Golfing Etiquette, And Its Application To Cycling

A decade-or-so ago when cycling became formally recognised as the new golf, many overweight, middle-aged businessmen breathed a collective (and wheezy) sigh of relief.

Finally they were to be granted a reprieve from wearing ridiculous outfits like this…


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Top 10 Melbourne Bike Shops With Rude-sounding Names

#10: Bike Smellery
www.bikegallery.com.au

#9: Sleasley Cycles
www.beasleycycles.com.au

#8: Total Thrush
www.totalrush.com.au



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Melbourne’s eXpresso Cafés — Part 4

Expresso Joe Drive Thru Coffee

The furious development of Melbourne’s inner-north in recent years has made a huge impact on the food and coffee scene, but the gentrification has come at a price. Fitzroy is already ruined, Collingwood is not far behind, and since the 2013 publicity frenzy sparked by the ‘Beyoncé in Brunswick’ phenomenon, the almost total yuppification of these northern suburbs will soon be complete.

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A Ding-Dong Battle — Three Boutique Bicycle Bells Go Head-To-Head

In the world of high-end bicycle bells, some standout brands are bringing style, craftsmanship, and extraordinary attention to detail to the humble act of ringing and dinging. It’s a realm where safety, function, and flair for design come together to provide yet another way for consummate bicycle enthusiasts to set themselves apart.


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Melbourne’s eXpresso Cafés — Part 3

D.G. Expresso

There isn’t much point cycling through The Merchant end of Melbourne’s Docklands. It doesn’t really lead anywhere except for construction zones, corporate office towers, and weird, post-modern exercise parks. But for eXpresso enthusiasts, D.G. Expresso in Merchant Street provides a compelling reason to detour down to this strange, dead-end, urban promontory on your next ride. Thankfully there’s plenty of bike parking directly opposite.
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How I Learned Mountain Biking In A Weekend

The UCI Cross Country Mountain Bike World Cup (presented by Shimano) gets underway this weekend in Nové Město na Moravě. It was this race, and a very informative book, that sparked my own interest in the sport just a few years ago.

At the time I was looking for something new. Road cycling had gotten old and a video promo for an upcoming World Cup race in the small, mountain bike-crazed Czech town planted the seed.

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Auctioning The Embacher Collection

Austrian architect Michael Embacher’s world-famous bicycle collection goes up for auction this coming Tuesday. After last week’s Cocktail Preview Party at Vienna’s Dorotheum auction house, European boutique bicycle enthusiasts are understandably getting a little hot under their turtle-necked collars. Over the last 10-years, Embacher has amassed over 200 collectible bicycles, arranged fastidiously according to colour, in the attic-cum-bike gallery* of his Vienna design office.

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Melbourne’s eXpresso Cafés — Part 2

Perkup Expresso

One of the many downsides to cycling’s affinity with the rich business executive crowd is that for workaholics, fitting café time in around weekday road bunch rides can be a bit of a challenge. This is where eXpresso cafés come to the rescue. Featuring this week is Perkup Expresso Bar in Collins Street Melbourne where you can get a $2 takeaway eXpresso from their walk-up window from 5.30am on weekdays.

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Guide to Melbourne’s eXpresso Cafés — Part 1

Cycling and coffee. The two have become synonymous ever since overweight rich people realised that their ridiculously expensive European road bikes were more likely to be drooled over whilst propped up at a trendy café as opposed to actually being ridden.

In a city like Melbourne, coffee has become more than just a drink with numerous small-batch roasters supplying quality blends and single-origins to the choking mass of inner-city cafés that cyclists love to frequent pre, post or mid-ride. While websites like Broadsheet already offer reviews on popular high-end cafés (in Melbourne and Sydney), the eXpresso café segment is too often overlooked. In fact, there is not a single listing on Broadsheet that includes the term eXpresso.

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Staying Alive: Adventure Cycling’s New Edible Survival Accessories

Social cycling has taken an adventurous turn in recent years, mostly due to the realisation that risking your epidermis in crash-prone bunches on roads laden with broken glass and tacks whilst being verbally abused by bogans in powerful cars is no longer as thrilling as it once was. As the popularity of mountain, cyclo-cross and gravel bikes continue to rise, many group rides are heading off the sealed road in to once-unchartered territory. While fun, these expeditions mean a survival element now needs to be incorporated.

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Alternative Therapies For Cycling

When a recent conversation with a stranger surprisingly veered down a mystical path espousing the benefits of Crystal Healing, my inner sceptic immediately piped up with an internal dialogue more powerful than the compulsion to risk life and death at a level crossing in the Paris-Roubaix.



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23rd Cycle Messenger World Championships

There are many fantastic ways for cyclists to celebrate Easter — if celebrate is the correct verb. After all, it’s not really lighthearted stuff, this Christian ultra-long weekend that honours backstabbing friends, an unjust legal system, and an incredible comeback that makes even Lance Armstrong’s 2009 Tour de France podium—the one where he “absolutely [did] not” dope—seem fairly unimpressive.


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Cycling’s Strange Affinity With April Fool’s Day And The Coriolis Effect

The history of April Fool’s Day possibly goes back as far as the 1600s, but it wasn’t until more recently, with the emergence of comedy websites (such as cyclingnews.com) that its reach has been able to fully penetrate the world of cycling. Thankfully there’s nothing that cyclists enjoy more than being fully penetrated.



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Aerodynamics: Are We Doing It Wrong?

This blog and its readers no doubt count themselves in the elite upper-echelon of cycling aficionados. Their fingers are firmly on the pulse of cutting-edge technological breakthroughs, the latest well-styled fashions and a broad yet critical understanding of the nuances of both professional and amateur cycling.



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Bikes Of The 2015 Corporate Triathlon

In the world of pseudo-competitive sports-based marketing, there are few events more impressive than the wonder of Corporate Triathlon. Targeting the corporate sector is an ingenious way for event organisers to capitalise on the holy trilogy of event promotion—exorbitant entry fees, minimal prizes and mass participation.

Bikes And Equipment Of The 2015 Herald Sun Tour Commuter Cup Prologue

After the success of last year’s innovative Commuter Cup prologue time-trial, the Herald Sun Tour* began yesterday with a similar race through the busy peak-hour streets of Melbourne’s CBD. A prologue time-trial is always a great place to get behind the scenes with the professional teams for a sneaky look at their individual equipment choices. Riders can opt for very different strategies when it comes to posting the fastest time against the clock and the short length of the prologue course means that nosy spectators can get a good look at it all.

The Disappearance Of The Dab

With the growth in popularity of gravity assisted mountain biking there has been a corresponding decline in the attention given to one of cross-country mountain biking’s most important descriptive statistics—the dab. The word has many meanings, including ‘the application of hash oil to a heated surface for the purpose of efficient combustion,’ although this definition is probably more applicable to the downhill, rather than cross-country, segment of the sport.

Getting A Coffee On Christmas Day

Cycling and coffee. These two seemingly disparate pastimes have become an icon of the modern day, middle aged, middle class in Australia. Evidence of the growing disposable incomes that have afforded so many the ability to indulge their consumerist ideals with expensive bikes, accessories and clothing that can be put on display at trendy cafes whilst sipping exotic single-origins and eating overpriced eggs.

The High Front End

Despite some overwhelmingly convincing evidence about the benefits of a low stack height, it appears that a growing number of cyclists are now choosing not to “go low”. A new wave of “high flyers” are touting the benefits of the high front end as a more healthy and desirable bike setup option. The difference in opinion is likely to form a rift in the cycling community, or at least add to the growing disharmony that already exists: roadies vs mountain bikers; 26” vs 29”; baggy shorts vs lycra; and all cyclists vs triathletes.

The Murky Underworld Of Corporate Contributions And Wheel Size Segregation

I was starting to think that the wheel size wars were finally petering out until a recent trip to Rotorua in New Zealand confirmed that not only is the debate still alive and well, but that it may actually be evolving in to a recognised form of segregation—bucking the trend of many civil rights movements throughout history.

I refer, of course, to the recently updated trail signage in Rotorua’s Whakarewarewa forest that now include wheel size recommendations, a divisive instrument that may soon disrupt the harmonious nature of mountain biking.