Author Archives: jm

Arturello di Pópolo

Arturello di Pópolo is one of the most impressive bikeclowns. This Argentinian man plays a show which is highly influenced by La Bicicleta, an originally humor, piece of art developed by Joseph Francis Jinarek. This Austrian bicycle winner suffered an almost crash when competing, i.e. the handlebar of his bike came off from the frame at high speed. Fortunately, thanks to a series of pirouettes and his balance skill, he could stop his bike, put his feet on the ground and open his arms. The public clapped enthusiastically and La Bicicleta show was born.

Arturo Chillida del Pópolo (Arturello di Pópolo) knew about La Bicicleta when he saw Jinarek son (Joe Jackson Jr.) performing it in a awards gala with the best bikeclowns back in 1976. He was so impressed that decided to perform its own La Bicicleta.

La Bicicleta consists in a two-characters play in which no word is pronounced. This apparently drawback does not avoid collecting a lot of laughs. It starts with a beggar clown who finds an alone bike. After checking the owner is far, he retains it. His funny problems start from this point, and I am not going to spoil them.

The impact of Arturello di Pópolo on La Bicicleta is considerable as the original play lasts about twelve minutes, whereas the di Popolo adaptation extends for forty minutes. However, their essence remains the same: Making people laugh similarly as all the other bikeclowns like Álvaro Neil do.

Here you can see some of his shows.

Handlebar and body position

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Handlebar is an essential part of every bicycle. It allows the rider to lead her bike into the selected direction. On the other hand, it determines the biker body position. It is specially important to increase the bike comfortableness when pedaling for long distances, like in cycle tourism or great journeys on bike. This way, ache in arms, shoulders and back is greatly reduce and even it disappears because our body weight rests in our butts.

An additional advantage of adopting a more upright position on a bike by acting on its handlebar is that your field of vision is improved. This fact is much appreciated in urban riding due to the fact of you should pay attention to cars, pedestrians, other bikers and traffic signs. Moreover, initiating a ride is easier with a upright back as well as natural.

It the next picture you can see how different is the field of vision depending on your back upright:

Learning how to ride a bike

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The traditional way of maintaining the equilibrium when pedaling consists in using training wheels when you are a child, and once you dominate it move to just two wheels. This target can take more or less time, but ultimately we all reach it. Fortunately, you will never forget it.

Apart from the most used technique I have indicated, there are some others probably innovative methods that have demonstrated their effectiveness. Some of them are:

Using a balance bike instead of a bicycle with training wheels: This way the kid gets use to a bike shape and weight, as well as she develops the equilibrium needed to ride a bicycle.
Taking the pedals off a bike and lowering the seat: Here, the target is convert the traditional bicycle into a balance bike. The goals are the same as in the previous point.
Tell your child to turn in the direction that she is falling: This maneuver allows her straighten out and helps dominating her body and the bike when a falling is about to happen.
Raising the training wheels a little at a time, so that she thinks her bike uses such wheels, but in reality it does not. When she realizes that she does not use training wheels, she will not use they anymore.

There are additional techniques to learn riding a bike that have been developed thoroughly by experts in the field like this one.

Youngest cyclists

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After writing the post about the oldest bikers, my intention was to reflect who were the youngest cyclist in the world. I could not find the answer on the net, so I am going to explain a little about the process a lot of us have experienced with great pleasure.

Learning to ride a bicycle, a two-wheeled bike without training wheels, mostly occurs sometime between the ages of 3 and 8 (although some adults learn it because they did not have the opportunity when they were young, and fortunately, people do not forget how to ride). The average age is 5. Indeed, most kids just learn when they are ready if their families can provide them with bikes. Curiously, a systematic review found that children who started biking at ages between 3 and 5 suffer higher injuries than those who were 3 to years old.

Sliding the 3 to 5 group, kids between 3 and 4 years are in significant gross motor skills development. For example, they learn to balance on one foot, walk on their tiptoes, climb, hop and skip. A 3 years old child can pedal, use a handlebar and ride a tricycle, but she does not have the balance required to ride a two-wheeled bicycle. Better, she can ride a bike with training wheels and after she dominates it, increases coordination and muscle, move to a bike without training ones. It is a good idea use foot brakes instead of hand brakes in this age group.

Regarding the 4 and 5 group, these children are ready for two-wheeled bicycles. Most 5-year-old kids have balance and coordination enough to ride a bike without training wheels. However, they might not understand the risks of riding near traffic or without paying attention to crossings. Then, adult supervision is required to avoid falls and injuries.

Oldest bikers

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Health and bike have been studied as a cooperative concepts: The more cycling (under some limits), the better health. Indeed, more and more doctors recommend riding bikes to maintain a healthy personal state. Some of them also prescribe bike rides. Such piece of news has leaded me to investigate who are the oldest bicyclers in the world.

It is not easy an easy task to determine what riders are the oldest. Commonly, local newspapers or websites announce feats made by senior citizens, although it is difficult to establish which ones are the oldest. Nevertheless and as you can imagine, speed is not a point to keep in mind here. Better, I have focused on their age. At the time I am writing this post, the Guinnes World Record recognizes Lynnea C. Salvo as the older woman to cross the USA between Oceanside, California to Bethany Beach, Delaware, on 23 October 2016. She rode 5,090.37 km through temperatures which sometimes exceed 37.78 degrees Celsius. Cheers for her!

Another senior citizen who was in shape was Rush, a Dublin man. This retired teacher was the oldest person to circumnavigate the globe by bicycle. Native of Dermot Higgins, he spent the first nine months of his retirement pedaling 31,000 km in an attempt to break a world record and raise funds for Trócaire. The USA, Portugal or Spain…, he has not limits with his beloved bike.

And the oldest person on a bike I have discovered is Octavio Orduño who rode his bike being 103, at least. This hero was born in Long Beach (USA) and as a youngster, he always wanted biking and back in 2019 would not accept changing his bicycle by a car. Good choice! He probably continue taking a ride everyday around the neighborhood, similarly as he has done for the last four decades. Due to his age, he had to trade in his street-bike for a three-wheeler, on account of his faltering balance. He is such a biker example that when his wife proposed gifting him an electric wheelchair, he refused it: “Why would I [use a wheelchair]?” he asked. Here, you can see a video about he.

The longest bridge for bikes

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As the time I am writing this post, the Skyway elevated pathway in Xiamen (China) holds the international record of the longest infrastructure of this kind. Xiamen, as well as most of the largest cities in the world, suffers from excessive road traffic, pollution and noise. China was full of bicycles decades ago, and authorities want to come back to it, at least partly. Indeed, bikes were one of the main treasures every citizen should have for Mao Zedong.

The Skyway was designed by the Danish architecture studio Dissing + Weitling, and constitutes a 7.6 kilometers long and 4.8 meters width wonder for riders. Moreover, it has pedestrian crossings, parking areas for bikes, access ramps and several intermodality stations, where you can get public transport. 30,000 led lights illuminate it.

Riding on it is so impressive that thousands of people use it everyday. From an architecture perspective, it has received awards like the Danish Design Award in the category of Livable Cities in 2019.

Sustainable Development Goals and bikes

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The Sustainable Development Goals are a collection of 17 global targets set by the United Nations (UN) for the year 2030. They got ahead thanks to the votes of the UN member states back in 2015. The targets are:

No Poverty
Zero Hunger
Good Health and Well-being
Quality Education
Gender Equality
Clean Water and Sanitation
Affordable and Clean Energy
Decent Work and Economic Growth
Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
Reducing Inequality
Sustainable Cities and Communities
Responsible Consumption and Production
Climate Action
Life Below Water
Life On Land
Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions
Partnerships for the Goals

What does this have to do with bicycles? Well, a lot. Indeed, bikes contribute to reach 12 out of 17 goals. Let’s go step by step.

– No poverty: Bikes constitute a cheap way of transport which much more people can afford in comparison with cars or motorbikes. Investing low money on it allows using the rest of it in other issues like buying better machines if you are a local shoemaker or increase your sheep herd in case you are a shepherd.

– Zero hunger: Related with the previous point, the less money you need for transportation, the more food you can buy.

– Good Health and Well-being: You make sport when riding a bike, even if it is an electric one.

– Quality Education: The fact of costing much less than cars enables population in developing countries to use it to access to schools and colleges. Otherwise, millions of students would be forced to abandon their studies.

– Gender Equality: Pedaling does not discriminate by genres. Both, women and men do it the same way.

– Affordable and Clean Energy: By using your legs strength instead of fossil fuels when moving allows for an inevitable reduction in pollution.

– Decent Work and Economic Growth: Due to the fact that most economic stakeholders in the bike ecosystem are SMEs, and the small economy improves thanks to small workshops and bike stores, local communities benefit from bicycles.

– Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure: Partly related with the previous goal, the more bikes, the more bike infrastructures are needed. Innovation is on the way in, for example, bicycle frames, brakes, tires, inner tubes, you name it.

– Sustainable Cities and Communities: Less pollution and energy consumption leads to sustainable societies. Bikes help reach them.

– Responsible Consumption and Production: In the process of manufacturing a bike, only the essential production resources are required. And again, the energy consumption in the use stage is considerably reduced when compared with pollutant ways of transport.

– Climate Action: Bicycles fight against climate change since they are an environmentally friendly way of transport.

– Partnerships for the Goals: The worldwide biking movement is a good example of this goal.

Iten

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Could it be possible to ride bikes on the very village which has seen some of the most impressive athletes in history like Eliud Kipchoge, Jonah Chesum, Florence Kiplagat, Edna Kiplagat, David Rudisha, Asbel Kiprop, Wilson Kipsang or Abel Kirui? And what if we add extreme conditions regarding climate and lack of infrastructures? This place is Iten, a village at 400 kilometers from Nairobi (Kenya).

Lots of runners go to Iten following the trail of their athlete stars. Some of them marvel at discovering a local riders team called Kenyan Riders. They even wonder more when checking how irregular, abrupt the terrain is for a vehicle that has to make permanent contact with the soil. This fact provoked continuous punctures, hence stops to repair them and discontinuous training. Team players could not buy high quality tires as they were short of cash. As time went by, the triathlete Rubén Gallart visit Iten as a part of his training. He saw the poor conditions of local riders and proposed himself earning money to help bicyclers buy better tires. He knew the Tannus airless tires would fit the continuous puncture problem. Thus, he contacted the company and they were delighted to being involved in the project to his surprise. The firm helped Kenyan Riders to overcome their precarious conditions. Nowadays, they train happy with the tires and dream with becoming first level sportspeople in order to win international competitions. After all, they live at 2,500 meters above sea level, and their athlete brothers are worldwide recognized because of their merits.

Lea Schaepe

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Lea Schaepe was born in Berlin, Germany, and has been practicing one of her passions for years: Acrobatic cycling (link a lo anterior). Such enthusiasm has made her one of the best in this sport with international recognition.

Indeed, Lea has won a dozen national competitions just in Germany and offers artistic cycling exhibitions and workshops in a lot of countries. You can follow her in her Instagram page.

Lea learned to ride her bike in many unconventional ways while practicing this art year by year, primary in Germany. Those photos demonstrate how spectacular she is, and this is nothing compared to see her live and direct.

If you have the opportunity to see her in action, do not miss her and enjoy the time!

Artistic cycling

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Artistic cycling is a 130-year-old sport. Yes, you have read 130 years. Cycling races began to hit their stride in Paris in 1868. Then, Nick Kaufmman showed audiences a different way to enjoy bicycles. He performed acrobatics on his bike. People were left with their mouth opened when admiring this new sport. Kaufmann expressed so much emotion and people helped by cheering him up, so that he made the connections he needed to organize a competition about artistic cycling. Indeed, he became the world champion of Professional Cycle Trick Riding, as it was known, in 1888.

This sport has been evolving over the years and now is really popular in Europe, and specifically in Germany. Competitors demonstrate several tricks indoors to judges, thus earning points as they perform. Similarly as ballet or gymnastics, participants compete in rounds of five minutes. Multi-person teams also compete by using multiple bikes, switch, ditch…

To perform the balancing tricks and backward motion, these artists use fixed-gear bikes with a gear ratio of 1:1, and tires of proportionate size. To enhance maneuver, the handlebars are similar to those used in racing bicycles, but upside-down in comparison. Moreover, the front wheel should be free to spin 360º.

By combining these outstanding bikes and long hours of practice, riders perform handstands, wheelies, body-surf, and attempt as many other tricks as they can in their allotted time. Hence, innovation is rewarded by judges who also take into account the number of tricks, execution, form and degree of difficulty.