230 Fun Facts About Cycling

Which Tour de France climb in Provence is nicknamed the 'Bald Mountain' for its bare limestone summit?

Mont Ventoux, the 'Giant of Provence', looks snow-capped all year because its top is bare rock; Tom Simpson collapsed and died near the summit during the 1967 Tour, and a memorial marks the spot.

What color jersey is worn by the leader of the general classification in the Giro d'Italia?

Pink: the maglia rosa, introduced in 1931, matches the pink newsprint of La Gazzetta dello Sport, the newspaper that founded the race.

What color jersey designates the leader of the general classification in the Vuelta a España?

Red has been the Vuelta leader's colour since 2010, the 'maillot rojo'.

Which classic one-day cycling race is known as 'The Hell of the North' for its cobbles?

Paris-Roubaix's brutal stretches of pavé are raced one week after the Tour of Flanders as the final cobbled classic; it is also called 'the Queen of the Classics'.

What is winning the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France and the world road race title in one year called?

The Triple Crown has been won by only three men: Eddy Merckx in 1974, Stephen Roche in 1987 and Tadej Pogačar in 2024, who sealed his by attacking 100 km from the finish at the Zurich worlds.

Lance Armstrong finally admitted to doping in a 2013 television interview with which host?

Oprah Winfrey opened by asking for yes-or-no answers, and Armstrong said yes to each question about drugs, undoing more than a decade of furious denials.

Which Spaniard won five Tours de France in a row from 1991 to 1995?

Miguel Indurain, 'Big Mig', built every win on his time-trialling and never won a road stage that wasn't against the clock in those five Tours.

What is the primary purpose of a 'domestique' in professional road cycling?

To work for their team leader: shielding them from the wind, fetching bottles, even handing over their own bike after a crash; the word is French for 'servant'.

What is the term for the main pack of riders in a road bicycle race?

Peloton comes from the French for a small ball and a platoon; riders tucked in the middle of the pack feel only a fraction of the wind, which is why group tactics get so complex.

Which French rider, a five-time Tour de France winner, was nicknamed 'Le Blaireau' (The Badger)?

Bernard Hinault embraced the badger for its aggression, and as the bunch's 'patron' he policed races with the same temperament until his retirement in 1986.

In cycling, what term describes the crank's rotational speed in revolutions per minute?

Cadence: racers often spin at 90 to 100 rpm, because grinding a big gear slowly puts more strain on the muscles and knees than turning an easier gear fast.

Which bicycle component is made up of the chainrings and the arms that the pedals attach to?

Crankset, or chainset in Britain: its left arm takes a reverse-threaded pedal, because the motion of pedalling would work an ordinary thread loose.

Which bicycle braking system squeezes pads against the wheel itself rather than a rotor or hub?

Rim brake: the wheel doubles as the braking surface, so on a heavily laden bike a long descent can heat the rims enough to blow the tyres off.

A bicycle designed to be ridden by two people, one behind the other, is commonly known as what?

Tandem: in Paralympic racing a visually impaired rider pedals on the rear seat behind a sighted pilot, who does the steering.

What is a bicycle with no freewheel, whose pedals turn whenever the rear wheel turns, called?

Fixed-gear: with no way to coast, the rider can slow the bike just by resisting the pedals, and track racing bikes built this way carry no brakes at all.

The first Tour de France stage in 1903 ran 467 km from Paris to which city?

Lyon: winner Maurice Garin took more than 17 hours over the opening stage, riding through the night; the six-stage loop went on through Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Nantes.

Which British cyclist has Olympic golds on both the track and the road?

Bradley Wiggins won the road time trial at the 2012 Games in London, days after winning the Tour de France and ringing the bell that opened the Games; his other four golds came on the track.

Which one-day race in Italy, held each autumn, is nicknamed the 'Classic of the falling leaves'?

Giro di Lombardia, the last Monument of the season, is famed for its climb to the Madonna del Ghisallo chapel, whose Madonna Pope Pius XII proclaimed patroness of cyclists in 1949.

What is a bicycle called whose rider sits low in a chair-like seat, legs stretched out in front?

Recumbent: the reclined rider meets far less wind, and after Francis Faure took the hour record on one in 1933, cycling's governing body barred the design from its events.

Tadej Pogačar and Primož Roglič, first and second in the 2020 Tour de France, both come from which country?

Slovenia: Roglič led the 2020 Tour for 11 stages until the final time trial, where his 21-year-old countryman overtook him the day before Paris.

Which German baron built the 1817 'running machine', the first reliable precursor to the bicycle?

Karl Drais's two-wheeler set off a brief craze, but riders took to the smooth pavements to escape rutted roads, and authorities in Germany, Britain and the United States banned it.

What is the primary purpose of bicycle clipless pedals?

To prevent feet from slipping off: a cleat on the shoe locks into the pedal, and the 'clipless' name means only that the old toe clips and straps are gone.

In which track cycling event do two riders start on opposite sides and race a set distance?

Individual Pursuit: the two riders chase each other from opposite sides of the track, and if one catches the other the race is won on the spot.

What term describes the technique where a cyclist rides closely behind another to reduce air resistance?

Drafting, or slipstreaming, leaves the rider in front to take the brunt of the wind; it saves so much effort that it is banned in time trials, where everyone must ride alone.

Which material are most modern professional road racing frames made from?

Carbon fiber is strong only in the direction its fibres run, so builders layer the sheets to make a frame stiff where the power goes and forgiving elsewhere, which metal tubes cannot match.

What is the padded insert sewn into the seat of cycling shorts called?

Chamois: the pad was once real chamois leather, which needed careful washing and treatment to stay soft; modern pads are synthetic, but the name stuck.

The first Giro d'Italia, in 1909, started and finished in which city?

Milan: the riders set off from Piazzale Loreto, outside the Gazzetta's offices; the race was scored on points, and on elapsed time the third-placed rider would have beaten the winner by over half an hour.

Until 1937, how did Tour de France riders change gear for a climb?

Flipped the wheel: riders stopped and turned the rear wheel round to reach a different cog, because the Tour's founder had banned gear changers; his successor allowed them in his first year in charge.

What are the curled handlebars of a road racing bike, which offer several hand positions, called?

Drop bars: each end curves forwards, down and back toward the rider, so gripping the low section tucks the body out of the wind for fast riding.

Which Belgian won the 2005 world road race title and the 'Hell of the North' four times?

Tom Boonen's fourth Paris-Roubaix, in 2012, matched Roger De Vlaeminck's record, and he won it by riding the last 53 km alone.

What type of bicycle has a small frame and 20-inch wheels and is used for tricks and stunts?

BMX bike: the name is short for bicycle motocross, because the sport began in early-1970s California with children racing their bikes on dirt tracks in imitation of motocross stars.

What is the 'broom wagon' in a road race?

The vehicle that follows the last rider: the broom wagon (voiture balai) picks up anyone who abandons, and first appeared on the Tour de France in 1910.

Which track event is known in French as the 'course à l'américaine'?

Madison: the two-rider relay is named after New York's Madison Square Garden, where it began as a way round laws meant to stop six-day racers riding themselves to exhaustion.

What is a rider or small group that rides clear of the main field, hoping to stay away to the finish, called?

Breakaway: by 'Chapatte's law', a French commentator's rule of thumb, a determined bunch takes back about a minute every 10 km, so a break needs a big lead to survive to the line.

Which two-word phrase sums up Dave Brailsford's method of improving every small detail at British Cycling and Team Sky?

Marginal gains: Brailsford's idea was to break riding a bike into its parts and improve each one by 1%, down to giving riders antibacterial hand gel to cut infections.

Where did the 2024 Tour de France finish, the first time the race ended away from Paris?

Nice: with Paris preparing for the Olympic Games, the Tour ended away from the capital for the first time, and with a time trial from Monaco instead of the usual parade.

What do you call a cyclist built for fast finishes on the flat?

A sprinter: when the bunch arrives together, this rider shelters in a teammate's slipstream until the last moments, then wins on raw acceleration.

What is the main advantage of disc brakes over rim brakes on a bicycle?

Surer stopping in the wet: the rotor sits near the hub, clear of the water and mud that coat a wheel's edge, so a disc still bites when the wheel itself is soaked.

Which bicycle part slides into the frame and holds the saddle?

Seatpost: it slides into the seat tube and clamps the saddle; raising or lowering it sets the rider's leg extension, and dropper versions move at the push of a lever.

What type of cycling race uses a short, multi-lap closed course, often in urban areas?

Criterium: to keep the pace high, a bell is rung to announce 'primes', cash prizes for whoever wins the next lap.

What is a mountain bike with a suspension fork but no rear suspension called?

Hardtail: with no rear shock the back of the frame is rigid, which makes the bike cheaper, easier to maintain and more efficient to pedal than a full-suspension design.

What color jersey does the overall leader wear in the Tour de France?

The 'Maillot Jaune,' or yellow jersey, is awarded to the general classification leader in the Tour de France.

Who was the first rider to win the Tour de France five times, in 1957 and 1961 to 1964?

Jacques Anquetil promised before the 1961 Tour to take the yellow jersey on day one and keep it to Paris, and did exactly that.

Which French Alps climb, a Tour de France regular, numbers each of its 21 hairpin bends?

Alpe d'Huez: Dutch riders won eight of the first 14 Tour stage finishes there, so it became 'the Dutch Mountain', and Dutch fans still camp along its bends whenever the race visits.

What is the cluster of sprockets on a bicycle's rear wheel called?

Cassette: its sprockets slide onto the hub instead of screwing on like the older freewheel block, so worn sprockets or a whole range of gears are far easier to swap.

Which rider broke the record for most Tour de France stage wins with his 35th victory in 2024?

Mark Cavendish had been level with Eddy Merckx on 34 since 2021; after crashing out of the 2023 Tour he put off retirement for one more year and took the record at Saint-Vulbas.

Many riders punctured on a climb in the 2012 Tour de France after a saboteur scattered what on the road?

Tacks: the defending champion punctured three times, and instead of profiting from the sabotage the race leader made the main group slow down until he had caught up.

What is the diagonal line that riders form across the road to shelter one another from a crosswind called?

Echelon: the line can only be as wide as the road, so riders who miss it get no shelter, and strong teams use crosswinds to split the bunch.

What nickname did the wooden-wheeled, iron-tyred pedal bicycles of the 1860s earn?

Boneshaker: wooden wheels and iron tyres on cobbled streets made it famously uncomfortable; indoor riding academies, much like roller rinks, sprang up in big cities.

Which Scottish blacksmith may have built the first mechanically propelled two-wheeler in 1839?

Kirkpatrick MacMillan, a blacksmith from Keir in Dumfriesshire, is credited by some with a rear-wheel treadle-driven machine in 1839, but no contemporary evidence survives and the claim is disputed.

Which Paris blacksmith's firm was the first to mass-produce pedal-driven 'velocipedes' in the 1860s?

Pierre Michaux's firm built the pedal velocipede in series, but who first fitted the pedals is disputed: Pierre Lallement claimed the idea and took out an American patent on it in 1866.

The top four finishers of the 1904 Tour de France were disqualified after riders were accused of doing what?

Taking the train was among the charges; months later the cycling federation threw out the top four, handing victory to fifth-placed Henri Cornet, at 19 still the Tour's youngest winner.

Chris Boardman won Olympic track gold in 1992 on a radical bike built by which sports car maker?

Lotus: on the one-piece Type 108, Boardman caught the world champion in the Barcelona final to take the gold.

What limited the size of a Victorian high-wheeler's front wheel?

Leg length: with pedals fixed to the hub, a bigger wheel went further with every turn, so riders bought the largest one whose pedals they could still reach.

On what machine did Thomas Stevens finish the first round-the-world cycle ride in 1886?

Penny-farthing: Stevens left San Francisco in 1884 carrying little more than spare clothes, a rubber raincoat and a pocket revolver.

What do cyclists call the puncture caused when a hard bump pinches the inner tube against the rim?

Snakebite: the tube is squeezed against both edges of the rim at once, leaving a pair of small holes that look like the marks of a snake's fangs.

What was the name of John Kemp Starley's first commercially successful safety bicycle of 1885?

The Rover of 1885, with two near-equal wheels and a chain-driven rear wheel, set the pattern for every bicycle since; 'rower' became the Polish word for bicycle.

John Boyd Dunlop developed his practical air-filled tyre for what?

His child's tricycle: Dunlop, a Belfast vet, wanted a smoother ride for his son in 1887, unaware that another Scot, Robert Thomson, had patented an air-filled tyre some forty years earlier.

What do riders call the bunch of non-climbers who stick together on mountain stages just to beat the time cut?

The autobus, or gruppetto in Italian: by finishing together in large numbers, the stragglers hope the officials will not eliminate them all if they miss the time limit.

What is the cloth shoulder bag of food and drink handed up to riders in a race's feed zone called?

Musette: named after a soldier's small shoulder bag, it has a long strap so a rider can hook an arm through it at speed, and by custom rivals do not attack while it is handed up.

The first widely used clipless pedal came in 1984 from Look, a French maker of what?

Ski bindings: Look borrowed the step-in mechanism from its bindings, and a Tour de France win on the new pedals in 1985 helped them replace toe clips and straps.

Which slim valve, also known as the French valve, is found on most road bike inner tubes?

Presta: it is narrower than the car-type Schrader valve, so it needs a smaller hole in the rim, which keeps a skinny racing wheel strong at its weakest point.

Which innovation is Tullio Campagnolo, the racer turned component maker, most famous for?

The wheel quick-release: by his own account the idea came on a freezing mountain pass in a 1927 race, when his numb fingers could not undo the wingnuts holding his rear wheel.

What do cyclists call suddenly running out of energy mid-ride after eating too little?

Bonking, the cyclist's version of hitting the wall, strikes when the glycogen stored in the liver and muscles runs out, which is why racers start eating early in a long stage.

The Tour de France was created in 1903 to boost sales of which newspaper, forerunner of today's L'Équipe?

L'Auto was locked in a circulation war with its rival Le Vélo; the Tour sent its sales soaring, and Le Vélo went out of business in 1904.

The 1998 Tour de France started outside France in which capital city?

Dublin: the 1998 Tour started a week later than planned to keep clear of football's World Cup in France, and Chris Boardman won the opening time trial through the Irish capital.

What hit Eddy Merckx on a climb in the 1975 Tour de France as he chased a record sixth win?

A spectator's fist: a man in the crowd punched him near a summit finish; he completed the stage, but days later, on painkillers for the blow, he cracked and lost the race lead for good.

Which German rider won the 1997 Tour de France and was runner-up in five others?

Jan Ullrich became the first German to win the Tour at 23, but three of his second places came behind Lance Armstrong, and in 2013 he admitted to blood doping.

Which boyhood trade gave little Maurice Garin, winner of the first Tour de France, his nickname?

Chimney sweep: Maurice Garin was nicknamed 'le petit ramoneur' (the little chimney sweep) from his boyhood trade; he was later stripped of his 1904 title for cheating.

Maurice Garin, first winner of the Tour de France, was born in an Alpine valley with which nationality?

Italian: Garin was born at Arvier in the Aosta Valley and his family crossed the Alps for work when he was a boy; he became a French citizen only in December 1901, less than two years before winning the first Tour.

What pattern marks the jersey worn by the Tour de France's King of the Mountains?

Red polka dots: a best climber has been named since 1933, but the spotted jersey arrived only in 1975, when sponsor Chocolat Poulain wanted him to stand out in the bunch.

Which volcano in central France returned to the Tour de France in 2023 after a 35-year absence?

Puy de Dôme: since 2012 a rack railway has run to the top beside the already narrow summit road, which is closed to general traffic; the Tour's last finish there had been in 1988.

What does the white jersey reward in the Tour de France?

The best young rider: only riders who stay under 26 all year can win it; until 1975 the white jersey was worn instead by the leader of a combined classification.

Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour titles after an investigation by which body?

USADA: the US Anti-Doping Agency's October 2012 reasoned decision laid out the US Postal doping programme; Armstrong was banned for life and the UCI then erased his 1999-2005 results.

Lance Armstrong returned to racing in 2009 with which team, finishing third in that year's Tour de France?

Astana: Lance Armstrong came out of retirement and finished third behind his own teammate, who won that Tour after the two had vied for leadership, then left for the new RadioShack team in 2010.

Andy Hampsten became the first American to win the Giro d'Italia after a 1988 mountain stage ridden through what?

A snowstorm: the riders climbed and descended the Gavia Pass through snow and bitter cold; Hampsten finished second on the stage but took a race lead he kept to the finish.

What nearly killed Greg LeMond in 1987, the year after his first Tour de France win?

A hunting accident: his brother-in-law hit him with shotgun pellets on a turkey hunt in California; LeMond missed the next two Tours, then came back to win in 1989 by eight seconds.

Marco Pantani won which rare double in 1998?

Tour de France and Giro d'Italia: Pantani took the 1998 Giro from Pavel Tonkov, then won the Tour with a famous attack to Les Deux Alpes; nobody repeated the double until 2024.

Why did Marco Pantani choose the nickname 'Il Pirata'?

His shaved head, bandana and earrings: Pantani adopted 'Il Pirata' for his buccaneer look; he was expelled from the 1999 Giro while leading it, for a high haematocrit reading.

Chris Froome was born in which country?

Kenya: Froome was born in Nairobi in 1985 and schooled in South Africa, riding for Kenya at the 2006 Commonwealth Games before switching to Britain in 2008.

Which British rider won the 2018 Giro d'Italia?

Chris Froome was more than three minutes down when he attacked alone, 80 km from the finish, on the unpaved Colle delle Finestre; the win made him holder of all three Grand Tour titles at once.

Which cobbled classic did Tadej Pogačar win for the first time in 2023?

Tour of Flanders: Pogačar dropped Mathieu van der Poel on the final Oude Kwaremont and soloed to the 2023 win, having already taken Liège in 2021 and Lombardia in 2021 and 2022.

Where was the Grand Départ of the 2022 Tour de France, won by Jonas Vingegaard?

Copenhagen: Denmark had been due to host the start in 2021, but the pandemic pushed it back a year; the opening time trial through the city went to outsider Yves Lampaert.

Egan Bernal, the first Latin American winner of the Tour de France, comes from which country?

Colombia: Bernal, raised in Zipaquirá, took yellow when the 2019 Tour's Alpine stage to Tignes was cut short by hail and a landslide, and held it to Paris.

What is the Giro d'Italia's highest point each year called?

The Cima Coppi was created in 1965 to honour Fausto Coppi, the five-time Giro winner who had died of malaria five years earlier; it goes to the first rider over the race's highest pass.

Which American was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France victory after testing positive for testosterone?

Floyd Landis lost ten minutes on stage 16, won it nearly all back with an epic solo ride the next day, then failed the test taken after that stage; the title went to Óscar Pereiro.

Which illness, diagnosed in 1996, did Lance Armstrong overcome before returning to cycling in 1998?

Testicular cancer: it had spread and was thought likely to kill him, yet after surgery and chemotherapy he returned to racing and founded the cancer charity now called Livestrong.

The Amstel Gold Race, the Netherlands' biggest one-day classic, takes its name from a brand of what?

Beer: the Dutch brewer Amstel has backed the race since its first edition in 1966; the brewery is named after a river in North Holland, yet the race is run at the other end of the country, in the hills of Limburg.

Which spring classic is the longest one-day race in professional cycling, at close to 300 km?

Milan-San Remo, 'La Primavera', covers almost 300 km yet is often decided in its last few, on the short Poggio climb and the descent to the Via Roma finish.

Which English county hosted the opening two stages of the 2014 Tour de France?

Yorkshire: the stages from Leeds to Harrogate and York to Sheffield were such a success that the county launched its own race, the Tour de Yorkshire, the following year.

Which is the oldest of cycling's five Monuments, first run in 1892?

Liège-Bastogne-Liège, 'La Doyenne', was first run in 1892; Bastogne became the turning point simply because officials could reach its railway station to check the riders through.

La Doyenne is decided on steep climbs such as La Redoute in which hilly region?

The Ardennes: the race crosses these wooded Belgian hills and saves La Redoute and the Roche-aux-Faucons for its finale, so it is settled on tired legs.

Since 1977 the winner of Paris-Roubaix has received what as part of the prize?

A cobblestone (sett), mounted as a trophy, has gone to the winner since 1977; by then so many old lanes had been resurfaced that the organisers were scouring the north for forgotten cobbled tracks.

Since 1977 Paris-Roubaix has started in which town?

Compiègne, about 80 km north of the capital, took over the start in 1977 after eleven years at Chantilly, so the race that carries Paris in its name no longer sets off from the city at all.

Which Jørgen Leth documentary follows the 1976 Paris-Roubaix from the team cars to the showers?

A Sunday in Hell introduces the star favourites one by one, then watches the surprise winner, Marc Demeyer, a rider usually paid to help others, beat them; its title became another nickname for the race.

The Strade Bianche race starts and finishes in which Tuscan city?

Siena hosts the finish in the Piazza del Campo; the race grew out of L'Eroica, a 1997 ride for vintage bikes on Tuscany's unpaved white roads, and turned professional ten years later.

The first Olympic cycling road race, in 1896, ran from Athens to which town and back?

Marathon: the 87 km race used the road of the famous foot race, and Greece's Aristidis Konstantinidis won it even though his bicycle broke down after the turn and he finished on a borrowed one.

Who set the first officially recognised hour record, in 1893?

Henri Desgrange rode 35.325 km on the Buffalo track in Paris on 11 May 1893, a decade before he launched the Tour de France.

Where, at 2,300 m altitude, did 'the Cannibal' set his 1972 hour record of 49.431 km?

Mexico City: on 25 October 1972 he rode 49.431 km on the outdoor Agustín Melgar track, chosen because thin air at altitude means less drag, and the mark stood for more than eleven years.

Whose 1984 hour record was the first noted use of disc wheels?

Francesco Moser beat an 11-year-old record twice in five days at altitude in January 1984; the UCI later ruled such aero machines out and relabelled his 51.151 km a 'best human effort'.

Which Scot built his own bikes and set hour records in 1993 and 1994 with hands tucked under his chest?

Graeme Obree built 'Old Faithful', partly from washing-machine bearings, and set the record in July 1993 and again in April 1994; the UCI later banned his tucked position.

Who passed both the UCI hour record and Boardman's 1996 'best human effort' in 2022?

Filippo Ganna rode 56.792 km at Grenchen, taking the UCI record from Dan Bigham, a performance engineer at Ganna's own Ineos team who had set his mark on the same Swiss track seven weeks earlier.

Which Briton won three track golds at Beijing 2008?

Chris Hoy took up cycling at six after seeing the BMX chase in the film E.T., raced BMX into his teens, and went on to win six Olympic golds across four different track events.

Which British track rider won two golds at London 2012, two more at Rio 2016 and a fifth in Tokyo?

Laura Kenny was born a month early with a collapsed lung and later diagnosed with asthma, so doctors advised her to take up sport to help her breathing.

Whose seventh Olympic gold made him Britain's most successful Olympian?

Jason Kenny had quietly retired after winning three golds in Rio, worn down by the toll of racing, then changed his mind and came back to win the seventh in Tokyo.

Marianne Vos is an eight-time world champion in which discipline?

Cyclo-cross: Vos took her eighth world title in 2022; she also helped found Le Tour Entier, the campaign that pushed the Tour de France's organisers into creating a women's race, and won its first edition herself.

Marianne Vos won the 2012 Olympic road race in a sprint on which London avenue?

The Mall: the race began and ended on the avenue after a loop into Surrey, and in heavy rain that brought punctures and spills Vos beat Britain's Lizzie Armitstead to the line.

Who won the inaugural Tour de France Femmes in 2022?

Annemiek van Vleuten spent the early stages ill with a stomach bug and barely able to eat, then rode away alone in the Vosges on the penultimate day to turn the race on its head.

Which French rider competed at seven Olympic Games from 1984 to 2008?

Jeannie Longo won road race gold at her fourth Games, in 1996, and at her seventh she lined up against riders who had not been born when she made her Olympic debut.

Which rider's 1967 12-hour distance of 277 miles beat the men's record?

Beryl Burton caught Mike McNamara while he was riding to the men's record that same day, and is said to have offered him a liquorice allsort as she went past.

Which American rider won an 1899 world title, becoming cycling's first Black world champion?

Major Taylor won the one-mile sprint in Montreal, only the second Black world champion in any sport after boxer George Dixon, then spent 1901 to 1904 beating the best riders in Europe and Australia.

The first Black cycling world champion grew up in which US city, where a racing track now bears his name?

Indianapolis: as a teenager he was paid to perform bicycle stunts outside a local bike shop to draw customers, before following his mentor east to Worcester, Massachusetts.

Fausto Coppi's nickname 'Il Campionissimo' means what?

Champion of Champions was a title Italians had first given Costante Girardengo a generation earlier; Coppi made it his own by twice winning the Giro and the Tour in the same year.

A famous photograph from the 1952 Tour de France shows rivals Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali passing what between them?

A water bottle: their rivalry had split Italian fans into two camps, and even this picture fed the argument, because who handed the bottle to whom has never been settled.

During the Second World War, Gino Bartali is credited with smuggling what, hidden in his bicycle's frame and handlebars?

False identity papers, and the photographs needed to make them, rode inside his frame on what looked like training rides towards Assisi; Yad Vashem honoured him in 2013 for helping to save Jews.

Gino Bartali's 1948 win gave him what Tour de France record?

Longest gap between wins: ten years separated Bartali's 1938 and 1948 Tours, the Second World War having swallowed seven editions in between.

Why did the Giro d'Italia's organisers pay Alfredo Binda 22,500 lire before the 1930 edition?

To stay away from the race: Binda had won four of the previous five Giri so easily that the organisers paid him the winner's prize not to start, and he rode the Tour de France instead.

Who was the first rider to win the Tour de France in three successive years, from 1953 to 1955?

Louison Bobet won the third of them with a saddle boil that needed surgery afterwards; after a later car crash he took up seawater therapy and made a second career of it, opening a centre at Quiberon.

Which Spanish climber won the Tour's mountains prize six times?

Federico Bahamontes, first over a pass in the 1954 Tour, stopped at an ice-cream seller's stand at the top and ate one before riding on.

Sean Kelly won which stage race a record seven years in a row?

Paris-Nice: Kelly was typecast as a fast finisher who could not win stage races until his manager Jean de Gribaldy made him team leader and had him lose weight; he then won it every year from 1982 to 1988.

Which city traditionally hosts the final stage of the Vuelta a España?

Madrid is the customary finish of a race that used to be run in spring; in 1995 the organisers moved it to late summer, turning it into the last Grand Tour of the season.

Which rider did Stephen Roche overhaul on the penultimate day to win the 1987 Tour de France by 40 seconds?

Pedro Delgado still led by 21 seconds going into that stage; days earlier Roche had chased him so hard at La Plagne that he collapsed on the line and was given oxygen.

Which rider became the first Australian to win the Tour de France, in 2011?

Cadel Evans, once an off-road World Cup champion, had twice finished runner-up by less than a minute before finally taking the race lead on the penultimate day, aged 34.

Which Frenchman lost the 1989 Tour de France to Greg LeMond by eight seconds on the final day?

Laurent Fignon rode the final stage bareheaded on ordinary handlebars, his ponytail in the wind, while LeMond used an aero helmet and triathlon-style bars and took 58 seconds out of him.

After cyclo-cross and road, in which discipline did Van der Poel win a 2024 world title?

Gravel: van der Poel rode clear of Belgium's Florian Vermeersch to win the 2024 world title by just over a minute, adding a third discipline to the rainbow jerseys he already owned.

Which Belgian won three straight cyclo-cross world titles from 2016 to 2018 before turning to the road?

Wout van Aert won at Zolder, Bieles and Valkenburg, then tore up his contract with a small Belgian team in 2018 to join a WorldTour squad and remake himself as a Tour de France stage winner.

Which rider won three road race world titles in a row from 2015 to 2017?

Peter Sagan first drew attention as a junior when, having sold his own bike by mistake, he turned up at a Slovak Cup race on his sister's supermarket bike and won anyway.

Which rider quit the 2022 Giro d'Italia after a podium wine cork hit his eye?

Biniam Girmay had just become the first Black African to win a Grand Tour stage when the cork struck; two years later he won three Tour de France stages and its points jersey.

Which Belgian won both the Olympic road race and time trial in 2024?

Remco Evenepoel punctured 3.8 km from the end of the road race, waited for a new bike and still won alone, a week after his time-trial gold: the first man to take both at one Games.

Off-road 'klunker' riding that became a new sport began on which California mountain?

Mount Tamalpais: in the 1970s Marin County riders such as Gary Fisher and Joe Breeze took old balloon-tyre cruisers down its fire roads, and in 1977 Breeze built the first frame designed for the job.

Why were the 1970s Marin County downhill races called 'Repack'?

Repacking burnt coaster-brake bearings: riders braked so hard down Pine Mountain, near Fairfax, that their hubs smoked and burned off the grease, so every run ended with fresh grease being packed back in.

Which 1971 motorcycle documentary is credited with inspiring the BMX movement?

On Any Sunday, Bruce Brown's 1971 motorcycle documentary, opens with southern California kids riding their bicycles like motocross machines, and is credited with sparking BMX.

Which Schwinn model was the natural early choice for BMX racing?

Sting-Ray: Schwinn's 1963 wheelie bike, with 20-inch wheels, a banana seat and high-rise bars, was what kids already rode, so it became the first BMX racer; BMX was a phenomenon by the mid-1970s.

The Race Across America began in 1982 as an invitational event under what name?

The Great American Bike Race had just four riders, organiser John Marino among them; Lon Haldeman won, ABC televised it, and the renamed race soon drew entrants from around the world.

Which 1,200 km French ride, first raced in 1891, is now run every four years with a 90-hour limit?

Paris-Brest-Paris began as a newspaper's race, won by Charles Terront, who passed his last rival as the man slept on the third night; in 1910 a pastry chef made the wheel-shaped Paris-Brest in its honour.

The name of Paris's bike-share Vélib' combines 'vélo' with what word?

Liberté: Vélib' joins vélo and liberté, 'freedom'; riders took that freedom further than planned, and vandalism ran so high that the city agreed to help pay for replacement bikes.

The 1965 White Bicycle Plan, an early bike-share scheme, was launched in which city?

Amsterdam: the Provo movement's Luud Schimmelpennink painted bicycles white and left them unlocked for anyone to use in 1965; police soon confiscated them.

The 1970s Dutch 'Stop de Kindermoord' campaign protested children being killed by what?

Car traffic: Dutch road deaths were running at more than 3,000 a year in the early 1970s, and the protest movement led by Maartje van Putten helped push the country's cities to rebuild their streets around the bicycle.

Which Dutch city opened a 12,500-space bicycle garage, the world's largest, at its main station in 2019?

Utrecht: the garage serves the Netherlands' biggest and busiest railway station, where so many travellers arrive by bike that it took 12,500 racks; it opened fully in August 2019.

Critical Mass began in September 1992 in which city?

San Francisco: the first ride, on 25 September 1992, drew a few dozen cyclists and was billed as the 'Commute Clot' before taking the Critical Mass name.

The name 'Critical Mass' came from a 1992 documentary's account of how cyclists cross junctions in which country?

China: in Ted White's film Return of the Scorcher, designer George Bliss describes riders bunching at a junction until there are enough of them to push through the traffic together.

In the American bike boom of the early 1970s, which type of bicycle did adults rush to buy?

The ten-speed racer led a boom in which Americans bought more bicycles than cars in 1972, 1973 and 1974, before sales suddenly collapsed and left shops full of unsold stock.

The Wright brothers ran a bicycle shop in which Ohio city before building their first aeroplane?

Dayton: the brothers built and sold bicycles of their own design there from 1896, and the shop's income paid for the flying experiments that led to their first powered aeroplane.

Raleigh bicycles are named after a street in which English city?

Nottingham: Richard Woodhead and Paul Angois opened a small workshop on Raleigh Street in 1885; Frank Bowden, who credited cycling with restoring his health, took control of the firm in 1887-88.

Which Raleigh model was named a British design icon in a 2006 BBC and Design Museum quest?

Chopper: its huge sales are credited with rescuing Raleigh from financial trouble, and two men, Raleigh's Alan Oakley and the designer Tom Karen, each later claimed to have drawn it.

Which British folding bike is named after the London church that its inventor's bedroom workshop overlooked?

Brompton: Andrew Ritchie, then a landscape gardener, built the prototypes in a flat facing the Brompton Oratory; when Raleigh declined to license the design, he began making the bikes himself.

Which US bike maker, begun in a Wisconsin barn in 1976, built the bikes Lance Armstrong rode in the Tour de France?

Trek was set up by Dick Burke and Bevil Hogg as a sideline of a Milwaukee appliance distributor, brazing steel touring frames in a red barn at Waterloo that had been a carpet warehouse.

Specialized launched which first major production mountain bike in 1981?

Stumpjumper: Specialized's 1981 model, based on Tom Ritchey's early designs and built in Japan, was the first mass-produced mountain bike, selling for about $750.

Ignaz Schwinn founded his bicycle company in 1895 in which city?

Chicago: German-born Ignaz Schwinn started Arnold, Schwinn & Company with money from the meat packer Adolph Arnold, just as the city was becoming the centre of the American bicycle industry.

Which team was expelled from the 1998 Tour de France after customs officers found doping products in one of its cars?

Festina's Willy Voet was stopped near the Belgian border before the start; the team was thrown out once its director confessed, and riders later staged a sit-down strike over police raids.

The UCI has its headquarters and World Cycling Centre at Aigle, in which country?

Switzerland: the UCI sits close to the Olympic movement's base in Lausanne, and its World Cycling Centre in Aigle fields a development team for which a young Chris Froome once raced.

Cycling's first professional road world title, in 1927, was decided on which German motor-racing circuit?

Nürburgring: professionals and amateurs started together, 55 riders in all, and only 18 were classified after 182 km of the hilly circuit; Alfredo Binda won the first rainbow jersey.

In a track points race, what earns a rider a 20-point bonus?

Lapping the field is worth as much as winning four of the regular sprints, which pay five points each, so riders keep attacking to steal a lap, and anyone who is lapped loses 20.

In track cycling's two-rider relay race, how does a rider bring the partner into the action?

By a sling or push: the resting rider circles slowly up the banking until their partner swings past and hand-slings them into the race, a relay made famous by six-day racing.

Which track event has combined four bunch races since 2017?

Omnium riders once faced six events over two days, timed rides included; since 2017 it has been four mass-start races, the scratch, tempo, elimination and points race.

Britain's oldest cycle track, dug out by hand by the Army in Victorian times, lies in Preston Park in which seaside resort?

Brighton: the track began as a cinder path laid round a cricket pitch, which still sits in the middle; in 1936 it was resurfaced in tarmac and its corners were raised to make racing safer.

What is the racing surface of indoor Olympic cycling tracks, such as London's 2012 venue, made of?

Wood: London's 250-metre track was laid from 56 km of Siberian pine held down by some 350,000 nails, under a designer who had already built the Olympic boards for Sydney and Athens.

What is a tall unicycle with a chain drive commonly called?

Giraffe: a chain carries the drive down from the pedals to the wheel, so the rider no longer has to sit within leg's reach of the axle and the saddle can go as high as the builder dares.

Which classic is the one major one-day race 'the Cannibal' never won?

Paris-Tours: its 1972 winner, Noël Vantyghem, joked that he and the great Belgian had won every classic between them, because he took Paris-Tours and his rival won all the rest.

Bernard Hinault left Renault to join which team late in his career?

La Vie Claire: Hinault joined Bernard Tapie's new team in 1984, won his fifth Tour with it the following year, then retired after finishing second to teammate Greg LeMond.

Bradley Wiggins was born in which Belgian city?

Ghent: Wiggins was born there in 1980 while his father Gary, an Australian track rider, raced the European six-day circuit; he grew up in Kilburn, north-west London.

Who won the 2018 Tour de France ahead of Tom Dumoulin and his own team-mate Chris Froome?

Geraint Thomas started the race with Chris Froome as his team's leader, then won back-to-back Alpine stages to take the lead and kept it, while Froome, the four-time winner, finished third.

Which British rider won Olympic mountain bike gold in both Tokyo and Paris?

Tom Pidcock punctured while leading in Paris and fell some 40 seconds behind France's Victor Koretzky, then chased him down and squeezed past in the closing stages to keep his title.

Which rider was stripped of the 2010 Tour de France after a clenbuterol positive?

Alberto Contador tested positive for a trace of clenbuterol on the 2010 Tour's second rest day; the Court of Arbitration for Sport stripped him of the title in 2012 and Andy Schleck was declared the winner.

Vincenzo Nibali's nickname refers to which strait?

Messina: the 'Shark of the Strait' grew up beside it, then left Sicily at sixteen to spend most of each year in his team director's house in Tuscany so that he could race.

Primož Roglič switched to cycling from which sport?

Ski jumping: Roglič was a junior world team champion in 2007, the year he crashed heavily as a test jumper on Planica's giant hill; he later quit, and reached cycling's top level only in 2016, aged 26.

Primož Roglič won three Vueltas and a Giro with which team before leaving for Bora-Hansgrohe in 2024?

Jumbo-Visma filled the whole podium at the 2023 Vuelta, with Roglič third behind team-mates Sepp Kuss and Jonas Vingegaard; he left soon afterwards and won a record-equalling fourth Vuelta in 2024.

Which Alpine pass has a monument to the Tour de France's founder?

Col du Galibier was so hard on the Tour's first crossing in 1911 that almost the whole field got off and walked; Émile Georget, first to the top, was one of the very few who rode all the way.

The Stelvio Pass, at 2,757 m, is the second highest paved pass in the Alps behind which French col?

Col de l'Iseran, at 2,764 m, tops the Stelvio by just 7 m; when the 2019 Tour crossed it, hail and a mudslide on the road ahead stopped the stage and times were taken at its summit.

Which 2,215 m Pyrenean climb hosted Tour de France summit finishes in 2018 and 2021?

Col de Portet, at 2,215 m above Saint-Lary-Soulan, was a new summit finish in 2018, won by Nairo Quintana, and returned in 2021, won by Tadej Pogačar.

Who won the 2025 Tour de France Femmes a year after Olympic gold in Paris?

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot took the race lead at the summit finish on the Col de la Madeleine and became the first French rider to win a Tour de France, men's or women's, since the 1980s.

Which track cyclist broke her neck in 2008 yet won Olympic silver that year?

Anna Meares fractured a vertebra in a crash in Los Angeles, came back to reach the Beijing sprint final against Victoria Pendleton, and four years later beat the same rival to the gold in London.

Which British Paralympian won five swimming golds, then 14 more as a cyclist by 2024?

Sarah Storey had five swimming golds before she turned 19; she took up cycling only because an ear infection kept her out of the pool, and was still winning Paralympic road titles 32 years after her first Games.

The 1890s bike boom was driven by the safety bicycle and which other invention?

The pneumatic tyre: Dunlop's 1888 air-filled tyre made the safety bicycle comfortable on rough roads, and the two together set off the 1890s boom.

What is the name of Zwift's main virtual world, a fictional island that is the only map always open?

Watopia never closes, while Zwift's other worlds take turns as guest maps, a limit the company keeps so that riders are not spread too thinly and always find company on the road.

The name Strava means 'strive' in which language?

Swedish: the verb is spelled sträva; founders Michael Horvath and Mark Gainey met on Harvard's rowing crew in the 1980s and came back to the idea of an athletes' network together in 2007.

Strava's 2017 Global Heatmap caused a security scare in 2018 when a student noticed it revealed what?

Military bases: an Australian National University student noticed that soldiers' exercise routes lit up the outlines of known American bases in Syria and Afghanistan on the map.

Unbound Gravel, the 200-mile race based in Emporia, was known by what name until 2020?

Dirty Kanza: the Flint Hills race, first run in 2006 with 34 starters, was renamed in 2020 after an online petition objected to 'Kanza', a name for the Kaw Nation.

The Absa Epic, the 'Tour de France of mountain biking', is held in which South African province?

Western Cape: Kevin Vermaak dreamed the race up while riding Costa Rica's La Ruta de los Conquistadores in 2002; riders enter in teams of two and must stay together to be classified.

The Tour Down Under was created in 1999 partly to replace which event lost by Adelaide to Melbourne?

The Australian Grand Prix: Formula One left Adelaide for Melbourne after 1995, and South Australia backed Mike Turtur's new race in 1999; in 2008 it became the first ProTour race outside Europe.

Which bike luggage, named from an Old French word for a bread basket, hangs in pairs beside the wheel?

Panniers began as paired baskets slung over pack animals, and commuter versions now carry laptops or convert into backpacks.

What nickname do cyclists give a bike's smallest chainring, the bailout option for crawling up steep hills?

Granny gear takes some anticipation to use well: it is the tiny inner ring that lets a rider keep spinning on climbs too steep for the others.

Which small generator, often shaped like a bottle and driven by the tyre sidewall, powers a bicycle's lights?

Dynamo is a misnomer here: the bottle-shaped unit is really a low-power magneto that makes alternating current, not the direct current of a true dynamo.

Which bicycle tyre valve type, patented in the United States in 1893, is the same kind fitted to car tyres?

Schrader valves let a rider pump up at any filling station with no adaptor, which the other types found on bicycle tubes cannot do.

Which ratchet mechanism, invented for bicycles by William Van Anden in 1869, lets a rider coast without pedalling?

Freewheel pawls slipping over the ratchet teeth make the familiar clicking sound a bike gives off whenever its rider stops pedalling.

Which bicycle frame style, with a steeply dropped top tube, was designed so riders could wear skirts?

Step-through frames were long sold as ladies' bicycles, and the design now appears on unisex utility bikes because it is so easy to mount.

What shape gives its name to the classic bicycle frame built from a main triangle and a rear triangle?

Diamond frames are so standard that international road-racing rules require a bike of traditional pattern, built around a main triangle.

Which early bicycle brake type, used on penny-farthings, pressed a pad down onto the top of the front tyre?

Spoon brakes fell from favour once air-filled tyres arrived, because the pad quickly wore through their thin casing.

Which bike part, first designed by Albert Berruyer in 1869, props a parked bicycle upright with no wall to lean on?

Kickstand designs come as a single side leg or as a two-legged centre stand that lifts the rear wheel clear of the ground.

Which thin wire rods connect a bicycle wheel's hub to its rim, working under tension rather than compression?

Spokes of tensioned wire replaced heavy wooden ones in the 1870s, giving wheels a far better strength for their weight.

Which bicycle bearing assembly, named in the 1890s, holds the spindle that the pedal cranks turn on?

Bottom bracket was first a literal name: some 1890s designs bolted brackets to the underside of the frame to hold the bearings.

Which set of bearings lets a bicycle's fork and handlebars turn smoothly within the frame?

Headset bearings sit in cups at each end of the head tube, held in place by either a locknut or a clamp, depending on the design.

Which bicycle component, sometimes called a gooseneck, connects the handlebars to the fork's steerer tube?

Stem designs come in two systems: the older quill type slides inside the steerer, while the threadless type clamps around it.

Which term covers every bicycle part that carries the rider's pedalling power to the wheel?

Drivetrain advances have often set off the bicycle's biggest changes of form, and a few machines have even replaced the chain with a shaft.

Which synthetic rubber, better at holding air pressure than latex, is used for most bicycle inner tubes?

Butyl tubes have one odd weakness: carbon dioxide from an inflator cartridge is slightly soluble in rubber, so a tyre filled that way loses pressure faster.

Which special connector lets a cyclist join or split a bike chain by hand, with no chain tool?

Master link designs are also fitted to motorcycle chains, though a chain tool is still needed to shorten a new chain to length.

Which British brand became famous for three-speed gears hidden inside the rear hub of roadster bicycles?

Sturmey-Archer hubs all rely on planetary gear trains, and since 2000 the brand has belonged to Sun Race of Taiwan, where the hubs are now made.

Which American component maker, founded in 1987, made its name with the Grip Shift twist shifter?

SRAM is an acronym built from its founders' names, and the company took its twist-shift idea to the road bike market in 1988.

Which English saddle maker, founded in Birmingham in 1866, is said to have begun after a horse died?

Brooks founder John Boultbee Brooks made horse tack, and by family legend he found a bicycle's wooden seat so uncomfortable that he designed his own.

Which flexible control cable, patented in 1896 by an Irish inventor, works most bicycle brakes and gear shifters?

Bowden cables are often credited to Raleigh's owner Sir Frank Bowden, yet the inventor was Ernest Monnington Bowden and no evidence backs the other claim.

Which Italian maker, the oldest bicycle company still in business, paints its bikes a turquoise called celeste?

Bianchi began in 1885 in a small shop run by a 21-year-old medical instrument maker, and rival myths credit the colour to the local sky or a queen's eyes.

Which curved handlebar style, popular since the 1920s, is the standard fitting on road racing bikes?

Drop bars curve forward and down at each end before turning back toward the rider, which puts the hands in a lower position for speed.

Which road bike style has a long wheelbase and extra mounting points so it can carry heavy luggage?

Touring frames stretch the wheelbase for comfort and for a second reason: so the rider's heels do not strike the bags hung at the back.

Which triathlon-style handlebar extension helped Greg LeMond win the 1989 Tour de France by eight seconds?

Aero bars gave LeMond a lower, narrower tuck on the final day, when he beat Laurent Fignon by 58 seconds to snatch the overall win.

Which training device, adapted for cycling in the late 1980s, measures a road racer's effort in watts?

Power meter readings respond instantly, so a rider doing intervals sees 300 watts at once, where a heart rate takes time to climb.

Which French ski-binding maker launched the first widely used clipless pedal for road bikes in 1984?

Look grew out of Jean Beyl's 1950 Nevada ski binding, and its PP65 pedal did away with the straps that had tied racers' feet in place.

Which road racing tyre has its casing sewn shut and is then glued onto the rim?

Tubular tyres are called tubs in Britain and sew-ups in the US, and mending a flat means unpicking, patching, sewing up and regluing.

Which American bike maker, a pioneer of welded aluminium frames, is named after a Connecticut railway station?

Cannondale borrowed the name of the Metro-North stop in Wilton, and it became a bike maker only once it had learned to jig and weld aluminium.

Which tubing maker, whose steel was ridden to 27 Tour de France wins, launched its 531 frame tubes in 1934?

Reynolds ruled high-end frame building until aluminium and titanium arrived, and it began with an 1897 patent for tubes made thicker at the ends.

Which Treviso bike maker built the Dogma road bikes ridden to Tour de France wins in 2012 and 2013?

Pinarello, founded in 1953, long preferred its magnesium Dogma frames and was slow to follow rivals into all-composite construction.

Which British term names the curved bicycle part, called a fender in America, that keeps road water off the rider?

Mudguard was once at home in American speech too: in 1940 the essayist E. B. White treated fenders as the newer word of the young.

What name do riders outside North America give the pair of training wheels bolted to a child's first bicycle?

Stabilisers stop a bike leaning, so children learn to steer the wrong way, and balance bikes have been replacing them since the late 1990s.

Which chain replacement, a flexible toothed loop popular on commuter bikes, needs no lubrication?

Belt drive loops mostly cannot be taken apart as a chain can, so the frame usually needs an opening in its rear triangle to let one in.

Which basket-and-strap device held a cyclist's shoe on the pedal before step-in bindings took over?

Toe clips are a thin metal or plastic cage fixed to the front of the pedal, and some off-road riders avoid them because a trapped foot is a hazard in a fall.

Which small plate, fitted under the sole of a cycling shoe, locks into a clipless pedal?

Cleat size decides how well a rider can walk: large ones stick out from the sole, while small ones sit in a recess that spares them the ground.

Which bicycle frame member runs diagonally from the steering end to the pedal cranks, usually carrying the bottle cage?

Down tube mounts usually sit on the upper side, and on racing bikes the gear cables run along the tube or hidden inside it.

Which socket-like sleeves, the main joining method for most of the bicycle's history, hold steel frame tubes together?

Lugs gave way to TIG welding from the mid-1990s, as aluminium and composite frames pushed steel out of the mainstream.

What do mechanics call adjusting a wobbling bicycle wheel until it spins straight and round?

Truing cures two faults at once: the sideways wobble and the up-and-down hop of a wheel that is no longer round.

Which slots at the rear of a bicycle frame let the wheel come out without first unhooking the chain?

Dropouts are missing from track bikes, whose rear-opening slots mean the chain must come off the sprocket before the wheel does.

Which removable wheel fastening, threaded into the fork leg on the far side of the hub, suits disc-brake bikes?

Thru-axle designs seat the wheel in exactly the same place every time, which stops the brake rotors from sitting out of line.

In American road hand signals, what does a cyclist's left arm held out with the forearm pointing straight up mean?

Right turn has two signals in most American states: the raised left forearm, or the right arm pointed straight out toward the turn.

Which country, prompted by a surgeons' campaign, became the first to make bicycle helmets compulsory in the early 1990s?

Australia made the change state by state between 1990 and 1992, starting with Victoria, after lobbying by the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.

Which stiff foam, designed to crush on impact, forms the protective liner of most bicycle helmets?

Expanded polystyrene crushes to soften a straight-on blow, but the main standards test only that and ignore the twisting forces of an angled hit.

What nickname was given to the racing helmets of leather-covered rubber bars that were standard until the 1970s?

Hairnet helmets lost their place after 1975, when the first successful hard shell arrived with a crushable liner borrowed from motor racing lids.

Which motor racing helmet maker released the Biker in 1975, the first commercially successful helmet built for cyclists?

Bell began in 1923 as an auto parts shop in Bell, California, and by 1991 its cycling helmets had outgrown the motorsport business that inspired them.

Since March 1999, every bicycle helmet sold in the United States has had to meet which federal agency's standard?

Consumer Product Safety Commission advice also says when to take a helmet off: children should not wear one on playground equipment, where the strap can snag and strangle.

Which helmet-testing foundation is named for a sports car racer who died in 1956 after his helmet failed?

Snell standards were written for motor racing, yet the foundation's B85 of 1985 became the first widely adopted standard for bicycle helmets.

Which rider's fatal crash in a March 2003 stage race led cycling's governing body to make helmets compulsory?

Andrei Kivilev's death succeeded where a 1991 attempt had failed: that first compulsory helmet rule was dropped after the riders went on strike.

Which reinforced edge of a bicycle tyre, made of steel wire or Kevlar, locks under the rim to hold the tyre on?

Bead material decides whether a tyre can be packed small: Kevlar ones bend, so those tyres are sold as foldable.

What are a bicycle frame's small fixed fittings, such as bottle cage mounts and pump pegs, collectively called?

Braze-ons keep the name of the joining method first used to attach them, even on frames where nothing is brazed any more.