Read Online Cyclopedia by William Fotheringham - Free Book Online
Authors: William Fotheringham
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callipers, as made by CAMPAGNOLO from 1968, and center-pulls, in which the callipers crossed in a shallow X, of which the best were made by British company GB and French firm Mafac. In the end, side-pulls became universal, mainly because of their greater simplicity, although Campagnoloâs elegant, if heavy, Delta brake of the 1990s was in essence a center-pull with a parallelogram-shaped linkage.
The MOUNTAIN BIKE brought innovation in this area as well as others. First came powerful hydraulic brakesâthe best made by French firm Maguraâwhere the cables were replaced with fluid-filled control lines; these sat on the same bosses that would have taken cantilever brakes and produced such power that seat-stays could be seen bending under the strain. To counter this, they were sometimes backed up with metal bridging plates.
Drum brakes had been used on the very first mountain bikes, but their weight was a handicap; the best design has proved to be lightweight hydraulic disc brakes refined from motorbike models, offering one great advantage over rim brakes: they do not lose any efficiency in the wet, when it is estimated that water flowing over the rim can cause the loss of up to 60 percent of braking power.
BRIGHTON Finish point for one of the worldâs largest mass bike rides, the London to Brighton, one of the first events of its kind. The ride was founded in 1975 as a demonstration of pedal power; 34 cyclists covered the 54-mile route. From 1980 it was run officially in aid of the British Heart Foundation. Now about 27,000 cyclists, of all ages and on all kinds of bikes, struggle up the final climb over the South Downâs Ditchling Beacon just before the final swoop to the finish on Madeira Drive. Since 1980 almost 40 million dollars has been raised for the BHF, while an estimated 650,000 cyclists have taken part.
Itâs not clear who was the first cyclist to ride to the South Coast resort, but one of the first was John Mayal, who set out in
February 1869 on an old ordinary to get there in a day. It took him approximately 20 hours. London to Brighton and back remains one of the British RECORDS officially listed by the Road Records Association; the current record for a bike dates back to 1977 (Phil Griffiths, 4 hours 15 minutes 8 seconds).
Brighton was the venue for a British stage finish in the 1994 Tour de France, when the peloton rode over Ditchling, and the resort hosted a World Cup Classic for several years (see HEIN VERBRUGGENâS entry for the history of the World Cup).
BURROWS, Mike (b. England, 1943)
Groundbreaking English bike designer who produced two definitive designs: the carbon-fiber monocoque engineered by the Lotus car company on which CHRIS BOARDMAN rode to an Olympic gold medal in 1992, and the early TCR compact bike for GIANT, with a sloping top tube, which set the tone for most top-end road bikes in the early 21st century. Burrows is also a stalwart of the RECUMBENT bike movement, producing one of the most popular designs, the Windcheetah (see END TO END for one of the most surprisingfeats achieved on the machine).
Burrows began experimenting with smoothed out steel and carbon-fiber frames for TIME TRIALLING in the 1980s but the Lotus was the definitive design: a cross-shaped frame based on a single colossal smoothed-out strut running from the head tube to the rear hub, with extensions for the bottom bracket and
saddle, and monoblade forks at front and rear. When Boardman won the gold medal, the bike received more attention than he did; it was estimated that Lotus gained about £100 million worth of free advertising. A road version was produced in 1994, and Boardman used it to win the prologue time trial of the TOUR DE FRANCE at record speed. On the downside, he went through a dozen of the frames; they were, he said, âneither robust nor reliable.â In 1993, Burrows also produced a bike for Boardmanâs big rival GRAEME OBREE, but the Scot preferred to stick to
The MOUNTAIN BIKE brought innovation in this area as well as others. First came powerful hydraulic brakesâthe best made by French firm Maguraâwhere the cables were replaced with fluid-filled control lines; these sat on the same bosses that would have taken cantilever brakes and produced such power that seat-stays could be seen bending under the strain. To counter this, they were sometimes backed up with metal bridging plates.
Drum brakes had been used on the very first mountain bikes, but their weight was a handicap; the best design has proved to be lightweight hydraulic disc brakes refined from motorbike models, offering one great advantage over rim brakes: they do not lose any efficiency in the wet, when it is estimated that water flowing over the rim can cause the loss of up to 60 percent of braking power.
BRIGHTON Finish point for one of the worldâs largest mass bike rides, the London to Brighton, one of the first events of its kind. The ride was founded in 1975 as a demonstration of pedal power; 34 cyclists covered the 54-mile route. From 1980 it was run officially in aid of the British Heart Foundation. Now about 27,000 cyclists, of all ages and on all kinds of bikes, struggle up the final climb over the South Downâs Ditchling Beacon just before the final swoop to the finish on Madeira Drive. Since 1980 almost 40 million dollars has been raised for the BHF, while an estimated 650,000 cyclists have taken part.
Itâs not clear who was the first cyclist to ride to the South Coast resort, but one of the first was John Mayal, who set out in
February 1869 on an old ordinary to get there in a day. It took him approximately 20 hours. London to Brighton and back remains one of the British RECORDS officially listed by the Road Records Association; the current record for a bike dates back to 1977 (Phil Griffiths, 4 hours 15 minutes 8 seconds).
Brighton was the venue for a British stage finish in the 1994 Tour de France, when the peloton rode over Ditchling, and the resort hosted a World Cup Classic for several years (see HEIN VERBRUGGENâS entry for the history of the World Cup).
BURROWS, Mike (b. England, 1943)
Groundbreaking English bike designer who produced two definitive designs: the carbon-fiber monocoque engineered by the Lotus car company on which CHRIS BOARDMAN rode to an Olympic gold medal in 1992, and the early TCR compact bike for GIANT, with a sloping top tube, which set the tone for most top-end road bikes in the early 21st century. Burrows is also a stalwart of the RECUMBENT bike movement, producing one of the most popular designs, the Windcheetah (see END TO END for one of the most surprisingfeats achieved on the machine).
Burrows began experimenting with smoothed out steel and carbon-fiber frames for TIME TRIALLING in the 1980s but the Lotus was the definitive design: a cross-shaped frame based on a single colossal smoothed-out strut running from the head tube to the rear hub, with extensions for the bottom bracket and
saddle, and monoblade forks at front and rear. When Boardman won the gold medal, the bike received more attention than he did; it was estimated that Lotus gained about £100 million worth of free advertising. A road version was produced in 1994, and Boardman used it to win the prologue time trial of the TOUR DE FRANCE at record speed. On the downside, he went through a dozen of the frames; they were, he said, âneither robust nor reliable.â In 1993, Burrows also produced a bike for Boardmanâs big rival GRAEME OBREE, but the Scot preferred to stick to
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