Gavin Wright - Cycling for dummies

Cycling For Dummies

Published by:
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.,
The Atrium, Southern Gate,
Chichester,
www.wiley.com

This edition first published 2013

2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, West Sussex.

John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-118-36435-2 (pbk), ISBN 978-1-118-36437-6 (ebk), ISBN 978-1-118-36438-3 (ebk), ISBN 978-1-118-36436-9 (ebk)

Printed in Great Britain by Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow

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Introduction

A nnual surveys have shown for years that cycling is one of the most popular physical activities, along with swimming, fishing and walking. Cycling, though, is so much better than all of those things put together (at least, we think so). Bike sales in all forms of cycling have been increasing year on year, leaving car sales trailing.

Governments have recognised the advantages of having more people riding rather than driving, and traffic planners have learned that after cycling infrastructure such as bike lanes, bike paths and real help for bicycles through junctions is put in place, cyclists come pouring onto roads by the thousand. Campaigns and better facilities have seen some commuter cycling corridors increase their use twentyfold over the last 20 years.

More people are riding bicycles as each day goes by. Some of them are brand new to the world of bikes, some of them have just been away and some people are making the decision to cycle more. Wherever you are in this picture, no doubt you feel you need to know more in some area of cycling. Youre in luck, then, because cycling is definitely the topic of this book.

About This Book

This book, like all For Dummies books, is designed to be as easy as possible to use and read. Although weve included tonnes of information, it should be the simplest and best cycling book ever to sit on the bookshop shelf.

All the information in this book is easy to find. Whether you want to get to grips with everything about one aspect of cycling by reading the whole chapter on that aspect, or target one specific point in a chapter, you can locate your subject in no time and focus on precisely what you want to find out.

The information is also easy to understand. We dont assume youll read the whole book and we dont use any jargon, just plain English. Youll come across names to learn as you find out about different parts of your bike, or even various parts of your body, but no overly technical talk is used that would build a barrier between you and what you need to know.

You can often use alternative methods to what we show you to achieve the same result. In this book, however, we dont show you lots of ways of doing things we just show you the easiest or most effective method. After all, you only really have to have one technique up your sleeve to be able to get the job done.

Weve written this book to try to answer most of your questions anything from, Okay, which is the front end? to, How can I shift my lactate threshold?. If you want to ride a bike or ride a bike more this book is both a comprehensive reference, with everything you need to know, and an engaging read youll enjoy and keep for years.

This book gives you the power, in small, simple stages, to take control of all aspects of your cycling. You can make the decisions, but then this book helps you carry them through. Whatever you want to get out of your bicycle, this book shows you the way.

Conventions Used in This Book

Weve presented important bits of information in special ways to make sure you notice them right away:

Bulleted lists: Bulleted lists (just like this one) indicate things you can do in any order or group related bits of information, such as what spare parts to take when you cycle over mountains.

Currency: Every cost that we mention, such as the price of a tyre, is a rough guide and is given in pounds.

New terms: We put any new words or terms in italics and either closely precede or follow them by a simple definition.

Numbered lists: When you see a numbered list, follow the steps in number order to get a job, such as fixing a puncture, done.

Sidebars: Text enclosed in a shaded grey box is always interesting information, but you dont absolutely have to read it to understand the topic.

Web addresses: When we write about a website of interest we include the web address in a special typeface like this: www.bikesaregreat.co.uk .

Web addresses do change from time to time, so if the websites not there sorry try doing an online search. Also, when this book was printed, some web addresses may have been broken across two lines of text. If that happened, rest assured that we havent put in any extra characters (such as hyphens) to indicate the break and there wont be any spaces. So, when using one of these web addresses, just type in exactly what you see in this book, pretending the line break doesnt exist.