Word: cycliste
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...difference between the two? "Ten minutes," says a store manager in Manhattan, explaining that it takes him 35 minutes instead of 45 to cover his 12-mile commute on his new high-priced cycle. Reason: lighter weight, superior components and a more rigid frame that absorbs less of the cyclist's energy. Most owners of the top models, however, are more concerned with quality and status than winning the racing edge...
...bureaucrats pull on the skintight colors (now available in extra-large sizes) and don crash helmets, they also deck out their cycles with an ever growing array of mileage computers, ergonomically correct seats, gel-filled grips, rearview mirrors and other color-coordinated gadgetry. One hot new gizmo is a cyclist's heart monitor that transmits a continuous pulse readout to a special wristwatch...
MacCready's own thinking skills have served him well. He first won national acclaim in 1977 when his Gossamer Condor, a kitelike affair propelled only by a furiously pedaling cyclist-pilot, flew in controlled flight for more than a mile around a figure-eight course. For that feat, unsuccessfully attempted by dozens of others over the previous 18 years, MacCready won a $95,000 prize from British industrialist Henry Kremer. Two years later the same pilot pedaled an improved version of the ephemeral craft, the Gossamer Albatross, all the way across the English Channel to earn MacCready a second Kremer...
...start with a hang-glider- size plane and triple its size up to a 90-ft. wingspan while keeping its weight the same," MacCready explains, "the power needed to fly it goes down by a factor of three" -- to only about 0.4 horsepower, in fact, which a trained cyclist can generate for many minutes at a time...
SHIFTING SYSTEMS. Changing gears on a ten-speed can be difficult and dangerous. Riders have to look away from the road to see and adjust the shift levers. If a cyclist tries to change gears while standing up to climb a hill, the chain -- and rider -- can slip. "Gear fear" is the main reason why "so many of the ten-speeds that were bought in the cycling boom in the '70s are hanging in garages," says Fred Zahradnik, technical editor of Bicycling magazine. But with new index shifting systems from companies like Shimano of Irvine, Calif., he explains, "you just...