A human traveling on a bicycle at low to medium speeds of around 16–24 km/h (10–15 mph) uses only the power required to walk. The bicycle is the most efficient human-powered means of transportation in terms of energy a person must expend to travel a given distance. The bicycle is extraordinarily efficient in both biological and mechanical terms. The act of purposefully using this force to lift the rear wheel and balance on the front without tipping over is a trick known as a stoppie, endo, or front wheelie. These innovations have continued with the advent of modern materials and computer-aided design, allowing for a proliferation of specialized bicycle types, improved bicycle safety, and riding comfort. The bicycle has undergone continual adaptation and improvement since its inception.
They are also used for recreational purposes, including bicycle touring, mountain biking, physical fitness, and play. Bicycles are the most common vehicle of any kind in the world, and the most numerous model of any kind of vehicle, whether human-powered or motor vehicle, is the Chinese Flying Pigeon, with numbers exceeding 500 million. Further innovations increased comfort and ushered in a second studio cycling bicycle craze, the 1890s Golden Age of Bicycles. Starley's 1885 Rover, manufactured in Coventry is usually described as the first recognizably modern bicycle.
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The United Kingdom has a tax break scheme (IR 176) that allows employees to buy a new bicycle tax free to use for commuting. A number of cities around the world have implemented schemes known as bicycle sharing systems or community bicycle programs. In built-up cities around the world, urban planning uses cycling infrastructure like bikeways to reduce traffic congestion and air pollution. The bicycle has had a considerable effect on human society, in both the cultural and industrial realms. There are specialized bicycle tools for use both in the shop and at the roadside.
(RIDE BIKE)
- Soon, the seat tube was added, which created the modern bike’s double-triangle diamond frame.
- These techniques later enabled skilled metalworkers and mechanics to develop the components used in early automobiles and aircraft.
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- Bicycles are the most common vehicle of any kind in the world, and the most numerous model of any kind of vehicle, whether human-powered or motor vehicle, is the Chinese Flying Pigeon, with numbers exceeding 500 million.
- These have allowed for a proliferation of specialized designs for many types of cycling.
- Training wheels are sometimes used when learning to ride, but a dedicated balance bike teaches independent riding more effectively.
Groupset generally refers to all of the components that make up a bicycle excluding the bicycle frame, fork, stem, wheels, tires, and rider contact points, such as the saddle and handlebars. Disc brakes are more common for mountain bikes, tandems and recumbent bicycles than on other types of bicycles, due to their increased power, coupled with an increased weight and complexity. While some women's bicycles continue to use this frame style, there is also a variation, the mixte, which splits the top tube laterally into two thinner top tubes that bypass the seat tube on each side and connect to the rear fork ends. The great majority of modern bicycles have a frame with upright seating that looks much like the first chain-driven bike.
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This steering is usually provided by the rider, but under certain conditions, may be provided by the bicycle itself. Military uses of bicycles include communications, reconnaissance, troop movement, supply of provisions, and patrol, such as in bicycle infantries. Bicycles are used for transportation, bicycle commuting, and utility cycling. More than 1 billion bicycles have been manufactured worldwide as of the early 21st century. Dérailleur gears and hand-operated Bowden cable-pull brakes were also developed during these years, but were only slowly adopted by casual riders.
Since cyclists' legs are most efficient over a narrow range of pedaling speeds, or cadence, a variable gear ratio helps a cyclist to maintain an optimum pedalling speed while covering varied terrain. Hydraulic bicycle transmissions have been built, but they are currently inefficient and complex. Since the late 1930s, alloy steels have been used for frame and fork tubes in higher quality machines. The world's fastest bicycle is a recumbent bicycle but this type was banned from competition in 1934 by the Union Cycliste Internationale. This design, referred to as a step-through frame or as an open frame, allows the rider to mount and dismount in a dignified way while wearing a skirt or dress. The top tube connects the head tube to the seat tube at the top, and the down tube connects the head tube to the bottom bracket.
These models were known as safety bicycles, dwarf safeties, or upright bicycles for their lower seat height and better weight distribution. A bicycle, also called a pedal cycle, bike, push-bike or cycle, is a human-powered or motor-assisted, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, with two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. Los Angeles removed a small amount of seating on some trains to make more room for bicycles and wheel chairs. Suspension is especially important on recumbent bicycles, since while an upright bicycle rider can stand on the pedals to achieve some of the benefits of suspension, a recumbent rider cannot.
Suspension
In terms of the ratio of cargo weight a bicycle can carry to total weight, it is also an efficient means of cargo transportation. This lean is induced by a method known as countersteering, which can be performed by the rider turning the handlebars directly with the hands or indirectly by leaning the bicycle. The combined center of mass of a bicycle and its rider must lean into a turn to successfully navigate it.
The dwarf ordinary addressed some of these faults by reducing the front wheel diameter and setting the seat further back. The French vélocipède, made of iron and wood, developed into the "penny-farthing" (historically known as an "ordinary bicycle", a retronym, since there was then no other kind). Several inventions followed using rear-wheel drive, the best known being the rod-driven velocipede by Scotsman Thomas McCall in 1869. Another French inventor named Douglas Grasso had a failed prototype of Pierre Lallement's bicycle several years earlier.
