The Bike Show on Resonance 104.4fm

5 February 2007: Cyclosportives, bicycle podcasting and Budapest

2007-02-06T14:23:00.000Z

In this week's show we hear from Patrick Field about how to survive the grueling Paris-Brest-Paris: by riding a recumbent. Also a look at the blossoming world of bicycle radio and podcasting and a look ahead to the best in cyclosportives in 2007.

Links:

Bikescape podcast from San Francisco.

Rapha's 'Culture Clash' Roller Race at Shoreditch Town Hall - 10 February 2007

Dartmoor Classic Cyclosportive
- 13 May 2007

Tour de France Mega-Sportive - 1 July 2007

L'Eroica Cyclosportive - 7 October 2007 (pictured above)

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29 January 2007: Going the Distance and the Physics of the Bicycle

2007-02-02T19:17:00.000Z

First run in 1891 as a race designed to demonstrate the practicality of the bicycle, Paris Brest Paris has since become a four yearly event that attracts long distance cyclists from around the world. This year is a Paris Brest Paris year and Kieron Yates - this week standing in for Jack Thurston - talks to Richard Phipps of Audax UK – the British long distance cycling association – about preparing for the ride and what to expect should he make it to Paris.

Also on today's show Kieron tries to discover just how it is that we stay upright on our bikes as we pootle off down the road. Physicist, Dr Helen Czerski, provides the answers, describes the 'Einstein flip', and confirms the efficiency of the bicycle. Helen is a member of the NOISE network of scientists.

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Thanks!!

2007-01-31T18:38:00.000Z

Thanks to all those Bike Show listeners who've donated to the Save Resonance fund. The ten free copies of Rouleur Magazine have now all been claimed by John Paul, Denis, Henning, Wesley, Julian, Marc, Mark, Grant, Matt, Jesse and Tom. Copies will be on their way as soon as we have confirmed your postal addresses.

But we still need your donations, so even if there's not a lovely copy of Rouleur up for grabs, all donations are very much appreciated.

Jack

22 January 2007: Looking forward to a great year for cycling

2007-01-23T11:19:00.000Z

Could 2007 be the best year yet for cycling in London? In the studio with Guy Andrews, editor of Rouleur magazine and Barry Mason of Southwark Cyclists. We discuss the coming of Le Tour de France to London, the 15th Dunwich Dynamo and other group rides organized by Southwark Cyclists and ask whether London cycling will continue to boom. We also preview the Rapha Roller Race on 10 February with Therese Bjorn.

The first ten Bike Show listeners to donate to Resonance fm's survival fund will receive a free copy of the current edition of Rouleur magazine - newstand price £9 ($18). You can donate via Paypal or Credit Card and make sure to leave a note saying that you'd like a copy of Rouleur and give your postal address.

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15 January 2007: Women bike messengers and a ride through a very long tunnel

2007-01-16T20:07:00.000Z

Women bike messengers might cut a better figure on the roads than their grungy, bearded and tattooed male counterparts, but are the girls better at their jobs than the boys? The answer is yes, if a handful of London's women bike messengers are to be believed. For details on the upcoming Roller Races, look here.

We also have Hugo Gladstone riding with the Stourbridge Bicycle Users Group on a 'suburban secrets' adventure that takes in the 2.3 km Netherton canal tunnel. Wooohh!! Echoooohh!!

And if you want to help the Bike Show and all Resonance fm's unique broadcasting stay on the air.... don't delay!

You can donate to our emergency fund quickly and painlessly here. Remember, all the programme-makers and engineers on Resonance are unpaid. We need to raise £60,000 now to pay for basic things like renting our studio (a damp and airless cave) and powering our antenna (a rusty coathanger tied to the top of a hospital). It's not rocket science but without donations from listeners, it will all come to an end very soon.

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8 January 2007 - Doorstep Adventures with Patrick Field (part two)

2007-01-09T13:41:00.000Z

In the second half of a ride with London cyclist Patrick Field, we cruise on the Woolwich Ferry, ride along the Thames Path through Greenwich before crossing in a tunnel under the Thames to the Isle of Dogs and from there onwards to old pumping station in Wapping converted into a arts space and cafe.

Along the way we discuss the revolutionary era of the bicycle, humanity and the march of progress and the challenges of global and local environmental imperatives. Heavy stuff, which might explain why Patrick suffers the Bike Show's first ever live on air puncture.

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The Bike Show's Kieron Yates on BBC Radio 4's Excess Baggage

2007-01-06T01:59:00.000Z

Today's Excess Baggage on BBC Radio 4 features reportage by Kieron Yates, the Bike Show's very own intrepid stateside adventurer and long distance audax freak.

His epic ride down the Mississippi from North Dakota all the way to New Orleans caught the eye of the BBC's Saturday morning travel show (or should that be ear?).

Click here to listen again to Excess Baggage. Fortunately today's episode is presented by the charming John McCarthy and not the unbearably irritating regular host Sandi Toksvig.

If you're interested in hearing the full story of Kieron's fixed wheel American adventure as broadcast a few months ago on The Bike Show, here are the links:

Part one

Part two

18 December 2006: Doorstep adventures with Patrick Field (Part one)

2006-12-19T02:01:00.000Z

Riding with Patrick Field, legendary London cyclist, thinker and writer, on a leisurely route east from Hackney along the top of a giant Victorian sewerage outflow pipe towards the River Thames. We take in ancient trading routes, cross the River Lea and pass through land that will be home to the London Olympics in 2012. We discuss the ethos of cycling as travel and Patrick's hopes for returning to an age of pre-industrial idleness... (part two follows next week).

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11 December 2006 - The Christmas edition

2006-12-15T00:36:00.000Z

Back in the Resonance FM studio with Danish bike messenger elf Therese Bjorn to talk Christmas on bicycles. What to buy, what to do... and we take a look at the new London Scorcher bicycle from Velorution and Therese gives a thumbs up to Pac Designs messenger bags.

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4 December 2006: Sur le pavé in Brussels

2006-12-04T18:33:00.000Z

In the Belgian capital of Brussels, road-testing Cyclocity, a new concept in bicycle hire - sturdy bikes you can pick up and leave in different places around the city that cost just one euro an hour. Jack Thurston and William Greswell are soon distracted by EU monumentalist architecture, horse meat steaks and a winter wonderland in the Grand Place.

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27 November 2006: Berlin special

2006-11-27T22:49:00.000Z

A special edition from the German capital city and well-known haven for cyclists. Riding with Berlin blogger Maisie Hitchcock, we discuss the changing face of Berlin, the legacy of the Cold War and the achingly hip Berlin music scene, all the while finding out what a great place this is to ride a bike.

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20 November 2006: experimental music and the bicycle

2006-11-20T22:56:00.000Z

It's cold outside, so stay at home and turn your bicycle into a musical instrument! Featuring performances by Stephen Schweitzer's
Bikelophone (pictured left), electro-acoustic composer David Berezan and the Tea and Toast Band.

And we set a new challenge for London's musical cyclists in 2007, the year that the Tour de France comes to our city... A performance of Godfried-Willem Raes's Second Symphony for 'Singing Bicycles'.

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13 November 2006: On a Bickerton in China, the Sideways Bike and cycling with disabilities

2006-11-14T18:58:00.000Z

This week's studio guest is none other than David Thurston, my very own dad. A London cyclist since the 1970s when he lost his driving license, he explored China in the early 1980s on a Bickerton folder and is now discovering that with Parkinson's Disease, cycling is more fun than walking.

Also featuring an interview with Irish nutty professor Michael Killian, inventor of the revolutionary Sideways Bike (pictured) with independent front and rear steering, news of Sheldon Brown's struggle with Multiple Sclerosis and an report by Alex Murray on a high end off-road wheelchair.

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Problems over the last few weeks...

2006-11-07T17:14:00.000Z

Just a quick post to say that contrary to rumours, the Bike Show is not going fortnightly. The observant among you will have noticed that recent service has been interrupted, and this due to:

1. A near-catastrophic flood at the Resonance fm studio which pulled
everthing off the air for a few days (hence no new show on 16 October)

2. Me being stuck on a train coming back from north Wales last week,
and thereby missing the show.

I hope you'll agree that these events are both very much in keeping
with the overall ambiance of the Bike Show, but I'll do my best to
ensure they're not repeated (as some of old shows have had to be to fill the gaps!)

Jack

6 November 2006: Edinburgh by train, low carbon travel

2006-11-07T00:27:00.000Z

It makes perfect sense to travel to Ediburgh with a bicycle overnight on the sleeper train. Once there, I find out what it's like on two wheels in Scotland's capital city - watch those cobblestones! Also chatting with Ed Gillespie, who's about to embark on a round-the-world odyssey of slow travel / low carbon travel: by train, camel and container ship.

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23 October 2006: At Cycle 2006 - Eddy Merckx and a hunt for gadgets

2006-10-24T22:41:00.000+01:00

Jack Thurston and Jo Upton in search of the best bicycle gadget at Cycle 2006, the UK's biggest cycling exhibition and trade fair. Glow in the dark pedals, GPS tools, bike storage, heart rate monitors and lights galore.

We are also granted an exclusive audience with the legendary champion of all cycling champions, Eddy Merckx. Eddy shares his views on cycling in Britain, Floyd Landis's doping disgrace and the latest developments at his boutique framebuilding company.

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9 October 2006 - Mississippi Tales (part two)

2006-10-09T21:47:00.000+01:00

Second half of Kieron Yates's ride down the Mississippi. He crosses the Mason-Dixon line and enters the realm of the South. On the way he encounters juke joints, folk art, learns about the role of bicycles in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and has an fascinating encounter with The Voice.

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2 October 2006 - Mississippi Tales (part one)

2006-10-03T21:33:00.000+01:00

This week’s show is the story of a long, long ride from Fargo, North Dakota to New Orleans, Louisiana following the Mississippi River. Kieron Yates made this journey over the summer just passed, on a fixed wheel bike with just a saddlebag for all his worldly possessions. Safely back home, he joins me in in conversation and we play music and interviews from along the way. The journey took in frozen Mormons, naked yoga, Klan-survivors, sweat and heat, roadkill, cheap motels and plenty of down home blues. Second half next Monday the 9th October.

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Free tickets to the Cycle Show 2006

2006-10-03T00:04:00.000+01:00

Thanks to the lovely promotions people at the Cycle Show 2006, we're pleased to be giving away 5 free tickets to the UK's biggest cycle trade fair, on this weekend 6-8 October at the ExCel Centre in Docklands. Plenty of Bike Show friends will be there, including Rapha and Condor who will be putting on a typically stylish stand. Plus lots of cycling groups such as the excellent CTC, who have just appointed Jon Snow as their new President, in place of Phil Liggett, who stands down after 10 years. Rumour has it that the mighty Eddy Merckx will be putting in an appearance on Saturday. Chapeaux!

Just send an email to bikshow@gmail.com saying which day you want to go. First come, first served.

Jack

31 July 2006: The folding miracle: inside the Brompton factory

2006-08-01T13:12:00.000+01:00

In this last show of the current season we're getting technical, with a visit to the Brompton factory. Bromptons are the best all round folding bicycles in the world and the invention of Andrew Ritchie, who started making them in his flat more than 25 years ago. They are still made in west London - in fact the only form of transportation still manufactured in the capital. Matt Tempest is awed by the brazing, bending and bashing that goes into a Brompton. Plus the demystification of wheelbuilding with Ian McCormick.

The Bike Show will be back with the falling of autumn leaves.

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24 July 2006: Remembering Major Taylor - the fastest man on the planet

2006-07-24T17:07:00.000+01:00

In this week's show we remember 'Major' Marshall Taylor, a world champion cyclist from the 1890s and the first black American sports superstar. Kieron Yates talks about Major Taylor's life with Lynne Tolman of the Major Taylor Association. We also ride the 2006 Etape Du Tour with Alex Murray.

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17 July 2006: Le Tour down le pub

2006-07-17T14:49:00.000+01:00

This week's show is a Tour De France special recorded at the Charles Lamb pub in north London. The Charles Lamb is one of the few places in London that is showing Le Tour this year. I am joined by Therese Bjorn, a former European Bicycle Messenger Champion and Matt Seaton, cycling correspondent at The Guardian newspaper. We watch the big Pyrenean stage of this year's Tour, which features the legendary Col Du Tormalet. Insighful commentary is interspersed with food, drinks and cheery French chanson on the 45s.

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10 July 2006: The Hour Record with Michael Hutchinson

2006-07-11T23:08:00.000+01:00

This week the Bike Show is in the presence of time trial greatness and (almost) sporting immortality. Michael Hutchinson has just written a book about his recent attempt to enter the pantheon of cycling legend by breaking the record for how far you can ride in an hour. The Hour: Sporting Immortality the Hard Way is both an informative history of the hour record itself and an entertaining, amusing and, at times, heartrending account of another chapter in the annals of epic British sporting failure.

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3 July 2006: Creativity, design and the bicycle

2006-07-07T16:42:00.000+01:00

Riding with London-based desiger and artist Julia Lohmann. We begin at the Velorution bike shop in the West End, where Julia's giant backlit illustration of animal-bicycle metamophosis is on display. We ride down through the park via the Serpentine Gallery to her studio in Fulham and then south over Wandsworth Bridge and via Wandsworth Prison to Tooting to see one of her cowbenches - lifesize cow-shaped benches upholstered in a single cowhide - and to talk about her current project involving a sculpture of a tricycle in Shanghai. We talk about design, cycling, creativity and much more along the way.

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26 June 2006: Extreme Cycling

2006-06-27T11:27:00.000+01:00

This week's show has an extreme flavour. Kieron Yates visits Sheldon Brown for advice on fixed gear touring and Alex Murray tells us about his preparations for taking on this year's Etape Du Tour. Plus Dominic Gabellini on the new Rapha-Condor cycle racing team and a 43 inch bunnyhop by Rich Johnson, Britain's leading trick/stunt rider.

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