{"id":51,"date":"2020-04-19T08:33:28","date_gmt":"2020-04-19T15:33:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bestrides.org\/manual\/?page_id=51"},"modified":"2021-01-26T08:08:58","modified_gmt":"2021-01-26T16:08:58","slug":"foreword","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/bestrides.org\/bikeschool\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is Bicycle School?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cWhat is chess, do you think? Those who play for fun dismiss it as a game. The<\/em>
ones who devote their lives to it insist that it’s a science.<\/em> It’s neither. Bobby<\/em>
Fischer got underneath it like no one before and found at its<\/em>
center, art.\u201d<\/em> (Searching for Bobby Fischer)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Most cyclists don\u2019t read how-to books on cycling. Isn\u2019t it obvious how to ride a bike? Cyclists learn by doing, or by reading articles in cycling magazines. There\u2019s nothing wrong with that. It\u2019s just slow, and limited to what you happen to run across. For instance, I was once doing a ride with the legendary Jacquie Phelan, and she said to me, \u201cCan I give you a tip about climbing?\u201d I said, Heck yeah, and she taught me something invaluable that I\u2019ve never heard anywhere else. If I hadn\u2019t done the ride, I wouldn\u2019t know it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This book is a collection of thousands of such pieces of information. Phelan\u2019s tip is in the Climbing chapter. Thousands of these tips you may already know. But lots of them you may not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But isn\u2019t everything in the world in a YouTube video now? Can\u2019t you just google everything? Yes you can, if you know enough to ask the proper questions. But if you don\u2019t know about Phelan\u2019s magic climbing trick, or you don\u2019t know why you shouldn’t add electrolyte supplement powder to your cycling water, or you don\u2019t know why you might want to put neodymium magnets on your pedals, or you don\u2019t know there are two kinds of whey powder and one is better than the other, or you don\u2019t know the way to dry cycling clothes on a bike trip that\u2019s faster than wringing them in a towel, you don\u2019t know to google those issues. I hope there\u2019s a lot in this book that you don\u2019t know you don\u2019t know. And you can\u2019t google \u201cwhat I don\u2019t know about cycling.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This book is about cycling generally, but there are some things it isn\u2019t about, because I\u2019m not interested in them or I\u2019m guessing you aren\u2019t:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Racing. Racing is an exotic, arcane activity practiced by obsessive personalities, and is generally beyond our scope. There is a chapter on how to watch a race, but nothing on how to take part in one.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
    1. Gravel riding and gravel bikes per se. Although the subjects come up again and again, this isn\u2019t a book about riding on dirt. I still believe the perfect dirt bike is a hard-tail mountain bike.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
      1. E-bike specs or componentry, though I discuss their uses, virtues, and weaknesses.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
        1. Advanced training. I\u2019ve included a no-nonsense, basic overview of training and nutrition.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
          1. Bicycle touring, bike-packing, and all other forms of self-supported bike journeying. I do talk about how to do bike vacations that consist of daily rides with nightly indoor lodging, including cycling in Europe.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
            1. Step-by-step instructions on bike repair and maintenance. These things are very hard to explain in words and photos and easy to show in a video, so I will let the videos on YouTube do this for you. I\u2019ll just add tips that the videos tend to omit.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
              1. Nerd tech. There\u2019s a level of technical sophistication I don\u2019t go to. I don\u2019t talk about asymmetrical chainstays or sinusoidal wheel rims, for instance, because, though these things are interesting, they aren\u2019t going to be a factor in any bike purchase or bike refit you might be considering. In other words, it\u2019s knowledge you won\u2019t really use. Similarly, I usually don\u2019t tell you the science behind the facts\u2014why whey protein is better for you after a ride than soy protein or what the role of hysteresis in the engineering of bicycle tires is\u2014much as I love that stuff myself.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

                I try to talk to everyone from the complete beginner looking to buy a bike to the experienced, serious, ride-4,000-miles-a-year, century-doing, Europe-exploring recreational rider. Riders at different levels want to know different things. Beginners don\u2019t much care about how wide their rims are or the niceties of tire inflation; advanced riders care deeply about these things. My approach is to start with the basic stuff and get more sophisticated. My hope is, on any given topic, you can read until the tech level gets beyond what\u2019s useful to you, then quit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                Cycling is in the midst of a technological revolution: we are presently moving from rim brakes to discs, from race geometry to relaxed geometry, from rigidity to plushness or suspension, from quick-release skewers to thru-axles, from tubes to tubeless tires, from pavement to gravel, from double chainrings to single, from cable shifting to electronic, from skinny tires to fat ones. I\u2019ve tried to keep both the old world and the new in mind, and talk as if both worlds are still with us, as indeed they are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                Cycling is a jargon-heavy sport. I\u2019ve made the decision to use the jargon without explanation in most cases and put all explanations in the Cyclist’s Dictionary (in the header above), where I hope all is made clear. Instead of explaining what a \u201ccontact patch\u201d is every time I talk about one, I just say \u201ccontact patch\u201d and hope you\u2019ll consult the dictionary if you need a translation. If the term that puzzles you isn\u2019t there, please email me and tell me about the omission and I\u2019ll correct it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                To help you find your way around, there are three tools. First, there are two tables of contents\u2014a chapter list in the right margin and a detailed one via the \u201cTable of Contents\u201d link in the header. There\u2019s also a search window on every page. If you want to know what I have to say about compact chainrings or stretching, type \u201ccompact chainring\u201d or \u201cstretching\u201d into the search window. It will not show you where in the text the word or phrase occurs; instead, it will give you a list of the chapters where it occurs. Open a chapter and use the search function (<splat f> on my Mac) to find all appearances of the word or phrase in the chapter. Remember, the search function is a moron\u2014it will only find exactly what you type. Sometimes you get better results if you put anything larger than a single word in quotation marks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                For those of you who are in a hurry, Top Tips (in the top menu bar) lists all the advice in Bicycle School that’s vital, rare, odd, or among my personal favorites. You can get a quick sense there of whether Bicycle School has anything to offer you. But I didn’t include the rationale behind the advice\u2014you’ll need to read the chapters for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                The other side of this opus is Bestrides.org, a ride directory of the West Coast (in the header above as Ride Directory). There you will find descriptions of every ride in California, Oregon, and Washington I consider exceptional\u2014about 120 rides all told. This book tells you how to ride; the other side tells you where. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

                There are no chat rooms or reader comments at the ends of the chapters, but I would love to hear from you. Just email all thoughts\u2014corrections, additions, whatever\u2014to me directly via the Contact Me link in the header. If your input seems useful I\u2019ll add it to the text (with a thank you to you if you\u2019d like).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                All photos in Bicycle School were taken by me, except for Forstemann’s thighs in the Training chapter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

                Jay Rawlins
                Chico, CA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                \u201cWhat is chess, do you think? Those who play for fun dismiss it as a game. The ones who devote their lives to it insist that it’s a science. It’s neither. Bobby Fischer got underneath it like no one before and found at its center, art.\u201d (Searching for Bobby Fischer) Most cyclists don\u2019t read how-to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-51","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bestrides.org\/bikeschool\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/51","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bestrides.org\/bikeschool\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bestrides.org\/bikeschool\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bestrides.org\/bikeschool\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bestrides.org\/bikeschool\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":39,"href":"http:\/\/bestrides.org\/bikeschool\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/51\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1578,"href":"http:\/\/bestrides.org\/bikeschool\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/51\/revisions\/1578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bestrides.org\/bikeschool\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}