST bike was called a walking machine, and it didn't even have petals! just two wheels that let you coast farther with each stride! Then came some smarty who put petals on the FRONT wheel, made the frame of wood and metal (no rubber) and rode it on cobblestones (ouch)! this was called the bone shaker (wonder why!). A few years later came the giant front wheel bike we think of when we think of old bikes (still petals on the front). The giant wheel was to smooth the ride over cobblestones, and to give the rider some mechanical advantage so they could go farther with each petal. these bikes were so unstable that if you hit ANYTHING with the front wheel, the entire bike would rotate over the giant wheel and with your legs stuck under the handlebars you were rammed into the ground head first! This is where the term "taking a header" came from, rather literally. Only after many people sustained massive injury did they begin thinking of safety and they started shrinking the tire in favor of gears to yield the same mechanical advantage. They placed the gearbox away from the front wheel so your feet were lower, but the chain still drove the front wheel (crazy loons). They even made tricycles for ladies who needed to be afforded more dignity than the men of the day ;) Believe it or not, the big wheel bike stuck around because of it's comfort for a long time, until they had the bright idea of filling the tires with AIR. Then bye bye neck-breaking big wheel. But the term "taking a header" would stick around through the ages (thankfully). The technology developed for making bikes, bike sprockets and chains, and the mechanical advantages needed to achieve high speeds, all went directly into the automotive development when cars finally came around years later. Tell that to the next car driving Jerk who honks at you! Tell em' we were here first!!!
Today, bike technology is really quite amazing, and expensive! You can spend well over ten-grand for a bike these days, which is totally insane if you ask me! They even have automatic shifters that work off the pressure you are applying to the petals and crap! wowza! The really amazing thing is that all this focus on lower weight components and bike parts really is senseless when you think about the fact that anything less than 15 lbs can't be used in most competitions, and it's much easier to loose a pound of fat than it is to drum up an extra 10k! Plus there is no regulation weight applied to the rider ;) !!
There isn't much difference between a tri-bike / road bike / hybrid in terms of training success, basically whatever you have sitting in your garage will do the job for your training most likely. So don't let that hold you back. Just go get on your bike and be a kid again yippee!!!
More on the history of bikes!
http://www.pedalinghistory.com/PHhistory.html
The Previous Bike Article is HERE:
http://ironaaron.blogspot.com/2012/07/biking-part-1.html
Want a special little tidbit on a special kind of biking called Aqua-Biking? Check it out:
http://ironaaron.blogspot.com/2012/08/aqua-biking.html
The Previous Bike Article is HERE:
http://ironaaron.blogspot.com/2012/07/biking-part-1.html
Want a special little tidbit on a special kind of biking called Aqua-Biking? Check it out:
http://ironaaron.blogspot.com/2012/08/aqua-biking.html
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