John Forester - Effective Cycling

Effective Cycling

Effective Cycling

seventh edition

John Forester

The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England

2012 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Forester, John, 1929

Effective cycling / John Forester.7th ed.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-262-51694-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-0-262-30071-1 (retail e-book)

1. Cycling. 2. BicyclesMaintenance and repair. I. Title.

GV1041.F67 2012

796.6dc23

2011036912

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Prefaces

This preface is written to reflect the conditions of 2012very different from those of 1974, the year of the first edition. The events since then have heightened both the need for Effective Cycling and the political and psychological objections that must be overcome by lawful, competent cyclists. The following paragraphs are parts of the preface for the initial MIT edition of 1984.

1984 Preface

Effective Cycling has come a long way since 1974, when I wrote my first notes on cycling in traffic for my adult cycling class. At that time, I thought that the other aspects of cycling must have been well covered by other authors, so that my notes would be merely a small, though necessary, addition to the literature. However, I was unable to find for my students any book that accurately covered even bicycle maintenance. For example, the only correct description I had seen of how to repair a tire, the most frequent repair of all, was in the Cycling Book of Maintenance (London: Temple Press, first edition 1944), which I had purchased new to learn the proven English techniques for repairing bicycles. My original intent was partly political; I intended to disseminate the principles, understanding, and practice of proper cycling in traffic in order to protect cyclists from bike-safety programs, bikeways, and restrictive laws. Yet I quickly realized that it does no good to teach proper cycling in traffic when the cyclist cant keep his tires pumped up and doesnt know how to enjoy cycling. The first edition of Effective Cycling was the result of that realization. I included everything a cyclist needed to know in order to use a bicycle every day, for whatever purpose, under any reasonable conditions of terrain, weather, and traffic. To that I added introductions to the different ways of enjoying cycling and several items that would stimulate thought about cyclings problems.

Despite the spate of books about cycling that appeared between 1970 and 1975, nobody I knew believed that there was a market for Effective Cycling. Elementary cycling knowledge was provided for children in the form of comic books, while adults were interested, if at all, in exotic equipment and famous racesso the opinions ran. Elementary cycling for adults was a subject that could not exist, let alone be interesting. I didnt care; those opinions reflected the attitude that had created cyclings dangerous troubles and high accident rate. Effective Cycling was intended to correct the old attitudes, and once it had started to do so, people would recognize its value. Therefore, in 1975, I purchased paper, ink, and plastic bindings and produced it myself on the mimeograph machine that I had used for cycling newsletters.

Although the purpose of Effective Cycling has not changed, the book has grown with each new edition. I have recognized subjects that I had neglected, I have learned more, the technology has improved, and good bicycle equipment has become much easier to obtain. Some readers have objected that too much space has been devoted to do-it-yourself improvements and special techniques, such as modifying Schrader valves, gearing calculations, and homemade tools. It is plain fact that bicycles, especially those purchased by beginning cyclists, are not perfect and suffer frequent small troubles. Only the cyclist who can make small improvements and do his or her own repairs can obtain regular, satisfactory service from a bicycle. Therefore I have retained these instructions, which describe techniques that I have used successfully, some for many years. At the other end of the sophistication scale, I have added material that some consider useless for beginning cyclists, such as cold-weather technique, the physiology of hard riding, and a discussion of recumbent and streamlined bicycles. Certainly, few beginning cyclists will make immediate use of this information, but Effective Cycling is intended to develop beginning cyclists into advanced cyclists and to be a handbook that is useful for many years. The information is included because it is needed at the level to which I think cyclists ought to develop, because it discusses questions that are of long-term importance, and because I have reached conclusions that either extend our knowledge or differ from common opinion. Naturally, I hope that it is also interesting.

I am grateful to those who have taught me cycling knowledge, but I can no longer list them fairly because so many of my cycling companions, starting with my family in my childhood, were kind enough to contribute to my understanding. Learning is also more than being taught; I have learned from the conversations and writings of cyclists, even from those who did not wish to teach me, and I have learned from thinking about the experiences of a lifetime awheel. However, when searching my memories for those who guided me, I remember one man who pointed the way long before I recognized that this journey was before me. The writings of GHS (George Herbert Stancer of the Cyclists Touring Club), soundly advocating cyclists interests in the cycling press of the 1930s and 1940s, formed my earliest opinions of how mature cyclists should act and should be treated; those thoughts returned to full consciousness in the crisis years of the mid-1970s. As for the rest of my cycling knowledge, from whence it came I cannot now say, except that it has come from cycling. Therefore, I wish to express my thanks to all of you, alive and dead, who have formed my cycling world, not only for my knowledge but for a large part of the joy of living.

One other person deserves recognition. Dorris Taylor has provided encouragement, helpful criticism, and emotional support far beyond that merited by friendship, for which I am very grateful. The cycling community, also, should recognize her for providing the financial security that has enabled me to keep working on this book and this program.

2012 Preface

The intent of Effective Cycling has always been to instruct cyclists in the method of cycling that is best for them because it agrees with the traffic laws and with traffic-engineering knowledge, no matter what may be the social attitude toward cycling. In the 1984 preface, I phrased this as: My original intent was partly political; I intended to disseminate the principles, understanding, and practice of proper cycling in traffic in order to protect cyclists from bike-safety programs, bikeways, and restrictive laws. In those years, there was still some hope that this might be accomplished, but by 2012, government and society are pushing a full-blown program of incompetent cycling on bikeways.

Since about 1940, American government and society have been two-faced about cycling. One part of the laws said that cyclists had to operate according to the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles, while the other part of the laws said that cyclists must not do so. Cyclists were sometimes defined as drivers, but at other times were defined as inferior to drivers. The bikeway program that implemented cyclist-inferiority cycling started in 1971. For a complicated mix of reasons, American government has, by 2012, turned that into a highly publicized, well-funded, quite popular program intended to encourage incompetent cycling by treating cyclists as inferior road users who should ride in bikeways where available. The cyclist of 2012 who intends to learn how to cycle safely and usefully in accordance with the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles not only has to learn the skills but also has to learn why those skills are far better than the incompetent bikeway cycling that government and society try to force on him. This is not a recipe for using bicycling to change the world; there are plenty of people and governments urging that through popular but incompetent cycling. This is a recipe for those few who choose to cycle safely and lawfully and competently and confidently, no matter what contrary pressures government and society apply.