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. A bicycle rider is called a cyclist, or bicyclist.
A tandem bicycle or twin is a form of bicycle designed to be ridden by more than one person. The term tandem refers to the seating arrangement, not the number of riders. Patents related to tandem bicycles date from the mid 1880s. Tandems can reach higher speeds than the same riders on single bicycles, and tandem bicycle racing exists. As with bicycles for single riders, there are many variations that have been developed over the years.
A mountain bike (MTB) or mountain bicycle is a bicycle designed for off-road cycling. Mountain bikes share some similarities with other bicycles, but incorporate features designed to enhance durability and performance in rough terrain, which often makes them heavier, more complex and less efficient on smooth surfaces. These typically include a suspension fork, large knobby tires, more durable wheels, more powerful brakes, straight, extra wide handlebars to improve balance and comfort over rough terrain, and wide-ratio gearing optimised for topography, application and a frame with a suspension mechanism for the rear wheel. Rear suspension is ubiquitous in heavier-duty bikes and now common even in lighter bikes. Dropper seat posts can be installed to allow the rider to quickly adjust the seat height.
A bicycle wheel is a wheel, most commonly a wire wheel, designed for a bicycle. A pair is often called a wheelset, especially in the context of ready built "off the shelf" performance-oriented wheels.
Campagnolo is an Italian manufacturer of high-end bicycle components with headquarters in Vicenza, Italy. The components are organised as groupsets (gruppi), and are a near-complete collection of a bicycle's mechanical parts. Campagnolo's flagship components are the Super Record, Record, and Chorus groupsets with all three representing their recent shift to 12-speed drivetrains. Super Record and Record are the top groupsets, followed by Chorus, Potenza, Centaur and Veloce. Campagnolo also produces aluminum and carbon wheels, as well as other components.
A touring bicycle is a bicycle designed or modified to handle bicycle touring. To make the bikes sufficiently robust, comfortable and capable of carrying heavy loads, special features may include a long wheelbase, frame materials that favor flexibility over rigidity, heavy duty wheels, and multiple mounting points.
A racing bicycle, also known as a road bike is a bicycle designed for competitive road cycling, a sport governed by and according to the rules of the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI).
A cyclo-cross bike or cyclo-cross bicycle is a bicycle specifically designed for the rigors of a cyclo-cross race. Cyclo-cross bicycles roughly resemble the racing bicycles used in road racing. The major differences between the two are the frame geometry, and the wider clearances that cyclo-cross bikes have for their larger tires and mud and other debris that they accumulate.
Due to the nature of triathlons as a race consisting of multiple sports many pieces of technical equipment have been borrowed from other sports, or developed specifically in an effort to race faster and improve a competitors safety.
SRAM LLC is a privately owned bicycle component manufacturer based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, founded in 1987. SRAM is an acronym comprising the names of its founders. The company produces a range of cycling components, including Grip Shift, and separate gravel, road, and mountain drivetrains from 7 to 12 speed. SRAM developed the Eagle line of mountain bike specific drivetrain components intended to improve shifting performance. SRAM was also the first to release a dedicated "one by" drivetrain with a single front chainring for road bikes.
The rim is the "outer edge of a wheel, holding the tire". It makes up the outer circular design of the wheel on which the inside edge of the tire is mounted on vehicles such as automobiles. For example, on a bicycle wheel the rim is a large hoop attached to the outer ends of the spokes of the wheel that holds the tire and tube. In cross-section, the rim is deep in the center and shallow at the outer edges, thus forming a "U" shape that supports the bead of the tire casing.
Motorcycle components and systems for a motorcycle are engineered, manufactured, and assembled in order to produce motorcycle models with the desired performance, aesthetics, and cost. The key components of modern motorcycles are presented below.
Time trials have been part of cycling for more than a hundred years. The first time trial was run in 1895 after a ban on road racing was imposed by the National Cyclists' Union. It wasn't until 1939 that the time trial made its world stage debut as an official stage of the Tour de France. It was originally used as a method of drawing more people to listen to the Grand Tour on the newly available radio broadcast of the 1939 race. The main thing that distinguished the first time-trial from the traditional form of road racing was that the riders started at intervals instead of one large group and they raced against the clock instead of each other. Unlike road racing where the a rider can hang in the peloton and draft off of other riders to conserve energy, time trial races put the rider out alone on the course. There are no breaks and no one to draft off, causing a rider to push as hard as they can the entire race. Bicycles have also evolved to accommodate this new form of racing, with most of the breakthroughs occurring in the last 40–50 years with the introduction of triathlons.
Mountain bike trials, also known as observed trials, is a discipline of mountain biking in which the rider attempts to pass through an obstacle course without setting foot to ground. Derived from motorcycle trials, it originated in Catalonia, Spain as trialsín and is said to have been invented by Pere Pi, the father of Ot Pi, a world champion motorcycle trials rider. Pi's father had wanted his son to learn motorcycle trials by practicing on an ordinary bicycle.
Velocite Bikes is a Taiwanese manufacturer of racing bicycle, mountain bike frames, bicycle wheels and other bicycle components. Notable collaboration partners include the National Cheng Kung University, National Center for High-Performance Computing, Oxeon and Acer Inc. Velocite specializes in carbon fiber composite products, but also manufactures bicycle frames and components using aluminium alloys. Its core bicycle frame models include the road bike frames "Magnus", "Geos", "Selene" and mountain bike frames "Flux", and "Flux Alloy". The firm is also one of the few manufacturers of full carbon road tubeless wheels, the "Velocite RT50". The firm have been sponsoring the UK based Matrix Fitness Racing Academy women's cycling team since 2012.
Motorcyclewheels are made to cope with radial and axial forces. They also provide a way of mounting other critical components such as the brakes, final drive and suspension. Wheels, and anything directly connected to them, are considered to be unsprung mass. Traditionally motorcycles used wire-spoked wheels with inner tubes and pneumatic tyres. Although cast wheels were first used on a motorcycle in 1927, it would not be until the 1970s that mainstream manufacturers would start to introduce cast wheels on their roadgoing motorcycles. Spoked wheels are usually made using steel spokes with steel or aluminium rims. Cast wheels are predominantly made from an aluminium-alloy, but can also be made from more-exotic materials, such as magnesium content alloy or carbon fibre.
Paper car wheels were composite wheels of railway carriages, made from a wrought iron or steel rim bolted to an iron hub with an interlayer of laminated paper. The center was made of compressed paper held between two plate-iron disks. Their ability to dampen rail/wheel noise resulted in a quiet and smooth ride for the passengers of North American Pullman dining and sleeping cars.
A gravel bicycle is a type of bicycle intended for gravel cycling, including gravel racing. They are also sometimes known as "adventure bicycles", particularly ones intended for harsher off-road terrain.
