The Circle City Bicycles blog contains info on bicycles, cycling events, pro racing, bicycle touring, and just about anything else cycling related. Since our bike shop is located in Indianapolis, we focus on biking in the Midwest, but cycling fans anywhere in the world should find this blog interesting. We try to post daily Monday through Friday, but we occasionally miss a day. Each Friday we try to have an interesting bicycle related photo.
Church of Epiphany in the Russian city of Yaroslavl
If you are looking for a bicycle tour in Russia, you may be interested in an offering from the Russian Cycle Touring Club. Their Golden Ring of Russia Tour has been an annual event for international cyclists since 1996. It is a 12 day, 11 night trip with 10 days of cycling. The daily mileages are rather modest, so their is plenty of time for sight-seeing. The longest day is 55 miles, but most daily distances are closer to 40 miles. The route visits the area north and east of Moscow. It travels through some old, picturesque towns, many with the distinctive Russian style architecture. There are two UNESCO World Heritage Sites on the way, Suzdal and Yaroslavl.
There are two options for the tour: budget and comfort. For 2017 the dates are July 2-13 for the budget tour and August 6-17 for the comfort tour. The budget tour stays in modest hotels and cabins, while the comfort tour stays in nicer hotels. The budget tour costs 1,250 euros ($1,325) and the comfort tour is 1,450 euros ($1,537). The Australian bicycle magazine Ride On rates the tour as one of the World's Top 50 Riding Experiences. Here's a 13 minute video of the 2010 tour:
Used bike with titanium fame & Dura-Ace components for $800
I want to remind everyone that Circle City Bicycles also sells used bicycles. Generally, these are in the $100 - $200 range (great for commuting), but sometimes we have nicer bikes available. Right now is one of those times. We have an older (1997) Mongoose with a titanium frame and Dura-Ace components available for only $800 (original price was over $3000). It's a 52 centimeter frame, so it fits a smaller person, probably someone in the 5' 4" to 5' 6" range.
If you have a used bike (no department store bikes) to sell, stop by and let us take a look at it. We'll look it up on Bicycle Blue Book to get an idea what it should sell for.
I found this photo while surfing the Cycle Greece website. If you click on the link that says "flickr photo gallery,' it takes you to photos from their trips. Whoever does the photos for them must like cats. Three of the first five photos have cats in them.
Here's something I hadn't seen before - Zip lines for bicycles. It's located in The Chocolate Hills Adventure Park in Bohol, Philippines. The video was shot by the Family Adventure Project. They describe it as "Probably the strangest bike ride you will ever do. There is a steel cable above and one below the bike. If you are wondering how they stay on the bottom cable, the tires have been removed and they are riding on the rims. Here's the video:
Turn the handlebars to the right and the front wheel turns to the left
This week's video is an interesting one from Smarter Every Day. Welders at a shop added a couple gears onto a bike such that the front wheel moved in the opposite direction of the handlebars. Destin Sandlin, the guy behind Smarter Every Day, tried to ride it, and found it was impossible. Unwilling to give up, he tried to ride it for 5 minutes every day. After eight months he was finally able to ride it.
He then went to the Netherlands, where he tried to ride a normal bike, after learning to ride a backwards bike. It took him 20 minutes before he was able to ride it. Here's the video, which is about 8 minutes long:
