Bike

A bicycle, additionally alleged a bike or cycle, is a human-powered or motor-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, accepting two auto absorbed to a frame, one abaft the other. A bike accession is alleged a cyclist, or bicyclist.

Bicycles were alien in the 19th aeon in Europe, and by the aboriginal 21st century, added than 1 billion were in actuality at a accustomed time.[1][2][3] These numbers far beat the cardinal of cars, both in absolute and ranked by the cardinal of alone models produced.[4][5][6] They are the arch agency of busline in abounding regions. They additionally accommodate a accepted anatomy of recreation, and accept been acclimatized for use as children's toys, accepted fitness, advancing and badge applications, bagman services, bike racing, and bike stunts.

The basal appearance and agreement of a archetypal cocked or "safety bicycle", has afflicted little aback the aboriginal chain-driven archetypal was developed about 1885.[7][8][9] However, abounding accommodation accept been improved, abnormally aback the appearance of avant-garde abstracts and computer-aided design. These accept accustomed for a admeasurement of specialized designs for abounding types of cycling.

The bicycle's apparatus has had an astronomic aftereffect on society, both in agreement of adeptness and of advancing avant-garde automated methods. Several apparatus that eventually played a key role in the development of the auto were initially invented for use in the bicycle, including brawl bearings, aeriform tires, chain-driven sprockets and tension-spoked wheels.[10]

Although bike and aeon are acclimated interchangeably to accredit mostly to two types of two-wheelers the agreement still alter above the world. In India for classic a aeon refers alone to a bike application pedal adeptness admitting the appellation bike is acclimated to call a bike application centralized agitation abettor or electric motors as a antecedent of motive adeptness instead of motorcycle/motorbike.
Etymology

The chat bike aboriginal appeared in English book in The Circadian News in 1868, to call "Bysicles and trysicles" on the "Champs Elysées and Bois de Boulogne".[11] The chat was aboriginal acclimated in 1847 in a French advertisement to call an bearding two-wheeled vehicle, possibly a carriage.[11] The architecture of the bike was an beforehand on the velocipede, although the words were acclimated with some bulk of overlap for a time.[11][12]

Other words for bike accommodate "bike",[13] "pushbike",[14] "pedal cycle",[15] or "cycle".[16] In Unicode, the cipher point for "bicycle" is 0x1F6B2. The article 🚲 in HTML produces 🚲.[17]
History
Main article: History of the bicycle
Wooden draisine (around 1820), the aboriginal bike and as such the classic of the bicycle

The "dandy horse", additionally alleged Draisienne or Laufmaschine, was the aboriginal animal agency of carriage to use alone two auto in bike and was invented by the German Baron Karl von Drais. It is admired as the aboriginal bicycle, but it did not accept pedals;[18][19][20][21] Drais alien it to the accessible in Mannheim in 1817 and in Paris in 1818.[22][23] Its accession sat astride a lath anatomy accurate by two in-line auto and pushed the abettor forth with his or her anxiety while council the avant-garde wheel.[22]
Michaux's son on a bike 1868

The aboriginal mechanically-propelled, two-wheeled abettor may accept been congenital by Kirkpatrick MacMillan, a Scottish blacksmith, in 1839, although the affirmation is about disputed.[24] He is additionally associated with the aboriginal recorded instance of a cycling cartage offense, aback a Glasgow bi-weekly in 1842 appear an blow in which an bearding "gentleman from Dumfries-shire... bestride a velocipede... of able design" agape over a little babe in Glasgow and was fined bristles shillings.[25]

In the aboriginal 1860s, Frenchmen Pierre Michaux and Pierre Lallement took bike architecture in a new administration by abacus a automated crank drive with pedals on an affiliated avant-garde caster (the velocipede). This was the aboriginal in accumulation production. Accession French artist alleged Douglas Grasso had a bootless ancestor of Pierre Lallement's bike several years earlier. Several inventions followed application rear-wheel drive, the best accepted actuality the rod-driven bike by Scotsman Thomas McCall in 1869. In that aforementioned year, bike auto with wire spokes were patented by Eugène Meyer of Paris.[26] The French vélocipède, fabricated of adamant and wood, developed into the "penny-farthing" (historically accepted as an "ordinary bicycle", a retronym, aback there was again no added kind).[27] It featured a tubular animate anatomy on which were army wire-spoked auto with solid elastic tires. These bicycles were difficult to ride due to their aerial bench and poor weight distribution. In 1868 Rowley Turner, a sales abettor of the Coventry Sewing Machine Aggregation (which anon became the Coventry Machinists Company), brought a Michaux aeon to Coventry, England. His uncle, Josiah Turner, and business accomplice James Starley, acclimated this as a base for the 'Coventry Model' in what became Britain's aboriginal aeon factory.[28]
1886 Rover assurance bike at the British Motor Museum. The aboriginal avant-garde bicycle, it featured a rear-wheel-drive, chain-driven aeon with two similar-sized wheels. Dunlop's aeriform annoy was added to the bike in 1888.

The dwarf accustomed addressed some of these faults by abbreviation the avant-garde caster bore and ambience the bench added back. This, in turn, acclimatized gearing—effected in a array of ways—to calmly use pedal power. Accepting to both pedal and beacon via the avant-garde caster remained a problem. Englishman J.K. Starley (nephew of James Starley), J.H. Lawson, and Shergold apparent this botheration by introducing the alternation drive (originated by the bootless "bicyclette" of Englishman Henry Lawson),[29] abutting the frame-mounted cranks to the rear wheel. These models were accepted as assurance bicycles, dwarf safeties, or cocked bicycles for their lower bench acme and bigger weight distribution, although afterwards aeriform tires the ride of the smaller-wheeled bike would be abundant rougher than that of the larger-wheeled variety. Starley's 1885 Rover, bogus in Coventry[30] is usually declared as the aboriginal acutely avant-garde bicycle.[31] Anon the bench tube was added, creating the avant-garde bike's double-triangle architecture frame.
John Boyd Dunlop on a bike c. 1915

Further innovations added abundance and ushered in a additional bike craze, the 1890s Golden Age of Bicycles. In 1888, Scotsman John Boyd Dunlop alien the aboriginal activated aeriform tire, which anon became universal. Willie Hume approved the supremacy of Dunlop's tyres in 1889, adequate the tyre's first-ever contest in Ireland and again England.[32][33] Anon after, the rear freewheel was developed, enabling the accession to coast. This clarification led to the 1890s invention[34] of coaster brakes. Dérailleur apparatus and chiral Bowden cable-pull brakes were additionally developed during these years, but were alone boring adopted by accidental riders.

The Svea Bike with vertical pedal adjustment and locking hubs was alien in 1892 by the Swedish engineers Fredrik Ljungström and Birger Ljungström. It admiring absorption at the Apple Fair and was produced in a few thousand units.
Cyclists' Touring Club assurance on affectation at the National Building of Scotland

In the 1870s abounding cycling clubs flourished. They were accepted in a time aback there were not cars on the bazaar and the arch approach of busline was horse-drawn vehicles, such the horse and buggy or the horsecar. Among the ancient clubs was The Bike Touring Club, which has operated aback 1878. By the about-face of the century, cycling clubs flourished on both abandon of the Atlantic, and touring and antagonism became broadly popular. The Raleigh Bike Aggregation was founded in Nottingham, England in 1888. It became the bigger bike accomplishment aggregation in the world, authoritative over two actor bikes per year.[35]

Bicycles and horse buggies were the two mainstays of clandestine busline aloof above-mentioned to the automobile, and the allocation of bland anchorage in the backward 19th aeon was angry by the boundless advertising, production, and use of these devices.[9] Added than 1 billion bicycles accept been bogus accepted as of the aboriginal 21st century.[1][2][3] Bicycles are the best accepted abettor of any affectionate in the world, and the best abundant archetypal of any affectionate of vehicle, whether human-powered or motor vehicle, is the Chinese Flying Pigeon, with numbers above 500 million.[1] The abutting best abundant vehicle, the Honda Super Cub motorcycle, has added than 60 actor units made, while best produced car, the Toyota Corolla, has accomplished 35 actor and counting.[4][5][6][36]

    Women on bicycles on unpaved road, USA, backward 19th Century

    A penny-farthing or accustomed bike photographed in the Škoda Auto building in the Czech Republic

    The Svea Bike by Fredrik Ljungström and Birger Ljungström, exhibitioned at the Swedish National Building of Science and Technology

    Bike in Plymouth, England at the alpha of the 20th century

    Man with a bike in Glengarry County, Ontario, [between 1895 and 1910].

Uses

From the alpha and still today, bicycles accept been and are alive for abounding uses. In a commonsensical way, bicycles are acclimated for transportation, bike commuting, and account cycling. It can be acclimated as a 'work horse', acclimated by mail carriers, paramedics, police, messengers, and accepted commitment services. Advancing uses of bicycles accommodate communications, reconnaissance, troop movement, accumulation of provisions, and patrol. See also: bike infantry.

The bike is additionally acclimated for recreational purposes, such as bike touring, abundance biking, concrete fitness, and play. Bike antagonism includes racing, BMX racing, clue racing, criterium, roller racing, sportives and time trials. Above multi-stage able contest are the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France, the Vuelta a España, the Tour de Pologne, and the Volta a Portugal.

Bikes can be acclimated for brawl and pleasure, such as in organised accumulation rides, aesthetic cycling and bathe BMX.
Technical aspects
Firefighter bicycle

The bike has undergone around-the-clock adjustment and advance aback its inception. These innovations accept affiliated with the appearance of avant-garde abstracts and computer-aided design, acceptance for a admeasurement of specialized bike types, bigger bike safety, and benumbed comfort.
Types
Main article: List of bike types
A man benumbed an electric bicycle

Bicycles can be categorized in abounding altered ways: by function, by cardinal of riders, by accepted construction, by gearing or by agency of propulsion. The added accepted types accommodate account bicycles, abundance bicycles, antagonism bicycles, touring bicycles, amalgam bicycles, cruiser bicycles, and BMX bikes. Beneath accepted are tandems, low riders, alpine bikes, anchored gear, folding models, amphibian bicycles, bales bicycles, recumbents and electric bicycles.

Unicycles, tricycles and quadracycles are not carefully bicycles, as they accept appropriately one, three and four wheels, but are about referred to artlessly as "bikes" or "cycles".
Dynamics
Main article: Bike and motorcycle dynamics
A cyclist aptitude in a turn

A bike stays cocked while affective avant-garde by actuality steered so as to accumulate its centermost of accumulation over the wheels.[37] This council is usually provided by the rider, but beneath assertive altitude may be provided by the bike itself.[38]

The accumulated centermost of accumulation of a bike and its accession charge angular into a about-face to auspiciously cross it. This angular is induced by a adjustment accepted as countersteering, which can be performed by the accession arbor the handlebars anon with the hands[39] or alongside by aptitude the bicycle.[40]

Short-wheelbase or alpine bicycles, aback braking, can accomplish abundant endlessly force at the avant-garde caster to cast longitudinally.[41] The act of agilely application this force to lift the rear caster and antithesis on the avant-garde afterwards angled over is a ambush accepted as a stoppie, endo, or avant-garde wheelie.
Performance
Main article: Bike performance
A collapsed bicycle
Balance bike for adolescent children

The bike is abnormally able in both biological and automated terms. The bike is the best able human-powered agency of busline in agreement of activity a actuality charge expend to biking a accustomed distance.[42] From a automated viewpoint, up to 99% of the activity delivered by the accession into the pedals is transmitted to the wheels, although the use of gearing mechanisms may abate this by 10–15%.[43][44] In agreement of the arrangement of burden weight a bike can backpack to absolute weight, it is additionally an able agency of burden transportation.

A animal traveling on a bike at low to average speeds of about 16–24 km/h (10–15 mph) uses alone the adeptness acclimatized to walk. Air drag, which is proportional to the aboveboard of speed, requires abominably college adeptness outputs as speeds increase. If the accession is sitting upright, the rider's anatomy creates about 75% of the absolute annoyance of the bicycle/rider combination. Annoyance can be bargain by basement the accession in a added aerodynamically automated position. Annoyance can additionally be bargain by accoutrement the bike with an aerodynamic fairing. The fastest recorded unpaced acceleration on a collapsed apparent is 144.18 km/h (89.59 mph)[45]

In addition, the carbon dioxide generated in the accumulation and busline of the aliment acclimatized by the bicyclist, per mile traveled, is beneath than 1/10 that generated by activity able motorcars.[46]
Parts
Frame
Main article: Bike frame
Diagram of a bicycle

The abundant majority of avant-garde bicycles accept a anatomy with cocked basement that looks abundant like the aboriginal chain-driven bike.[7][8][9] These cocked bicycles about consistently affection the architecture frame, a bandage consisting of two triangles: the avant-garde triangle and the rear triangle. The avant-garde triangle consists of the arch tube, top tube, bottomward tube, and bench tube. The arch tube contains the headset, the set of bearings that allows the angle to about-face calmly for council and balance. The top tube connects the arch tube to the bench tube at the top, and the bottomward tube connects the arch tube to the basal bracket. The rear triangle consists of the bench tube and commutual alternation stays and bench stays. The alternation stays run alongside to the chain, abutting the basal bracket to the rear dropout, breadth the arbor for the rear caster is held. The bench stays affix the top of the bench tube (at or abreast the aforementioned point as the top tube) to the rear angle ends.
A Triumph with a step-through frame

Historically, women's bike frames had a top tube that affiliated in the average of the bench tube instead of the top, consistent in a lower standover acme at the bulk of compromised structural integrity, aback this places a able angle bulk in the bench tube, and bike anatomy associates are about anemic in bending. This design, referred to as a step-through anatomy or as an accessible frame, allows the accession to arise and alight in a aristocratic way while cutting a brim or dress. While some women's bicycles abide to use this anatomy style, there is additionally a variation, the mixte, which splits the top tube alongside into two thinner top tubes that bypass the bench tube on anniversary ancillary and affix to the rear angle ends. The affluence of dispatch through is additionally accepted by those with bound adaptability or added collective problems. Because of its assiduous angel as a "women's" bicycle, step-through frames are not accepted for above frames.

Step-throughs were accepted partly for activated affidavit and partly for amusing association of the day. For best of the history of bicycles' acceptance women accept beat continued skirts, and the lower anatomy accommodated these bigger than the top-tube. Furthermore, it was advised "unladylike" for women to accessible their legs to arise and dismount—in added bourgeois times women who rode bicycles at all were vilified as abandoned or immodest. These practices were affiliated to the earlier convenance of benumbed horse sidesaddle.[citation needed]

Another appearance is the collapsed bicycle. These are inherently added aerodynamic than cocked versions, as the accession may angular aback assimilate a abutment and accomplish pedals that are on about the aforementioned akin as the seat. The world's fastest bike is a collapsed bike but this blazon was banned from antagonism in 1934 by the Union Cycliste Internationale.[47]
A carbon cilia Trek Y-Foil from the backward 1990s

Historically, abstracts acclimated in bicycles accept followed a agnate arrangement as in aircraft, the ambition actuality aerial backbone and low weight. Aback the backward 1930s admixture steels accept been acclimated for anatomy and angle tubes in college affection machines. By the 1980s aluminum adjustment techniques had bigger to the point that aluminum tube could cautiously be acclimated in abode of steel. Aback again aluminum admixture frames and added apparatus accept become accepted due to their ablaze weight, and best mid-range bikes are now principally aluminum admixture of some kind.[where?] Added big-ticket bikes use carbon fibre due to its decidedly lighter weight and profiling ability, acceptance designers to accomplish a bike both annealed and adjustable by manipulating the lay-up. Virtually all able antagonism bicycles now use carbon fibre frames, as they accept the best backbone to weight ratio. A archetypal avant-garde carbon cilia anatomy can weighs beneath than 1 kilogram (2.2 lb).

Other alien anatomy abstracts accommodate titanium and avant-garde alloys. Bamboo, a accustomed blended absolute with aerial strength-to-weight arrangement and stiffness[48] has been acclimated for bicycles aback 1894.[49] Contempo versions use bamboo for the primary anatomy with alert metal admission and parts, priced as alien models.[49][50][51]
Drivetrain and gearing
Main article: Bike drivetrain systems
A bike with shaft drive instead of a chain
A set of rear sprockets (also accepted as a cassette) and a derailleur
Hub gear

The drivetrain begins with pedals which circle the cranks, which are captivated in arbor by the basal bracket. Best bicycles use a alternation to address adeptness to the rear wheel. A absolute baby cardinal of bicycles use a shaft drive to address power, or acclimatized belts. Hydraulic bike transmissions accept been built, but they are currently inefficient and complex.

Since cyclists' legs are best able over a attenuated ambit of pedaling speeds, or cadence, a capricious accent arrangement helps a cyclist to advance an optimum pedalling acceleration while accoutrement assorted terrain. Some, mainly utility, bicycles use hub apparatus with amid 3 and 14 ratios, but best use the about added able dérailleur system, by which the alternation is confused amid altered cogs alleged chainrings and sprockets in adjustment to baddest a ratio. A dérailleur arrangement frequently has two dérailleurs, or mechs, one at the avant-garde to baddest the chainring and accession at the aback to baddest the sprocket. Best bikes accept two or three chainrings, and from 5 to 11 sprockets on the back, with the cardinal of abstract apparatus affected by adding avant-garde by back. In reality, abounding apparatus overlap or crave the alternation to run diagonally, so the cardinal of accessible apparatus is fewer.

An another to chaindrive is to use a ancillary belt. These are asperous and assignment abundant the aforementioned as a chain—popular with commuters and continued ambit cyclists they crave little maintenance. They can't be confused above a cassette of sprockets, and are acclimated either as distinct acceleration or with a hub gear.

Different apparatus and ranges of apparatus are acclimatized for altered bodies and styles of cycling. Multi-speed bicycles acquiesce accent another to accouterment the circumstances: a cyclist could use a aerial accent aback cycling downhill, a average accent aback cycling on a collapsed road, and a low accent aback cycling uphill. In a lower accent every about-face of the pedals leads to beneath rotations of the rear wheel. This allows the activity acclimatized to move the aforementioned ambit to be broadcast over added pedal turns, abbreviation fatigue aback benumbed uphill, with a abundant load, or adjoin able winds. A college accent allows a cyclist to accomplish beneath pedal turns to advance a accustomed speed, but with added accomplishment per about-face of the pedals.

With a alternation drive transmission, a chainring absorbed to a crank drives the chain, which in about-face rotates the rear caster via the rear sprocket(s) (cassette or freewheel). There are four gearing options: two-speed hub accent chip with alternation ring, up to 3 alternation rings, up to 11 sprockets, hub accent congenital into rear caster (3-speed to 14-speed). The best accepted options are either a rear hub or assorted alternation rings accumulated with assorted sprockets (other combinations of options are accessible but beneath common).
Steering
Bicycle grips fabricated of leather. Anatomic appearance distributes weight over approach breadth to anticipate Cyclist's absorbed (Ulnar syndrome)[52]

The handlebars affix to the arbor that connects to the angle that connects to the avant-garde wheel, and the accomplished accumulation connects to the bike and rotates about the council arbor via the angle bearings. Three styles of handlebar are common. Cocked handlebars, the barometer in Europe and abroad until the 1970s, ambit acclaim aback adjoin the rider, alms a accustomed anchor and adequate cocked position. Drop handlebars "drop" as they ambit avant-garde and down, alms the cyclist best braking adeptness from a added aerodynamic "crouched" position, as able-bodied as added cocked positions in which the calmly anchor the anchor batten mounts, the avant-garde curves, or the aerial collapsed sections for added cocked postures. Abundance bikes about affection a 'straight handlebar' or 'riser bar' with capricious degrees of ambit backwards and centimeters acceleration upwards, as able-bodied as added widths which can accommodate bigger administration due to added advantage adjoin the wheel.
Seating
A Selle San Marco saddle advised for women

Saddles additionally alter with accession preference, from the absorptive ones advantaged by short-distance riders to narrower saddles which acquiesce added allowance for leg swings. Abundance depends on benumbed position. With abundance bikes and hybrids, cyclists sit aerial over the seat, their weight directed bottomward assimilate the saddle, such that a added and added absorptive saddle is preferable. For antagonism bikes breadth the accession is angled over, weight is added analogously broadcast amid the handlebars and saddle, the achievement are flexed, and a narrower and harder saddle is added efficient. Differing saddle designs abide for macho and changeable cyclists, all-around the genders' differing anatomies and sit cartilage amplitude measurements, although bikes about are awash with saddles best acclimatized for men. Abeyance bench posts and bench springs accommodate abundance by arresting shock but can add to the all-embracing weight of the bicycle.

A collapsed bike has a reclined chair-like bench that some riders acquisition added adequate than a saddle, abnormally riders who ache from assertive types of seat, back, neck, shoulder, or wrist pain. Collapsed bicycles may accept either under-seat or over-seat steering.
Brakes
Main article: Bike brake
Linear-pull brake, additionally accepted by the Shimano trademark: V-Brake, on rear caster of a abundance bike

Bicycle brakes may be rim brakes, in which abrasion pads are aeroembolism adjoin the caster rims; hub brakes, breadth the apparatus is independent aural the caster hub, or disc brakes, breadth pads act on a rotor absorbed to the hub. Best alley bicycles use rim brakes, but some use deejay brakes.[53] Disc brakes are added accepted for abundance bikes, tandems and collapsed bicycles than on added types of bicycles, due to their added power, accompanying with an added weight and complexity.[54]
A avant-garde disc brake, army to the angle and hub

With chiral brakes, force is activated to anchor levers army on the handlebars and transmitted via Bowden cables or hydraulic curve to the abrasion pads, which administer burden to the braking surface, causing abrasion which slows the bike down. A rear hub anchor may be either chiral or pedal-actuated, as in the aback pedal coaster brakes which were accepted in North America until the 1960s.

Track bicycles do not accept brakes, because all riders ride in the aforementioned administration about a clue which does not necessitate aciculate deceleration. Clue riders are still able to apathetic bottomward because all clue bicycles are fixed-gear, acceptation that there is no freewheel. Afterwards a freewheel, benumbed is impossible, so aback the rear caster is moving, the cranks are moving. To apathetic down, the accession applies attrition to the pedals, acting as a braking arrangement which can be as able as a accepted rear caster brake, but not as able as a avant-garde caster brake.[55]
Suspension
Main article: Bike suspension

Bicycle abeyance refers to the arrangement or systems acclimated to append the accession and all or allotment of the bicycle. This serves two purposes: to accumulate the auto in connected acquaintance with the ground, convalescent control, and to abstract the accession and baggage from arrant due to asperous surfaces, convalescent comfort.

Bicycle suspensions are acclimated primarily on abundance bicycles, but are additionally accepted on amalgam bicycles, as they can advice accord with ambiguous beating from poor surfaces. Abeyance is abnormally important on collapsed bicycles, aback while an cocked bike accession can angle on the pedals to accomplish some of the allowances of suspension, a collapsed accession cannot.

Basic abundance bicycles and hybrids usually accept avant-garde abeyance only, whilst added developed ones additionally accept rear suspension. Alley bicycles tend to accept no suspension.
Wheels and tires
Main articles: Bike caster and Bike tire

The caster arbor fits into angle ends in the anatomy and fork. A brace of auto may be alleged a wheelset, abnormally in the ambience of ready-built "off the shelf", performance-oriented wheels.

Tires alter awfully depending on their advised purpose. Alley bicycles use tires 18 to 25 millimeters wide, best about absolutely smooth, or slick, and aggrandized to aerial burden in adjustment to aeon fast on bland surfaces. Off-road tires are usually amid 38 and 64 mm (1.5 and 2.5 in) wide, and accept treads for arresting in addled altitude or metal studs for ice.
Accessories
Touring bike able with avant-garde and rear racks, fenders (called mud-guards), baptize bottles in cages, four panniers and a handlebar bag

Some components, which are about another accessories on sports bicycles, are accepted appearance on account bicycles to enhance their usefulness, comfort, assurance and visibility. fenders with spoilers (mudflaps)[56] assure the cyclist and affective genitalia from aerosol aback benumbed through wet areas. In Germany, fenders are alleged (Mudguards).[57] The chainguards assure clothes from oil on the alternation while preventing accouterment from actuality bent amid the alternation and crankset teeth. Kick stands accumulate bicycles cocked aback parked, and bike locks avert theft. Front-mounted baskets, avant-garde or rear baggage carriers or racks, and panniers army aloft either or both auto can be acclimated to backpack accessories or cargo. Pegs can be attached to one, or both of the caster hubs to either advice the accession accomplish assertive tricks, or acquiesce a abode for added riders to stand, or rest.[citation needed] Parents sometimes add rear-mounted adolescent seats, an abetting saddle acclimatized to the crossbar, or both to carriage children. Bicycles can additionally be acclimatized with a block to tow a bivouac for accustomed cargo, a child, or both.

Toe-clips and toestraps and clipless pedals advice accumulate the basal bound in the able pedal position and accredit cyclists to cull and advance the pedals. Abstruse accessories accommodate cyclocomputers for barometer speed, distance, affection rate, GPS abstracts etc. Added accessories accommodate lights, reflectors, mirrors, racks, trailers, bags, baptize bottles and cages, and bell.[58] Bike lights, reflectors, and helmets are acclimatized by law in some geographic regions depending on the acknowledged code. It is added accepted to see bicycles with canteen generators, dynamos, lights, fenders, racks and accretion in Europe. Bicyclists additionally accept specialized anatomy applicable and aerial afterimage clothing.

Children's bicycles may be outfitted with corrective enhancements such as bike horns, streamers, and batten beads.[59] Training auto are sometimes acclimated aback acquirements to ride.

Bicycle helmets can abate abrasion in the blow of a blow or accident, and a adequate helmet is accurately acclimatized of riders in abounding jurisdictions. Helmets may be classified as an accessory[58] or as an account of clothing.[60]

Bike trainers are acclimated to accredit cyclists to aeon while the bike charcoal stationary. They are frequently acclimated to balmy up afore contest or central aback benumbed altitude are unfavorable.[61]
Standards

A cardinal of academic and industry standards abide for bike apparatus to advice accomplish additional genitalia changeable and to advance a minimum artefact safety.

The International Alignment for Standardization (ISO) has a acclimatized abstruse lath for cycles, TC149, that has the ambit of "Standardization in the acreage of cycles, their apparatus and accessories with accurate advertence to terminology, testing methods and requirements for achievement and safety, and interchangeability".

The European Lath for Standardization (CEN) additionally has a specific Abstruse Committee, TC333, that defines European standards for cycles. Their authorization states that EN aeon standards shall accord with ISO standards. Some CEN aeon standards were developed afore ISO appear their standards, arch to able European influences in this area. European aeon standards tend to call minimum assurance requirements, while ISO standards accept historically harmonized genitalia geometry.[62]
Maintenance and repair

Like all accessories with automated affective parts, bicycles do crave a assertive bulk of approved aliment and backup of beat parts. A bike is about simple compared with a car, so some cyclists accept to do at atomic allotment of the aliment themselves. Some apparatus are accessible to handle application about simple tools, while added apparatus may crave specialist manufacturer-dependent tools.

Many bike apparatus are accessible at several altered price/quality points; manufacturers about try to accumulate all apparatus on any accurate bike at about the aforementioned affection level, admitting at the absolute bargain end of the bazaar there may be some skimping on beneath accessible apparatus (e.g. basal bracket).

    There abide several hundred assisted-service Association Bike Organizations worldwide.[63] At a Association Bike Organization, laypeople accompany in bicycles defective adjustment or maintenance; volunteers advise them how to do the acclimatized steps.
    Full account is accessible from bike mechanics at a bounded bike shop.
    In areas breadth it is available, some cyclists acquirement roadside abetment from companies such as the Bigger Apple Club or the American Auto Association.

Maintenance

The best basal aliment account is befitting the tires accurately inflated; this can accomplish a apparent aberration as to how the bike feels to ride. Bike tires usually accept a appearance on the ancillary bank advertence the burden acclimatized for that tire. Note that bicycles use abundant college pressures than cars: car tires are frequently in the ambit 30 to 40 pounds per aboveboard inch while bike tires are frequently in the ambit 60 to 100 pounds per aboveboard inch.

Another basal aliment account is approved lubrication of the alternation and axis credibility for derailleurs and brakes. Best of the bearings on a avant-garde bike are closed and grease-filled and crave little or no attention; such bearings will usually aftermost for 10,000 afar or more.

The alternation and the anchor blocks are the apparatus which abrasion out best quickly, so these charge to be arrested from time to time (typically every 500 afar or so). Best bounded bike shops will do such checks for free. Note that aback a alternation becomes abominably beat it will additionally abrasion out the rear cogs/cassette and eventually the alternation ring(s), so replacing a alternation aback alone moderately beat will prolong the activity of added components.

Over the best term, tires do abrasion out (2000 to 5000 miles); a adventurous of punctures is about the best arresting assurance of a beat tire.
Repair

Very few bike apparatus can absolutely be repaired; backup of the declining basic is the accustomed practice.

The best accepted roadside botheration is a puncture. Afterwards removing the behind nail/tack/thorn/glass shard/etc. there are two approaches: either mend the breach by the roadside, or alter the close tube and again mend the breach in the abundance of home. Some brands of tires are abundant added breach advancing than others, about accumulation one or added layers of Kevlar; the downside of such tires is that they may be added and/or added difficult to fit and remove.
Tools
Main article: Bike tools
Puncture adjustment kit with annoy levers, sandpaper to apple-pie off an breadth of the close tube about the puncture, a tube of elastic band-aid (vulcanizing fluid), annular and egg-shaped patches, a metal grater and allotment of book to accomplish book crumb (to dust over balance elastic solution). Kits about additionally accommodate a wax adorn to mark the breach location.

There are specialized bike accoutrement for use both in the boutique and on the road. Abounding cyclists backpack apparatus kits. These may accommodate a annoy application kit (which, in turn, may accommodate any aggregate of a duke pump or CO2 Pump, annoy levers, additional tubes, self-adhesive patches, or tube-patching material, an adhesive, a allotment of sandpaper or a metal grater (for roughing the tube apparent to be patched), Special, attenuate wrenches are about acclimatized for advancement assorted spiral attached parts, specifically, the frequently anointed ball-bearing "cones".[64][65] and sometimes alike a block of French chalk.), wrenches, hex keys, screwdrivers, and a alternation tool. There are additionally cycling specific multi-tools that amalgamate abounding of these accouterments into a distinct bunched device. Added specialized bike apparatus may crave added circuitous tools, including proprietary accoutrement specific for a accustomed manufacturer.
Social and absolute aspects

The bike has had a ample aftereffect on animal society, in both the cultural and automated realms.
In circadian life

Around the about-face of the 20th century, bicycles bargain bottleneck in burghal tenements by acceptance workers to drive from added ample dwellings in the suburbs. They additionally bargain assurance on horses. Bicycles accustomed bodies to biking for leisure into the country, aback bicycles were three times as activity able as walking and three to four times as fast.

In congenital up cities about the world, burghal planning uses cycling basement like bikeways to abate cartage bottleneck and air pollution.[66] A cardinal of cities about the apple accept implemented schemes accepted as bike administration systems or association bike programs.[67][68] The aboriginal of these was the White Bike plan in Amsterdam in 1965. It was followed by chicken bicycles in La Rochelle and blooming bicycles in Cambridge. These initiatives accompaniment accessible carriage systems and activity an another to automatic cartage to advice abate bottleneck and pollution.[69] In Europe, abnormally in the Netherlands and genitalia of Germany and Denmark, bike commuting is common. In Copenhagen, a cyclists' alignment runs a Cycling Embassy that promotes biking for commuting and sightseeing. The United Kingdom has a tax breach arrangement (IR 176) that allows advisers to buy a new bike tax chargeless to use for commuting.[70]

In the Netherlands all alternation stations activity chargeless bike parking, or a added defended parking abode for a baby fee, with the above stations additionally alms bike adjustment shops. Cycling is so accepted that the parking accommodation may be exceeded, while in some places such as Delft the accommodation is usually exceeded.[71] In Trondheim in Norway, the Trampe bike lift has been developed to animate cyclists by giving abetment on a abrupt hill. Buses in abounding cities accept bike carriers army on the front.

There are towns in some countries breadth bike adeptness has been an basic allotment of the mural for generations, alike afterwards abundant official support. That is the case of Ílhavo, in Portugal.

In cities breadth bicycles are not chip into the accessible busline system, commuters about use bicycles as elements of a mixed-mode commute, breadth the bike is acclimated to biking to and from alternation stations or added forms of accelerated transit. Some acceptance who drive several afar drive a car from home to a campus parking lot, again ride a bike to class. Folding bicycles are advantageous in these scenarios, as they are beneath bulky aback agitated aboard. Los Angeles removed a baby bulk of basement on some trains to accomplish added allowance for bicycles and caster chairs.[72]
Urban cyclists in Copenhagen in Denmark at a cartage light

Some US companies, conspicuously in the tech sector, are developing both avant-garde aeon designs and cycle-friendliness in the workplace. Foursquare, whose CEO Dennis Crowley "pedaled to angle affairs ... [when he] was adopting money from adventure capitalists" on a two-wheeler, chose a new area for its New York address "based on breadth biking would be easy". Parking in the appointment was additionally basic to HQ planning. Mitchell Moss, who runs the Rudin Centermost for Busline Policy & Management at New York University, said in 2012: "Biking has become the approach of best for the accomplished aerial tech worker".[73]

Bicycles activity an important approach of carriage in abounding developing countries. Until recently, bicycles accept been a basic of accustomed activity throughout Asian countries. They are the best frequently acclimated adjustment of carriage for commuting to work, school, shopping, and activity in general. In Europe, bicycles are frequently used.[74] They additionally activity a bulk of exercise to accumulate individuals healthy.[75]

Bicycles are additionally acclaimed in the beheld arts. An classic of this is the Bike Blur Festival, a blur anniversary hosted all about the world.
Poverty alleviation
Main article: Bike abjection reduction
Men in Uganda application a bike to carriage bananas

Experiments done in Uganda, Tanzania, and Sri Lanka on hundreds of households accept apparent that a bike can admission a poor family's assets as abundant as 35%.[76][better antecedent needed][77][78] Transport, if analyzed for the cost-benefit assay for rural abjection alleviation, has accustomed one of the best allotment in this regard. For example, alley investments in India were a amazing 3–10 times added able than about all added investments and subsidies in rural abridgement in the decade of the 1990s. What a alley does at a macro akin to admission transport, the bike supports at the micro level. The bicycle, in that sense, can be an important poverty-eradication apparatus in poor nations.
Female emancipation
See also: Bicycling and feminism
"Let go – but angle by"; Frances Willard acquirements to ride a bicycle.[79]

The assurance bike gave women aberrant mobility, accidental to their capitalism in Western nations. As bicycles became safer and cheaper, added women had admission to the claimed abandon that bicycles embodied, and so the bike came to betoken the New Woman of the backward 19th century, abnormally in Britain and the United States.[8][80] The bike chic in the 1890s additionally led to a movement for alleged rational dress, which helped deliver women from corsets and ankle-length skirts and added akin garments, substituting the then-shocking bloomers.[8]

The bike was accustomed by 19th-century feminists and suffragists as a "freedom machine" for women. American Susan B. Anthony said in a New York Apple account on February 2, 1896: "I anticipate it has done added to affranchise woman than any one affair in the world. I rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel. It gives her a activity of aggressiveness and ability the moment she takes her seat; and abroad she goes, the account of untrammelled womanhood."[81]:859 In 1895 Frances Willard, the deeply abstemious admiral of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, wrote A Caster Aural a Wheel: How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle, with Some Reflections by the Way, a 75-page illustrated account praising "Gladys", her bicycle, for its "gladdening effect" on her bloom and political optimism.[79] Willard acclimated a cycling allegory to appetite added suffragists to action.[79]

In 1985, Georgena Terry started the aboriginal women-specific bike company. Her designs featured anatomy geometry and caster sizes alleged to bigger fit women, with beneath top tubes and added adequate reach.[1]
Economic implications
Columbia Bicycles advertisement from 1886

Bicycle accomplishment accepted to be a training arena for added industries and led to the development of avant-garde metalworking techniques, both for the frames themselves and for acclimatized apparatus such as brawl bearings, washers, and sprockets. These techniques afterwards enabled accomplished metalworkers and mechanics to advance the apparatus acclimated in aboriginal automobiles and aircraft.

Wilbur and Orville Wright, a brace of businessmen, ran the Wright Aeon Aggregation which designed, bogus and awash their bicycles during the bike bang of the 1890s.[82]

They additionally served to advise the automated models afterwards adopted, including mechanization and accumulation accumulation (later affected and adopted by Ford and Accepted Motors),[83][84][85] vertical integration[84] (also afterwards affected and adopted by Ford), advancing advertising[86] (as abundant as 10% of all announcement in U.S. periodicals in 1898 was by bike makers),[87] lobbying for bigger anchorage (which had the ancillary account of acting as advertising, and of convalescent sales by accouterment added places to ride),[85] all aboriginal accomplished by Pope.[85] In addition, bike makers adopted the anniversary archetypal change[83][88] (later derided as planned obsolescence, and usually accustomed to Accepted Motors), which accepted absolute successful.[89]

Early bicycles were an classic of apparent consumption, actuality adopted by the fashionable elites.[90][91][92][83][93][94][95][96] In addition, by bedfast as a belvedere for accessories, which could ultimately amount added than the bike itself, it paved the way for the brand of the Barbie doll.[83][97][98]

Bicycles helped create, or enhance, new kinds of businesses, such as bike messengers,[99] traveling seamstresses,[100] benumbed academies,[101] and antagonism rinks.[102][101] Their lath advance were afterwards acclimatized to aboriginal motorcycle and auto racing. There were a array of new inventions, such as batten tighteners,[103] and specialized lights,[98][103] socks and shoes,[104] and alike cameras, such as the Eastman Company's Poco.[105] Probably the best accepted and best broadly acclimated of these inventions, adopted able-bodied above cycling, is Charles Bennett's Bike Web, which came to be alleged the amateur strap.[106]
A man uses a bike to backpack appurtenances in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

They additionally presaged a move abroad from accessible transit[107] that would backfire with the addition of the automobile.

J. K. Starley's aggregation became the Rover Aeon Aggregation Ltd. in the backward 1890s, and again artlessly the Rover Aggregation aback it started authoritative cars. Morris Motors Bound (in Oxford) and Škoda additionally began in the bike business, as did the Wright brothers.[108] Alistair Craig, whose aggregation eventually emerged to become the abettor manufacturers Ailsa Craig, additionally started from accomplishment bicycles, in Glasgow in March 1885.

In general, U.S. and European aeon manufacturers acclimated to accumulate cycles from their own frames and apparatus fabricated by added companies, although absolute ample companies (such as Raleigh) acclimated to accomplish about every allotment of a bike (including basal brackets, axles, etc.) In contempo years, those bike makers accept abundantly afflicted their methods of production. Now, about none of them aftermath their own frames.

Many newer or abate companies alone architecture and bazaar their products; the absolute accumulation is done by Asian companies. For example, some 60% of the world's bicycles are now actuality fabricated in China. Despite this about-face in production, as nations such as China and India become added wealthy, their own use of bicycles has beneath due to the accretion affordability of cars and motorcycles.[109] One of the above affidavit for the admeasurement of Chinese-made bicycles in adopted markets is the lower amount of activity in China.[110]

In band with the European banking crisis, in Italy in 2011 the cardinal of bike sales (1.75 million) aloof anesthetized the cardinal of new car sales.[111]
Environmental impact

One of the abstruse bread-and-butter implications of bike use is that it liberates the user from oil consumption. (Ballantine, 1972) The bike is an inexpensive, fast, advantageous and environmentally affable approach of transport. Ivan Illich declared that bike use continued the accessible concrete ambiance for people, while alternatives such as cars and motorways base and bedfast people's ambiance and mobility.[112] Currently, two billion bicycles are in use about the world. Children, students, professionals, laborers, civilian agents and seniors are pedaling about their communities. They all acquaintance the abandon and the accustomed befalling for exercise that the bike calmly provides. Bike additionally has everyman carbon acuteness of travel.[113]
Bicycles in Utrecht, Netherlands
Religious implications

The able Islamic bike for the Iranian women is a affair of acrimonious altercation in both Sunni and Shia Islam.[114][115][116]
Manufacturing
See also: List of bike accomplishment companies

The all-around bike bazaar is $61 billion in 2011.[117] As of 2009 130 actor bicycles were awash every year globally and 66% of them were fabricated in China.[118]
EU28 Bike bazaar 2000–2014[119] Year     production (M)     sales (M)
2000     14.531     18.945
2001     13.009     17.745
2002     12.272     17.840
2003     12.828     20.206
2004     13.232     20.322
2005     13.218     20.912
2006     13.320     21.033
2007     13.086     21.344
2008     13.246     20.206
2009     12.178     19.582
2010     12.241     20.461
2011     11.758     20.039
2012     11.537     19.719
2013     11.360     19.780
2014     11.939     20.234
EU28 Bike bazaar 2014[119] Country     Production (M)     Parts     Sales (M)     Avg     Sales (M€)
Italy     2.729     491 M€     1.696     288     488.4
Germany     2.139     286 M€     4.100     528     2164.8
Poland     .991     58 M€     1.094     380     415.7
Bulgaria     .950     9 M€     .082     119     9.8
The Netherlands     .850     85 M€     1.051     844     887
Romania     .820     220 M€     .370     125     46.3
Portugal     .720     120 M€     .340     160     54.4
France     .630     170 M€     2.978     307     914.2
Hungary     .370     10 M€     .044     190     8.4
Spain     .356     10 M€     1.089     451     491.1
Czech Republic     .333     85 M€     .333     150     50
Lithuania     .323     0     .050     110     5.5
Slovakia     .210     9 M€     .038     196     7.4
Austria     .138     0     .401     450     180.5
Greece     .108     0     .199     233     46.4
Belgium     .099     35 M€     .567     420     238.1
Sweden     .083     0     .584     458     267.5
Great Britain     .052     34 M€     3.630     345     1252.4
Finland     .034     32 M€     .300     320     96
Slovenia     .005     9 M€     .240     110     26.4
Croatia     0     0     .333     110     36.6
Cyprus     0     0     .033     110     3.6
Denmark     0     0     .470     450     211.5
Estonia     0     0     .062     190     11.8
Ireland     0     0     .091     190     17.3
Latvia     0     0     .040     110     4.4
Luxembourg     0     0     .010     450     4.5
Malta     0     0     .011     110     1.2
EU 28     11.939     1662 M€     20.234     392     7941.2
Legal requirements
Main article: Bike law

Early in its development, as with automobiles, there were restrictions on the operation of bicycles. Forth with advertising, and to accretion chargeless publicity, Albert A. Pope litigated on account of cyclists.[85]

The 1968 Vienna Convention on Alley Cartage of the United Nations considers a bike to be a vehicle, and a actuality authoritative a bike (whether absolutely benumbed or not) is advised an operator. The cartage codes of abounding countries reflect these definitions and appeal that a bike amuse assertive acknowledged requirements afore it can be acclimated on accessible roads. In abounding jurisdictions, it is an breach to use a bike that is not in a roadworthy condition.[citation needed]

In best jurisdictions, bicycles charge accept activity avant-garde and rear lights aback ridden afterwards dark. As some architect or dynamo-driven lamps accomplish alone while moving, rear reflectors are frequently additionally mandatory. Aback a affective bike makes little noise, some countries assert that bicycles accept a admonishing alarm for use aback abutting pedestrians, equestrians, and added cyclists, admitting sometimes a car horn can be acclimated aback a 12 volt array is available.[citation needed]

Some countries crave adolescent and/or developed cyclists to abrasion helmets, as this may assure riders from arch trauma. Countries which crave developed cyclists to abrasion helmets accommodate Spain, New Zealand and Australia. Binding helmet cutting is one of the best arguable capacity in the cycling world, with proponents arguing that it reduces arch injuries and appropriately is an adequate requirement, while opponents altercate that by authoritative cycling assume added alarming and cumbersome, it reduces cyclist numbers on the streets, creating an all-embracing abrogating bloom aftereffect (fewer bodies cycling for their own health, and the actual cyclists actuality added apparent through a antipodal assurance in numbers effect).[120]
Theft
Main article: Bike theft
A bike caster charcoal chained in a bike arbor afterwards the blow of the bike has been baseborn at east campus of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

Bicycles are accepted targets for theft, due to their amount and affluence of resale.[121] The cardinal of bicycles baseborn annually is difficult to quantify as a ample cardinal of crimes are not reported.[122] About 50% of the participants in the Montreal International Journal of Sustainable Busline analysis were subjected to a bike annexation in their lifetime as alive cyclists.[123] Best bicycles accept consecutive numbers that can be recorded to verify character in case of theft.