Cycling Weekly – August 22, 2019

60 | August 22, 2019 | Cycling Weekly

The wire spoke is the most under-

appreciated piece of technology

in cycling. Compared to the solid

spokes that preceded it, it’s lighter,

more aerodynamic, cheaper,

and by providing an element of

suspension, signifi cantly more

comfortable to ride, as well as

easier to build and repair.

The wire-spoked wheel was

invented by a man called Eugène

Meyer in Paris, and immediately

adopted (or nicked, depending

on your sympathies) by the British

bike-maker James Starley. Starley

also realised that he could now

make the wheel much, much

bigger while still keeping it light

— which is where the penny farthing came

from. Penny farthing wheels used in racing

increased in diameter from 36 inches to 46

inches over the course of the 1870 season,

entirely because of the wire spoke. You

might complain about the price of keeping

up with technology these days, but at least

you don’t need a new bike twice a year.

The modern spoke is not much altered

— they’ve become more durable (a broken

spoke used to happen regularly enough

that long-distance riders always carried

spares). Deeper rims mean you can get

away with fewer of them. And they’ve been

fl attened into a more aerodynamic shape.

But the benefi ts are much the same, and

pass almost unnoticed.

Happily no one ever made the jump to

bladed spokes on a penny farthing. Never

mind modern disc brake injuries, a crash

in a bladed-spoke penny farthing race

would have resulted in entire riders being

shredded and having to be identifi ed from

their dental records.

FLAMME ROUGE

Dr Hutch

T

here are three sorts of holiday.

There is the cycling holiday.

There is the sort of holiday

which isn’t a cycling holiday,

but where you can nonetheless take a bike

and fi nd an hour or two each day or so to go

for a ride. A nd there is the sort of holiday

where fi tting in some cycling is really,

really diffi cult.

I went on holiday recently. It was on

a boat. This is very much a ‘type-three’

holiday, and in general such trips should

be avoided. The last time I took a bike on

a boating trip, I unpacked it, assembled it,

and then discovered that in its completed

form it was too big to go back out through

the cabin door.

This time I didn’t even try to take a

bike. I limited myself to complaining,

quite loudly and quite a lot, about how

unfi t I was getting — there is nothing that

will produce an upswing in form like an

impending enforced break from training,

and nothing that will kill it faster than

enforced relaxation and fun.

Eventually Mrs. Doc told me to go to a

gym. There was one near the harbour, she

told me, and gave me directions.

It ’s a long time since I’ve even tried

to go cycling in a general gym. It ’s not a

satisfying experience. In this case, the

gym bikes had clearly been designed

by the same people who paint the bike

symbol on UK cycle lanes. The saddles,

on the other hand, had been designed

by someone who despised all life and

humanity and wanted everyone else to feel

the same way. Someday I’ll meet someone

who fi nds a gym bike saddle comfortable,

and I’ll be able to recognise them by their

resemblance to Evil Edna.

Nothing daunted, I selected the least

crippling of the eight-inch increments

of height adjustment, kissed my arse

goodbye, and climbed on board.

I tend to avoid gyms because when I

do go it ’s obvious that there is something

very wrong with me. I naturally feel that

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Great inventions of cycling: The wire spoke

Penny farthing spokes

are very long and round

A cycling-free holiday sends the Doc straight to the gym

to drown in a tidal wave of sweat