cycle noun Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes

The bicycle has undergone continual adaptation and improvement since its inception. They are also used for recreational purposes, including bicycle touring, mountain biking, physical fitness, and play. Bicycles are the most common vehicle of any kind in the world, and the most numerous model of any kind of vehicle, whether human-powered or motor vehicle, is the Chinese Flying Pigeon, with numbers exceeding 500 million. Further innovations increased comfort and ushered in a second bicycle craze, the 1890s Golden Age of Bicycles.

Although bike and cycle are used interchangeably to refer mostly to two types of two-wheelers, the terms still vary across the world. Other words for bicycle include "bike", "pushbike", "pedal cycle", or "cycle". Bicycles are used for fitness, military and police applications, courier services, bicycle racing, and artistic cycling. Some countries require cyclists to wear helmets, as this may protect riders from head trauma. In many jurisdictions, it is an offense to use a bicycle that is not in a roadworthy condition.

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They all experience the freedom and the natural opportunity for exercise that the bicycle easily provides. Ivan Illich stated that bicycle use extended the usable physical environment for people, while alternatives such as cars and motorways degraded and confined people's environment and mobility. (Ballantine, 1972) The bicycle is an inexpensive, fast, healthy and environmentally friendly mode of transport. One of the profound economic implications of bicycle use is that it liberates the user from motor fuel consumption. In line with the European financial crisis of that time, in 2011 the number of bicycle sales in Italy (1.75 million) passed the number of new car sales.

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His uncle, Josiah Turner, and business partner James Starley, used this as a basis for the 'Coventry Model' in what became Britain's first cycle factory. In 1868, Rowley Turner, a sales agent of the Coventry Sewing Machine Company (which soon became the Coventry Machinists Company), brought a Michaux cycle to Coventry, England. The first mechanically propelled, two-wheeled vehicle may have been built by Kirkpatrick MacMillan, a Scottish blacksmith, in 1839, although the claim is often disputed. The word was first used in 1847 in a French publication to describe an unidentified two-wheeled vehicle, possibly a carriage. These have allowed for a proliferation of specialized designs for many types of cycling.

• The most basic maintenance item is keeping the tires correctly inflated; this can make a noticeable difference as to how the bike feels to ride.
• In a lower gear, every turn of the pedals leads to fewer rotations of the rear wheel.
• While some women’s bicycles continue to use this frame style, there is also a variation, the mixte, which splits the top tube laterally into two thinner top tubes that bypass the seat tube on each side and connect to the rear fork ends.
• The seat stays connect the top of the seat tube (at or near the same point as the top tube) to the rear fork ends.

Another basic maintenance item is regular lubrication of the chain and pivot points for derailleurs and brake components. Bicycle tires usually have a marking on the sidewall indicating the pressure appropriate for that tire. The most basic maintenance item is keeping the tires correctly inflated; this can make a noticeable difference as to how the bike feels to ride.

Maintenance and repair

J. K. Starley's company became the Rover Cycle Company Ltd. in the late 1890s, and then renamed the Rover Company when it started making cars. Probably the best known and most widely used of these inventions, adopted well beyond cycling, is Charles Bennett's Bike Web, which came to be called the jock strap. Their board tracks were later adapted to early motorcycle and automobile racing. These techniques later enabled skilled metalworkers and mechanics to develop the components used in early automobiles and aircraft. An example of this is the Bicycle Film Festival, a film festival hosted all around the world. Foursquare, whose CEO Dennis Crowley "pedaled to pitch meetings … when he was raising money from venture capitalists" on a two-wheeler, chose a new location for its New York headquarters "based on where biking would be easy".

Bicycle sports include racing, BMX racing, track racing, criterium, roller racing, sportives and time trials. The next most numerous vehicle, the Honda Super Cub motorcycle, has more than 100 million units made, while most produced car, the Toyota Corolla, has reached 44 million and counting. By the turn of the century, cycling clubs flourished on both sides of the Atlantic, and touring and racing became widely popular. Among the earliest clubs was The Bicycle Touring Club, which has operated since 1878. This, in turn, required gearing—effected in a variety of ways—to efficiently use pedal power.

Track riders are still able to slow down because all track bicycles are fixed-gear, meaning that there is no freewheel. For most of the history of bicycles' popularity women have worn long skirts, and the lower frame accommodated these better than the top-tube. The more common types include utility bicycles, mountain bicycles, racing bicycles, touring bicycles, hybrid bicycles, cruiser bicycles, and BMX bikes. These models were known as safety bicycles, dwarf safeties, or upright bicycles for their lower seat height and better weight distribution. A bicycle, also called a pedal cycle, bike, push-bike or cycle, is a human-powered or motor-assisted, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, with two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other.

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Folding bicycles are useful in these scenarios, as they are less cumbersome when carried aboard. In Trondheim in Norway, the Trampe bicycle lift has been developed to encourage cyclists by giving assistance on a steep hill. In Europe, especially in the Netherlands and parts of Germany and Denmark, bicycle commuting is common. It was followed by yellow bicycles in La Rochelle and green bicycles in Cambridge.

The safety bicycle gave women unprecedented mobility, contributing to their emancipation in Western nations. Bicycle poverty reduction is the concept that access to bicycles and the transportation infrastructure to support them can dramatically reduce poverty. Until recently, bicycles have been a staple of everyday life throughout Asian countries.

Most of the bearings on a modern bike are sealed and grease-filled and require little or no attention; such bearings will usually last for 10,000 miles (16,000 km) or more. Some components are soho tampa easy to handle using relatively simple tools, while other components may require specialist manufacturer-dependent tools. European cycle standards tend to describe minimum safety requirements, while ISO standards have historically harmonized parts geometry.note 1 Some CEN cycle standards were developed before ISO published their standards, leading to strong European influences in this area. Their mandate states that EN cycle standards shall harmonize with ISO standards.