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Revolting 69
The Lightning Round.
This episode is like a regular episode but more so. Normally we have a few questions written to keep us from wandering too far off topic. Today there’s no topic. Just…
Video – Lando Steezy
When you love a place, like the city of Manchester, it's because you love the people. The people make the culture. And, Leo Smith reminds me why I love Manchester so much. He's the perfect Mancunian…
TCI Friday
Piggybacking on a conversation we had on The Paceline this week, I'm curious how you feel about the various incarnations of bike riding available to us, riding indoors alone (on a trainer or some…
The Paceline Podcast 321
This week we delve into the merits of riding alone or in a group, inside or out, with a detour to discuss the challenges of introversion. We also have a PSA for some of the male members of the…
Making Sense of Gravel Tires
With the spring looming, now is a good time to consider gravel tire selection. The seasonal change is going to mean all sorts of things to riders in all sorts of places, and choosing the right gravel…
Margin Walkers
I wrote this for Red Kite Prayer in 2013, but the song remains the same in 2023.
I was a middle-class kid, as tormented by boredom as by the peer pressure of my preppy cohort. Bound for college…
How to Choose a Custom Bike Builder
Given my background writing about custom builders and judging bikes at the North American Handmade Bicycle show, I'm often asked not who to pick, but how to pick. (In fact, I'm sometimes asked who to…
Robot’s Useless Reviews – Carbs
'Carb' is a truncation of carbohydrate, but also of carburetor. So we'll engage a little creative disambiguation between these things without ever, even once, thinking about how ambiguous the term…
Featured Posts
Letter from the Editors
The year draws to a close, whether you're done with it or not, and 2022 was a banger here at TCI. Readership grew throughout the year. More people listened to our podcasts. Subscribers subscribed,…
Lost and Unlost
Crater Lake. The Pacific Coast. Ghost towns in the high desert. That's cool, but how can you do so much riding alone? This question is usually followed by a comment like "you're so courageous." I…
The Shirt Off Our Backs
A call to commerce! An unsubtle, attention-grabbing shout out! A gentle plea.
Please witness the arrival of the brand-new, classic Cycling Independent Black t-shirt.
Excuse the smirking…
Letter from the Editors
Hello Friends,
Just us, checking in from the end of summer (unless you're one of our Southern Hemisphere readers...we're not trying to be hemispherist). It's been a busy time for us, Padraig…
Just To Be Alive
I know just enough about bikes to know that I don’t know s#*$ about bikes. And I don’t want the mountain of what I don’t know to ruin the truth of what I do know … which is I f*@%ing love riding my…
The Crash Samaritan
You open your eyes. Disoriented. Dirty. Details are sharp but nonsensical. Rising dust motes. The tick of a spinning freewheel. A dog with five white whiskers licking your arm. The smell of Christmas…
Introducing: Turtle Wandering
A good friend of The Cycling Independent, Elizabeth Allen, has started a really cool new video blog series called Turtle Wandering. In her words, this is the description:
"It is about the places…
Non-Zero Sum Gains
I have been thinking an awful lot about cycling advocacy and inclusivity. Why? Because I dream of a self-powered world, one in which all citizens glide around on a bicycle of one flavor or another. I…
A Year of Shelter
Life changed for us 365 days ago. I doubt you or anyone you know would have been willing to guess that the life you're living today was even possible. It was certainly beyond my imagination, and I…
What We Would Say
I chose cycling because it's the only time I don't feel like a klutz.I chose cycling because I can't stick the ball. I chose cycling because I didn't play team sports.I chose cycling because I'm…
We Need You On This Ride
I'll be brief.
Our primary goal at The Cycling Independent is to make our community as large as we possibly can. Part of that is selfish. We can't continue without your financial support. This is…
Editor’s Letter
Right now you might be thinking, "How can this be an editor’s letter on a website? This isn't print!"
You very well should be thinking that because we’re not just another website with a bunch of…
The Cycling Independent: a Statement of Purpose
The way I tell the story, my love of magazines, of periodic publications, began with Skateboarder Magazine in 1977, but that’s not actually true. I can trace it further back, to Boy’s…
New York to Provincetown
A single day can feel like a month. Processing a massive ride afterwards is like staring at a Salvador Dali painting. Fifty miles dissolves into a blurry moment.
Turns out it took a village…
TCI Friday
Piggybacking on a conversation we had on The Paceline this week, I'm curious how you feel about the various incarnations of bike riding available to us, riding indoors alone (on a trainer or some…
Page One
Shorthand
Here's another one from the Red Kite Prayer days. It's sorta old but still very accurately records my feelings.
We rode along in silence, chains whirring. The sun was only just lumbering up into…
Video – Lando Steezy
When you love a place, like the city of Manchester, it's because you love the people. The people make the culture. And, Leo Smith reminds me why I love Manchester so much. He's the perfect Mancunian…
Making Sense of Gravel Tires
With the spring looming, now is a good time to consider gravel tire selection. The seasonal change is going to mean all sorts of things to riders in all sorts of places, and choosing the right gravel…
Op-Ed
TCI Friday
Piggybacking on a conversation we had on The Paceline this week, I'm curious how you feel about the various incarnations of bike riding available to us, riding indoors alone (on a trainer or some…
TCI Friday
You know the deal. I ask the questions. You give the answers, like an interrogation, but without the bad cop.
As I explained on The Paceline this week, Evel Knievel was primarily responsible for…
TCI Friday
You know how TCIF works by now. I pose a question. You opine. Please begin now.
In 1995, I think I owned three bikes. I had a stainless-steel road bike, my first "real" road bike, an aluminum…
Classified
Robot’s Useless Reviews – Carbs
'Carb' is a truncation of carbohydrate, but also of carburetor. So we'll engage a little creative disambiguation between these things without ever, even once, thinking about how ambiguous the term…
A Useful Review: Shimano Deore XT M8100
For as long as there have been production mountain bikes there has been Shimano's Deore XT group. Few products in cycling can so thoroughly lay claim to setting the standard as Deore XT. For the…
Robot’s Useless Reviews – Quick Release
In the days when you were fixing flats more often, quick release was a real savior. Not only did it save you time, it kept you from having to carry wrenches around with you, which made you .002%…
Talk
Revolting 69
The Lightning Round.
This episode is like a regular episode but more so. Normally we have a few questions written to keep us from wandering too far off topic. Today there’s no topic. Just…
The Paceline Podcast 321
This week we delve into the merits of riding alone or in a group, inside or out, with a detour to discuss the challenges of introversion. We also have a PSA for some of the male members of the…
Revolting 68
The Million Dollar Question. This episode is about what we would do if someone gave us one million dollars to run our websites. This comes from a part of the Clown Car episode, two weeks back, where…