From MAMILs to derailleurs and sportives to saddlebags, cycling involves a whole different language. Even with a pretty thorough knowledge of cyclospeak, there are always more words and phrases to learn and for you to use. There are things you probably do everyday on your ride yet didn’t realise there’s an “official” name for it. Here’s a small selection of some of the more inventive and fun cycling speak.

A couple of these come from the excellent Bike Snob NYC, while the rest were chosen as our favourites from the excellent dictionary of bike commuter slang at Bikehacks. Some might make you laugh out loud, others you’ll raise an eyebrow at, and some might just make you go “huh?”

Any new ones you’ve heard? Let us know in the comments?

Bike salmon (Bike Snob NYC)

A bike salmon is when a rider “swims up stream” – by cycling the wrong way down a one way street. Something I must admit I do myself each day for about ten seconds – but it does chop about 8 minutes off my journey.

Cliptastrophy

You can probably work this one out. I see it far too often – cyclists who fail to clip in or out and end up having a little bit of a wobble before saving themselves just in time. We shouldn’t laugh, but…

The Chameleon

A cyclist who uses the pavement to turn when the lights are red. In the process annoying pedestrians, unless they dismount. Can also be found riding on the pavement.

Fred

A rider with excessively expensive equipment, equipment that is really designed for professional cyclists.  A Fred’s ability/experience will never catch up to the technology purchased.

Shoaling (Bike Snob NYC)

Ever find yourself waiting at traffic lights when a fellow cyclist practically pushes his way in front of you, before you have to overtake them when the lights go green? That’s shoaling

Eye of Mordor

This is one of my favourites, and you see plenty in London. The Eye of Mordor is the bit of skin visible when someone ‘s wearing a t-shirt not designed for cycling and it’s flapping in the wind. Who needs an air vent?

Firefighter

A firefighter – someone who insists on telling absolutely everyone that they’re on their way by ringing their bell incessantly. A bell can be effective when used rarely – but surely it becomes pointless when in constant use?

Flipper

A cyclist in flip-flops. I tried it once, and it’s almost as bad as trying to drive a car in flip-flops – i.e., you’re asking for trouble. After losing my right flip-flop, I vowed that was that and invested in a pair of espadrilles.

Hasselhoff

When you see a male cyclist riding with his shirt off. Also called a “Pool Boy”. You become a “Hoff” only if you have a chest hair that resembles the Amazon rainforest.

Hopscotch

The fun game that cyclists play in our heads – constantly overtaking, and being overtaken by, a London bus. I play this myself with the number 47, particularly fun when you need to take your mind off the weather!

Hummer

A cyclist that is incredibly serious about off-road riding on the weekends and decides it’s a great idea to commute on his dual suspension downhill bike with huge tyres. You can quickly identify a “hummer” by the sound of them humming along the road as their knobbie tires touch the ground.

Bike Ninja

These are the cyclists that like to ride around with no lights on when it’s pitch black outside. They’ve removed all reflective gear to maximise their ninja status. They frequently pop up out of nowhere.

The post Cycling slang you need to know appeared first on London Cyclist Blog.

A new movie will be hitting cinemas in February of 2012 called Premium Rush. The trailer above gives plenty of the story line away. Do you think you’ll be watching?

Via road.cc

The post New movie Premium Rush is set to glamorise bike messengers and fixed gear riding appeared first on London Cyclist Blog.

The second half of this video really got me laughing. Those crazy Americans..

The post Riding in the bike lane appeared first on London Cyclist Blog.

Give a Car is a scrap car charity organisation that donates its proceeds to charities around the world. Ditch the old banger in favour of a more ethical mode of transport… such as biking.

Have you recently gone out and bought yourself a new bike and have your old monstrosity cluttering the hallway? Or perhaps you have loads of spare bike parts that you don’t know what to do with? Here are some creative ideas..

1) A new form of transport

Simply, logical and, yes, awesomely cool, creating a new mode of transport from your bikes parts is a great way to start. So your friends might say it’s a bit weird, but you know they’re just jealous of your ingenuity and intimidating powers of creation.

Here’s a great example of something practical:

Image by barb.howe

Something cool:

Image by pagedesign

And something, which, err, doesn’t fit comfortably within either of those categories:

Image by charkesw

2) A chic door or gate

Another way to make the most of you old bike is to spruce up your dwelling with a funky new door or gate. This is a great method to let anyone entering your house know that you’re bike crazy and gives them enough time to prepare themselves accordingly.

Here are a couple of inspired examples:

Image by thekirbster

Image by tibchris

3) Jewellery

Once you’ve constructed your new vehicle, door, or gate, creating some jewellery is a fantastic way to use up all the small and fiddly parts. If your mad skills are not just confined to the cycle path you may even find yourself with a profitable new enterprise.

Image by E. Bartholomew

4) A work of modern art

For those of you with an artistic temperament this enables you to show off of your twin passions for aesthetic beauty and cycling. The sky’s the limit with this one and the possibilities endless.

Here are some examples to get your creative juices flowing:

Image by Rob Young

Image by ednl

5) A dinosaur

Why? I hear you ask. Well, because everybody loves a dinosaur. Old or young, these prehistoric behemoths appeal to everyone’s sense of fascination. Even if you have been roundly mocked for your bike-cum-submarine, your impractical front door, your dangerous-looking earrings and your work of ‘modern’ art, you are bound to receive high praise for a towering T-Rex.

Now this is what I’m talking about:

Image by exfordy

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Green light, pedal down, I start powering my way in the direction of Hyde Park. Draft a bus (I can’t make resolutions to end all my bad cycling habits) and then get caught up at another dreaded red light. 10 seconds pass, 20 seconds. I’m getting nervous. We’re off again only to get caught by another red light 0.1 of a mile away. Now I’m really sure I’m going to be late.

Can you relate to this experience? It got me thinking about how much of our time we, as cyclists, waste waiting at red lights. So I ran a little experiment using the Edge 705 I’m borrowing off the nice people at Garmin for a couple of months. Every time I would arrive at a red light I would tap the lap button and then as I set off again I would tap the lap button again.

So here is what I found..

The shocking result of my unscientific experiment…

17% of my time was spent at a traffic light. A total of 9 minutes 57 seconds out of 56 minutes of cycling.

I must admit it feels like a lot more. But maybe I’m just the impatient sort of person that wants everything now. The sort of person that could benefit from a more Zen Habits approach to life.

So what can you do while spending 17% of your journey waiting at a red light?

1. Practise your track standing.
2. Give evils (official term: establish eye contact) with all the drivers behind you so they realise your position on the road.
3. Or you could think about how long you could survive chained to a bed with a Velociraptor?
4. Or perhaps you could dream up a world where traffic lights were never invented?
5. Spark up a conversation with the cyclist next to you?

I’ll see you at the red lights. I’m the one who swears each time the light turns red…

See also:

• What is your traffic light strategy?
• Would you like a fine or a safety course for jumping that red light?
• Who are the least courteous drivers in London?

The post How much time do you waste waiting at a traffic light? appeared first on London Cyclist Blog.

We’ve all fallen off our bike and tried to play it cool.

I have two memorable occasions. The first was in Birmingham. My dad was visiting and wanted to go jogging. Me being a don’t-like-using-my-legs-unless-it’s-for-cycling kinda guy I took the executive decision to follow on the bike. Lazy I know and feel free to judge me if you have never done anything lazy in your life.

Anyway, I was following along playing it cool. One hand on the handle bar, the other waving around uselessly. At some point during focusing on anything that entered my eye line my one hand forgot how to steer a bike. I veered off and quickly tried to steady myself ending up falling over spectacularly. My dad of-course continued jogging. I guess the man likes to jog. I got up inspecting the damage. Small gash to ankle and huge unrepairable damage to my pride. What was rare about this occasion was there was no one around to witness my stupidity. The pedals clipping against my ankle has left me with a lovely little scar for life.

The second fall can be attributed to trying out toe straps for the first time. As anyone who is used to cycling with plain pedals and then makes the switch to clips or straps will know, the transition can be a little hazy. I was cycling near Limehouse and stopped to cross a busy section. Of course I forgot my foot was strapped in. So, when I went to put my foot down, I simply pulled down the bike. I fell onto the road and it was rather painful. I still think straps are worth it but they have a learning curve to them.

I have one piece of unbeatable advice for anyone that is expecting to at some stage fall over. Make it as spectacular as possible. If your going to amuse people around you then at least maximise their enjoyment.

Share a time you can remember taking a plunder!

See also:

• Underwater cycling video
• Bike computer guide
• Guns, burglary and cycling on the pavement
• What is your traffic light strategy?

The post Andreas falls off bike. Hilarity ensues appeared first on London Cyclist Blog.

He bought the web address quickerbybike.com and ordered shorts with it printed on the back. Then as he cycles past the hope is he may convert some of them into cyclists. When I came across this on BikeRadar I thought what a great idea but then when I read through the article I saw the response he has had is very limited.

Whilst I’m all for changing my entire lifestyle depending on things I have seen written on peoples butts I’m hardly surprised that not a lot of people have visited the site.

Yet, I would think that getting from A to B quickly is the main reason someone would convert to cycling. According to a recent survey in Copenhagen where people were asked why they choose to cycle, 56% of people said because its fast and easy.

So with the quickerbybike.com not converting people I came up with some more pure genius ideas.

My first one is for the back of the jersey:

The second one for the back of the shorts:

What would you print on the back to convert motorists?

See also:

• Cycling books
• How to lock your bike

The post Quicker by bike appeared first on London Cyclist Blog.

Here is a useful tool for you! Sometimes after having an accident your memory can be a bit hazy of it. This new useful tool is here to solve that problem by helping you draw out the crash scene so you can provide it to the police or insurance company.

So say if some annoying Heavy Goods Vehicle crashes into you because he failed to look while he or she was turning then you can re-create what happened.

You simply drag and drop the car, bicycle, road, pedestrian, random nonsense comment onto the grid and draw out the scene. Then once this is done you can generate a report so you can easily complement your illustration with words. It is completely free and you do not need to register to use the site. Unfortunately there is only a limited range of bikes to choose from, there could at least be a mountain bike!

Anyway, quite a good one to keep in mind for the next time you have a close encounter with a bus.

Oh and also absolutely awesome for messing around and drawing stupid scenes of cyclists crashing into things.

That website: accidentsketch.co.uk/ 

P.S. If you draw anything funny please share it in the comments!

Tweet This!

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The post The bike song appeared first on London Cyclist Blog.

• 8.30 Wake up to the sweet melodies of my favourite Bloc Party song that has since been ruined due to setting it as my alarm tone.
• 8.30 Fall out of bed and onto the hard floor thus waking up my girlfriend
• 8.31 Wait for my housemate to use the toilet who always seems to get the call of nature at the same time as I do
• 8.33 Use toilet
• 8.34 Bump into bike in corridor on my way into kitchen
• 8.34 Swear at bike
• 8.35 Prepare food for work that should have been prepared the day before
• 8.40 Apologise to bike for swearing at it earlier
• 8.40 Place everything I need into my bag including bike chain and food for work
• 8.45 Head upstairs and get back into bed making sure to wake girlfriend up again to get more attention off her
• 9.00 Realise that if I leave for work now I will be late
• 9.10 Get prepared to go by putting bike gear on: helmet, gloves, jacket
• 9.11 Kiss girlfriend goodbye, head back downstairs, carry bike out to front yard
• 9.11 Get on bike
• 9.11 Get off bike
• 9.12 Run back upstairs to pick up wallet and phone
• 9.13 Run downstairs
• 9.13 Onto bike realising I have 1 minute to get to work on time
• 9.14 Frantically pedal through the streets of London
• 9.34 Arrive at work late
• 9.34 Get funny looks off boss
• 9.34 Go grab a shower

Post your routine in the comments so I can compare how disorganised I am compared to everyone else!

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