Cycling
Frame Size Decides Less Than You Have Been Told
Size gets treated as the master variable in buying a bike. It sets a couple of dimensions and leaves most of the fit to the parts…
Devika Menon
Editor, Ride Banana
Devika edits Ride Banana and has commuted by bicycle through three monsoons.
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55 articles
Cycling
A Heavy Bike You Ride Beats a Light One You Do Not
Weight obsession is imported from racing, where the rules are different. For getting to work, the machine that leaves the house…
Cycling
Wide Tyres Got Faster and the Old Advice Never Caught Up
For decades the received wisdom was that narrow means quick. Measurement on real road surfaces has been steadily pushing the other…
Cycling
Mudguards Are the Cheapest Upgrade a Wet Ride Can Have
Rain does not make you as wet as the road does. Most of the water arriving on a rider in bad weather has been thrown up by their…
Cycling
Why Your Hands Go Numb and What to Change First
Numb fingers on a bike are almost always a load and angle problem rather than a padding problem. Gloves are the last thing to…
Cycling
What a Bike Fit Fixes and What It Cannot
A fit repositions you on the machine. It does not resolve an unsuitable frame, a medical problem, or the fact that you have not…
Scooters & E-Mobility
What Actually Determines How Far an Electric Bike Will Go
Range figures are produced under conditions nobody rides in. The variables that decide your real distance are mostly about you and…
Scooters & E-Mobility
Torque Sensors and Cadence Sensors Feel Nothing Alike
Two e-bikes with identical motors can behave completely differently, because the thing deciding when to help is not the motor at…
Scooters & E-Mobility
Charging a Lithium Battery Without Setting Fire to Your Hallway
Battery fires are rare and severe, and almost all the risk is concentrated in a handful of avoidable situations. None of them…
Scooters & E-Mobility
Watt-Hours Are the Number Worth Reading on a Battery
Voltage and amp-hours are printed everywhere and compared constantly. Multiplied together they give the only figure that describes…
Scooters & E-Mobility
Small Wheels Punish a Bad Road Surface
Wheel diameter is not a styling choice on scooters and folding bikes. It changes how a wheel meets an obstacle, and that is a…
Safety & Rules
Road Position Is How You Tell a Driver What You Will Do
Where you ride in a lane is not just about safety margin. It is the clearest signal available about your intentions, and drivers…
Riding the City
What Makes a City Rideable Has Little to Do With Weather
The cities with the highest cycling rates are not the warmest or the flattest. What they share is a set of design decisions that…
The Commute
Arriving Presentable Without a Shower at the Other End
Most commutes are short enough that sweat is manageable. What decides the outcome is pace, airflow and what you do in the first…
The Commute
Riding Harder Does Not Make a City Commute Much Shorter
Effort and arrival time are only loosely connected in traffic. The time you save between junctions is largely handed back at the…
The Commute
Building a Commute You Will Still Be Doing in November
Most people who stop cycling to work stop in the dark half of the year. The habit survives on the things you set up while it is…
Maintenance
Rim Brakes and Disc Brakes Behave Differently When It Rains
Both stop a bike well when dry. In wet conditions the two designs face different problems, and only one of them has to clear water…
Maintenance
Torque on a Bicycle Without a Torque Wrench Is Guesswork
Bolts on a bike are small, and the difference between correct and stripped is a fraction of a turn. Some of those bolts hold parts…
Maintenance
Bearings Announce Their Death Long Before They Die
Hubs, headsets and bottom brackets all give warning, and the warnings are specific. Catching them early is the difference between a…
Safety & Rules
Being Seen Is Not the Same as Being Noticed
Drivers regularly look directly at a cyclist and pull out anyway. The failure is usually in attention and expectation rather than…
Safety & Rules
The Turning Vehicle Is the Junction Conflict That Recurs
A driver overtaking a cyclist and then turning across them is one of the most common serious collisions in urban cycling. The…
Safety & Rules
Helmets: What the Evidence Supports and What It Argues About
Few cycling topics generate more heat and less clarity. The mechanical case and the population-level case are different questions…
Safety & Rules
Riding in a Group Without Becoming Unpredictable
Two riders together are safer than two riders separately in some ways and more confusing to drivers in others. The difference is…
Safety & Rules
Roundabouts Are Where Riders and Drivers Read the Road Differently
A roundabout asks every user to judge gaps, speeds and exits at once. Cyclists are the smallest and least expected participants in…
Safety & Rules
Riding After Dark Changes More Than the Light Level
Lighting is the obvious difference and not the only one. Judgement of speed, driver behaviour and your own tiredness all change…
Riding the City
Protected Cycle Lanes Fail at the Junctions, Not the Straights
The easy part of building for cycling is the section between junctions. Almost all the design difficulty and almost all the…
Riding the City
Somewhere to Leave the Bike Decides Whether People Ride
Parking is the least discussed part of cycling infrastructure and one of the most decisive. A journey by bike is only as practical…
Riding the City
Painted Lanes Are Not Infrastructure
A line of paint costs almost nothing and appears on every progress report. What it changes about the physical situation of a rider…
Riding the City
Slowing the Traffic Helps Riders More Than Another Cycle Lane
Most streets in any city will never get separated infrastructure. What can change on all of them is how fast and how much motor…
Riding the City
A Cycle Route That Goes Nowhere Carries Nobody
Journeys are made between real origins and real destinations. A high-quality section that connects neither is used only by the…
Riding the City
Bike Share Solves One Problem and Creates Another
Shared bikes remove ownership, storage and maintenance from the rider. They add availability, redistribution and parking problems…
Riding the City
Hilly Cities Became Rideable When Motors Got Cheap
Gradient was the one barrier that better infrastructure could not remove. Electric assistance changed the calculation in places…
Riding the City
Riding a City That Was Never Designed For It
Most riders will never live somewhere with a coherent cycle network. The techniques for coping are different from the techniques…
Riding the City
One-Way Streets and the Case for Riding Both Ways
One-way systems were designed to move motor traffic. For anyone on a bicycle they add distance, and contraflow permission has…
Riding the City
Winter Cities That Keep Riding, and How They Manage It
Snow and ice do not stop cycling in places that plan for them. What stops it is a maintenance regime that treats cycle routes as an…
Riding the City
Delivery Riding Changed What Cities Have to Plan For
A large population of riders now works on two wheels under time pressure. That has altered traffic patterns, kerbside demand and…
Cycling
Single Speed Riding Works Until the Ground Stops Being Flat
One gear removes the parts that go wrong and the choices you have to make. It also removes every option you had on a hill.
Scooters & E-Mobility
Battery Management Systems Do the Job You Never See
Inside every pack sits a small circuit deciding what the cells are allowed to do. Most of what feels like battery behaviour is…
Scooters & E-Mobility
Motor Heat and Noise Are the Only Load Gauge You Have
No display tells you how hard a motor is working. The sounds it makes and the warmth it holds are the instrumentation you actually…
Scooters & E-Mobility
What the Display Is Guessing and What It Is Measuring
Speed is measured. Battery percentage and range remaining are estimates built on assumptions that your next hill is about to break.
The Commute
Shoes Are the Commuting Problem Nobody Warns You About
You can change your trousers at work. Changing your shoes means carrying them, and wet shoes do not dry between the morning and the…
The Commute
Errands by Bike Change What You Buy and How Often
A bicycle sets a limit on volume and none on stopping. That combination quietly rearranges a week of shopping into something quite…
The Commute
The Forecast Details That Actually Change a Ride
Temperature is the number everyone reads and the one that matters least. Wind direction, rain timing and dew point decide what the…
Maintenance
Brake Pads Wear in a Pattern That Tells You What Is Wrong
Pads rarely wear evenly, and the shape they end up in is a diagnosis. Tapered, glazed and unevenly worn each point somewhere…
Maintenance
The Spare Parts Worth Owning Before Something Breaks
Tools get all the attention, and the thing that ends a ride is usually a consumable. A small box at home turns most failures into…
Safety & Rules
Buses Are the Vehicle Riders Most Often Misread
A bus stops where you least expect it, pulls out into your line and hides everything happening in front of it. All three are…
Safety & Rules
Where You Look Decides More Than What You See
A bicycle goes roughly where the rider is looking. That is useful when you are looking at the gap and unhelpful when you are…
Safety & Rules
Headphones Change What You Can Hear Coming
Hearing is the sense that covers the space behind you. What you lose by covering your ears depends heavily on what you replace it…
Safety & Rules
A Near Miss Is Information, Not Just a Bad Moment
The incidents that leave no mark are the ones that outnumber everything else. Treated as data rather than adrenaline, they change…
Safety & Rules
Shared Paths Need a Different Set of Habits
A path away from traffic removes one problem and introduces another. People on foot do not have mirrors, indicators or any…
Riding the City
Traffic Signals Were Timed for Cars and Riders Pay the Difference
Signal timing assumes a vehicle that accelerates hard and detects reliably. A bicycle does neither, which is why a city can feel…
Riding the City
Bridges and Tunnels Are Where a City's Cycle Network Runs Out
A route can be excellent for five kilometres and then meet a river. What happens at the crossing decides whether the whole route is…
Riding the City
Roadworks Are Where a Cycle Route Quietly Disappears
A closed lane sends drivers around it and riders into traffic. Temporary arrangements are where most cycle networks fail, and…
Riding the City
Grid Cities and Grown Cities Ride Nothing Alike
One offers a hundred parallel routes and a junction every block. The other offers three ways across town and no way to guess which…
Riding the City
You Breathe Less Traffic on the Bike Than in the Car Behind It
A sealed cabin sitting in a queue collects what the vehicle in front is producing. Where you are in the traffic matters more than…