[h=3]Utility[/h]
Main article: Utility cycling
Utility cycling refers both to cycling as a mode of daily
commuting transport as well as the use of a bicycle in a commercial activity, mainly to transport goods, mostly accomplished in an
urban environment.
The
postal services of many countries have long relied on bicycles. The British
Royal Mail first started using bicycles in 1880; now bicycle delivery fleets include 37,000 in the UK, 25,700 in Germany, 10,500 in Hungary and 7000 in Sweden. The
London Ambulance Service has recently introduced bicycling
paramedics, who can often get to the scene of an incident in
Central London more quickly than a motorized ambulance.
Late in the 20th century, urban
police bicycles became more common, as the mobility of car-borne officers was increasingly limited by traffic congestion and
pedestrianisation.
Bicycles enjoy substantial use as general delivery vehicles in many countries. In the UK and North America, generations of teenagers have got their first jobs delivering newspapers by bicycle. London has many delivery companies that use bicycles with trailers. Most cities in the West, and many outside it, support a sizeable and visible industry of
cycle courierswho deliver documents and small packages. In India, many of Mumbai's
Dabbawalas use bicycles to deliver home cooked lunches to the city’s workers. In
Bogotá, Colombia the city’s largest bakery recently replaced most of its delivery trucks with bicycles. Even the car industry uses bicycles. At the huge
Mercedes-Benz factory in
Sindelfingen, Germany workers use bicycles, color-coded by department, to move around the factory.
[h=3][
edit]Recreational[/h]<dl style="margin-top: 0.2em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; "><dt style="font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0.1em; ">Bicycle Touring</dt></dl>
Main article: Bicycle touring
Bicycles are used for recreation at all ages.
Bicycle touring, also known as cyclotourism, involves touring and exploration or sightseeing by bicycle for leisure. A
brevet or randonnée is an organized long-distance ride. In the United States, Americans spend over $81 billion a year on cycling gear and trips.[SUP]
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One popular
Dutch pleasure is the enjoyment of relaxed cycling in the
countryside of the Netherlands. The land is very flat and full of public
bicycle trails where cyclists are not bothered by
cars and other traffic, which makes it ideal for cycling recreation. Many
Dutch people subscribe every year to an event called
fietsvierdaagse — four days of organised cycling through the local environment.
Paris–Brest–Paris (PBP), which began in 1891, is the oldest bicycling event still run on a regular basis on the open road, covers over 1,200 km (746 mi) and imposes a 90-hour time limit. Similar if smaller institutions exist in many countries.
<dl style="margin-top: 0.2em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; "><dt style="font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0.1em; ">Organized rides</dt></dl>Many
cycling clubs hold organized rides in which bicyclists of all levels participate. The typical organized ride starts with a large group of riders, called the mass, bunch or even
peloton. This will thin out over the course of the ride. Many riders choose to ride together in groups of the same skill level to take advantage of
drafting.
Most organized rides, for example
Cyclosportives,
Challenge Rides or
reliability trials, and
hill climbs include registration requirements and will provide information either through the mail or online concerning start times and other requirements. Rides usually consist of several different routes, sorted by mileage, and with a certain number of rest stops that usually include refreshments, first aid and maintenance tools. Routes can vary by as much as 100 miles (160 km).
<dl style="margin-top: 0.2em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; "><dt style="font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0.1em; ">Mountain</dt></dl>
Mountain biking began in the 1970s, originally as a downhill sport, practised on customized
cruiser bikesaround
Mount Tamalpais.[SUP]
[14][/SUP] Most mountain biking takes place on dirt roads, trails and in purpose-built parks. Downhill mountain biking has just evolved in the recent years and is performed at places such as Whistler Mountain Bike Park. Slopestyle, a form of downhill, is when riders do tricks such as tailwhips, 360s, backflips and frontflips.
<dl style="margin-top: 0.2em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; "><dt style="font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0.1em; ">Other</dt></dl>The
Marching and Cycling Band HHK from
Haarlem (the Netherlands) is one of the few marching bands around the world which also performs on bicycles.
[h=3][
edit]Racing[/h]
Main article: Bicycle racing
Shortly after the introduction of bicycles, competitions developed independently in many parts of the world. Early races involving
boneshaker style bicycles were predictably fraught with injuries. Large races became popular during the 1890s "Golden Age of Cycling", with events across Europe, and in the U.S. and Japan as well. At one point, almost every major city in the US had a
velodrome or two for
track racing events, however since the middle of the 20th century cycling has become a minority sport in the US whilst in Continental Europe it continues to be a major sport, particularly in France, Belgium, Italy and Spain. The most famous of all bicycle races is the
Tour de France. This began in 1903, and continues to capture the attention of the sporting world.
In 1899,
Mile-a-Minute Murphy became the first man to ride his bicycle a mile in under a minute, which he did by drafting a
locomotive at
New York's Long Island.
As the bicycle evolved its various forms, different racing formats developed. Road races may involve both team and individual competition, and are contested in various ways. They range from the one-day road race,
criterium, and time trial to multi-stage events like the Tour de France and its sister events which make up cycling's
Grand Tours.
Recumbent bicycles were banned from bike races in 1934 after
Marcel Berthet set a new
hour record in his
Velodyne streamliner (49.992 km on November 18, 1933).
Track bicycles are used for
track cycling in
Velodromes, while
cyclo-cross races are held on rugged outdoor terrain, which is performed on road, grass, and m&d. Riders in cyclocross must get off their bikes at certain intervals and hop over barriers.
Time trial races, another form of road racing require a rider to ride against the clock. Time trials can be performed as a team or as a single rider. Bikes are changed for time trial races, using
aero bars. In the past decade,
mountain bike racing has also reached international popularity and is even an Olympic sport.
Professional racing organizations place limitations on the bicycles that can be used in the races that they sanction. For example, the Union Cycliste Internationale, the governing body of international cycle sport (which sanctions races such as the Tour de France), decided in the late 1990s to create additional rules which prohibit racing bicycles weighing less than 6.8 kilograms (14.96 pounds). The UCI rules also effectively ban some
bicycle frame innovations (such as the
recumbent bicycle) by requiring a double triangle structure.[SUP]
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