Cycling Page

This web page reflects my interest in cycling. Compiled by David Noble.

As well as cycling to work I enjoy recreational cycling - both in the Sydney area - and beyond. I also try and take part in the critical mass rides held on the last Friday of each month in the city - these start from the fountain in the north part of Hyde Park and then go .... more or less anywhere.

I have now been documenting many of of my bike rides in the greater Sydney area. My Sydney Rides page has a long list of rides - that range in level of difficulty and length. There are many that are suitable for any bike and there are many that need a mountain bike. Most of the rides on this web page I have worked out after looking at maps rather than rely on other sources of information. I enjoy all types of cycling but prefer riding on singletracks and quiet roads. My  more recent trips have been documented on my new site here. These pages lack notes but contain many photographs.

 

The model... male spends more than 1500 hours per year on his car; driving or sitting in it, parking or searching for it; earning enough to pay for the vehicle, the tolls, the tyres, the insurance or the highway taxes. These four hours per day for gathering his resources for it do not include his transport-related dally-ing in hospitals, traffic courts, and garages, his sitting time before the TV to be sold a new model, or the time needed to earn or enjoy the travelling on his vacation. In terms of lifetime invested, the average (driver) attains four miles per hour. In countries without any transport industry, people walk at this rate wherever they want to go.

Man, unaided by any tool, is quite efficient when he moves. He carries one gram of his weight over a kilometre in 10 minutes by expending 0.75 calories, which makes him thermodynamically more efficient than any motorized vehicle and most animals, such as rats or oxen. He is still less efficient than horses or sturgeon.

A century ago, however, the bicycle appeared. It lifted man's self-powered mobility into a new order, beyond which there can be no further progress. On flat ground he can travel faster than on foot and do so using only one-fifth of the calories he would have expended walking. He can now carry one gram of his weight over one kilometre expending only 0.15 calories. Equipped with a bicycle, man does better not only than any machine but also than any animal.

- Ivan Illich

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