Jon Sparks's Blog

Posted by Jon Sparks

I said in this blog just over a week ago that Cycling can help save the planet. Now here’s what looks like a great way of highlighting this - both the need to get more people cycling, and how easy it is to do. It’s especially relevant to U.S. residents, but the broader message is equally pertinent everywhere.

Clif Bar & Co, makers of some of the best and most natural energy bars you can buy, have launched their 2-Mile Challenge. It’s beautiful in its simplicity; forty percent of U.S. urban travel is over distances of 2 miles or less. In an urban setting, over that sort of distance, it’s been proven time and time again, that bikes are quicker than cars, buses, or any other form of ‘rapid transit’. And, of course, healthier.

Not only do they urge people to use bikes for these short journeys, you can use the website to create a map of your personal 2-mile zone. For many people this encompasses a large slice of their life - any or all of school, work, shops, sports, leisure can be within a 2-mile radius.

They’ve also been running a tour of the Western States (now almost at an end) - with a biodiesel-powered bus. There’s still time to get down to REI in Seattle today (2nd November) or see them at the University of Orgeon, Eugene, tomorrow, November 3rd.

Oh yes: the original Clif Bar is said to have been born after a 175-mile bike ride. You shouldn’t have the same need to refuel during a 2-miler!

Posted by Jon Sparks

In my day job, I'm a professional photographer specialising in landscapes and outdoor pursuits, and of course I'm particularly interested in cycling.

Compared to walking, rock-climbing and mountaineering, which are my other main specialist areas, cycling is definitely harder to photograph properly. I've watched a lot of very good photographers, with broad general experience, struggle with photographing action on bikes. There are two main reasons why:

• 1: You're often photographing individuals, not team action, so you need to get close;
• 2: Most people underestimate the speed even of touring cyclists.

I think this is what lies behind my particular bugbear: even when a professional photographer is employed, a lot of publications end up full of pictures of people standing around with their bikes, not actually riding.You might think, if the professionals struggle, what chance has anyone else got? But as a regular cyclist, you have two great advantages:

• You understand cycling and know what makes great cycling pictures;
• You ride regularly so you're always in the middle of the action.

With these factors on your side, and a few simple pointers on the technique front, you should be able to get images that really do justice to your bicycling experiences. That's why I'm posting the first of a short series of articles on this subject.

Posted by Jon Sparks

You may not have read it here first, but I still think Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize is worth a comment. Former US Vice-President Gore shares the prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in recognition of their work in spreading awareness about the human causes of climate change and the need for far-reaching action to combat it.

I watched Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth recently. There have been (disputed) allegations that it contains a few factual errors but this barely dilutes the overall impact. As its focus is mostly on understanding the causes and consequences of climate change, rather than what we need to do about it, there’s only a brief mention of cycling at the end.

Last week a Committee of UK Members of Parliament produced a report on another growing problem, that of obesity. One of their recommendations was that the Government should do more to ensure that it meets its existing target of trebling the number of people who cycle by 2010.

Whether anything will actually happen remains to be seen, but I do get a sense, at least here in the UK and across Europe, that more and more people are becoming aware of the far-reaching consequences of a culture that, for far too long, has been excessively focused on the car. Cycling is not the only answer but it can have a big role to play in improving both our own health and that of the planet.

Posted by Jon Sparks

Some people may feel that, being of the ‘wrong’ gender, I’m not qualified to comment on the subject of bicycles for women. Well, it’s arguable, but I’m going to risk it anyway. It’s a major subject, of course, and in the near future I’ll be posting several linked articles.

I don’t think there’s much doubt that the development of practical, rideable bicycles played an important role in the emancipation of women in the late 19th and early 20th century. That being so, it seems doubly regrettable that women are still in a minority among active and serious cyclists. It’s certainly true that probably at least eighty percent of the riders I see on main roads, country lanes and mountain bike trails in my part of the world are male.

The reasons for this are complex, and all sorts of social factors may be involved. But I can’t help wondering if one factor that stops more women becoming more actively involved in cycling is, or has been, the difficulty of finding bikes, and other kit, that are appropriately designed and comfortable and efficient to ride. Which is where I’ll start this series of articles, in particular by looking at some basic frame designs.

Posted by Jon Sparks

A new bicycle speed record has recently been set in Chile. 33 year old Austrian Markus Stoeckl clocked an incredible 210.4 km/h (130.7 mph) on a snow-slope in the Chilean Alps. While faster speeds have been reached in streamlined capsules, this speed was attained on a conventional Intense bike with Shimano components - including off-the-shelf disc brakes to bring the flying Stoeckl safely to a halt. Conditions were far from optimum on the 2000-metre long, 45-degree slope and it seems certain that the record can and will be surpassed in the near future.

Although extremely impressive, to me such gravity-assisted record-breaking seems a bit of a sideshow compared to the speeds that can be reached on level ground by pure muscle-power - see an earlier article for more on this.