Here’s another rule of thumb I’ve developed for endurance cyclists: if you have to use your brake, you’re doing it wrong. That might sound a little silly, but it’s good science.

The only way that a bike moves is through the rider producing the force to propel it. You invest a lot of muscle energy to get the bike up to speed, and then its momentum ( Read more... )

Safe Cycling, Smart Cycling, Confident Cycling, Fundamental Cycling Skills: whatever you call it, educating riders on how to safely share the roads with other users is an important responsibility of advocacy organizations around the world.

I’ve never been through a formal bike safety course, but I’ve done plenty of reading, supplemented by plenty ( Read more... )

Follow this link for my full 2003 Pan-Mass Challenge ride report.

Training just keeps going, but today was another major expedition: the Charles River Wheelmen's 60-mile Climb to the Clouds, including the ascent of the 2008-foot Wachusett Mountain, the tallest mountain in eastern Massachusetts. It was a real beast, but I did manage to set another personal land speed record at 43.2 mph. My legs are aching now, but ( Read more... )

Today was not a training ride. Today was an expedition.

My friend Bill and I drove up to Lovell, Maine, where we set off on the well-known Evans Notch loop ride. After a couple respectable hills, we rode at a casual pace through Fryeburg Harbor, the source of the Saco River, and then turned north onto Route 113, the heart of the ride. Bill tagged ( Read more... )

The weather only let me ride two days this week, but both days were biggies: rode 24 miles up and around the Middlesex Fells, and the next day rode 51 miles out the Minuteman trail to Bedford, then Carlisle, then Walden Pond, and the Decordova Museum before returning home. Set a new all-time speed record (36.1 mph) and the next-to-highest average ( Read more... )