Winter cyclists not only need special types of clothing for their cold weather bike rides, but they need to understand how their various layers of clothing are meant to overlap and inter-work with each other. This video demonstrates one technique for dressing for the bike in cold-weather winter conditions. The clothing system detailed in this video will allow you to cycle in temperatures that range from 32 to -40 degrees Fahrenheit (0 to -40 degrees Celsius).

Got any other hints, tips, or suggestions for riding your bicycle during the cold winter months? Leave a comment below!

There is an certain amount of risk any time you decide to venture from the safety of your own home. By participating in a bicycle tour (whether it be a short bike ride near your house or a trip that takes you to a foreign land on the other side of the world), you are going to expose yourself to several potential dangers.

Some of these dangers include:

• Vehicle traffic and the chance that you might be involved in an accident.
• People who wish to do you harm (robbers, perverts, etc).
• Wild animals.
• Pesky insects.
• Exposure to the elements (rain, snow, heat, etc).

These dangers, however, are usually easy to avoid with proper education, planning and preparation.

In fact, these external dangers are minimal in comparison to the mental challenges that you, as a long-distance cyclist, will need to overcome in order to complete your two-wheeled adventure.

While car traffic, wild animals, and axe-murders are the things we, as human beings, tend to fear the most, the true dangers of bicycle touring are the mental blocks that we carry around with us all the time.

These mental blocks include, for example:

• Not being able to mentally handle the demands of riding a bicycle for days on end.
• The fear of the unknown.
• The fear of being alone.
• The fear of other people.
• Not knowing how to manage your time.
• Not knowing how to manage your money.

The question, therefore, shouldn’t be, “Is bicycle touring dangerous?” But instead, “Is bicycle touring any more dangerous than taking a short spin by bike around your home city?”

In most cases, the answer to that question is “no.”

Bicycle touring (whether it be in your home country or in a nation on the other side of the world) is a relatively safe means of travel. And like so may other things in life, your safety when traveling by bike is going to depend upon:

• Where exactly you choose to go.
• The time of year in which you plan to travel.
• Your ability to interact with other people.
• Whether you decide to travel alone or with others.
• Your capabilities as a cyclist.
• Your navigational skills (or lack thereof).
• How well you spend your time and money.
• Your mental ability to solve problems and overcome challenges.
• And, of course, simple common sense.

Outside of the inherent pain that comes with riding a bicycle over long distances, your safety as a bicycle traveler is largely up to you. And for those few potential dangers that exist outside yourself (like traffic, scary people, wild animals, and bad weather), there are things you can do, steps you can take, and lessons you can learn, that will enable you to tackle any of these obstacles should you encounter them on your travels.

Photo by Paul Krueger

There are few options when it comes to mounting a bell on a bicycle with dropped handlebars. The Incredibell Road Bell by the Mirrycle Corporation in Boulder Colorado, however, is one bell specifically designed to fit on Shimano STI road levels.

This tiny, dinging bell has a dome diameter of just 28mm and a price tag of just $11.00 USD.

The bell comes mounted in the right-hand position, but if you are left-handed rider and would prefer to have the bell on the left side of your bike, you can flip the thumb lever around with just a small adjustment prior to installation.

To install the bell, you first have to determine what type of shifters you have on your bicycle. Then, using the small chart that is included with the bell itself, determine whether or not you need to install any of the extra shims or screws (included with the product) that are needed to match the bell with the specific type of levers you have on your bike. Luckily, my Fuji Touring bicycle, which has Tiagra levers, did not need any extra parts prior to installation, so I was able to skip this step.

After you’ve checked the compatibility chart and followed the instructions for installing any extra pieces that might need to be applied, pull off the top of your lever’s rubber hood. Then, slide the bell onto the exposed brake lever clip (see photos belows). Once you’ve slid the bell into postion on the lever clip, carefully slide in and tighten the small cap screw with the included 2.5mm hex wrench. This cap screw will work to keep the bell held in place while you ride.

Finally, pull the rubber hood of your levers up over the clip on the back of the bell base until it is tight and secure.

Installing this mirror can be a bit tricky, but once you have it in place it’s ready to go and you won’t have to mess with it… to much.

Best Things About This Bell

In the end, the best thing about the Incredibell Road Bell is that it is so incredibly unique. I’ve never seen another bell like it in all my life. The fact that there is even a bell on the market for people who ride with dropped handlebars is pretty impressive. Unlike traditional bike bells, which are mounted onto the handlebars themselves, this bell is mounted in such a position that it is completely out of the way as you ride, so it doesn’t compromise any of your various hand positions. This is a huge plus for any road or touring cyclist.

The design of the mount for the bell is unique as well. If I had been the designer of such a bell I don’t think I ever would have thought to place the mount under the rubber hood of my levers. Very cool!

Worst Things About This Bell

That said, I do have some reservations about this bell overall.

First of all, the bell is somewhat difficult to install. There are installation directions that come with the product itself and all the neessary parts are also included, but figuring out how to mount the bell with all the different shims and screws can be a bit of a pain. But this is to be expected when a product such as this tries to be compatible with a number of different types of levers made by different companies in different shapes and sizes, etc. The fact that the bell works with so many different types of levers should be commended.

My other big criticism about this bell is that even once it is installed it doesn’t seem to fit on the bike all that well. Once installed, the rubber hood (now propped up over the bell base) sticks up and looks a bit strange. On occasion, while testing this bell, the rubber hood would slip out of position and I’d have to stop the bike and wrestle it back over the top of the bell base. Even when I saw this bell at last year’s Interbike trade show in Las Vegas, Nevada, the rubber hood on the back of the levers was out of place – and this was on the product as it was on display at a huge industry event. This tells me that while the design is certainly unique, there is still some work to be done before it is entirely perfect.

My Overall Impression:

After using this bell on my touring bike for a number of weeks I feel safe to say that the bell works and the design is certainly unique. However, I think the position of the bell itself and the design of the base clip need some extra thought. And more importantly, I wonder about the need for a bell of any type on bikes with dropped handlebars. Most people riding with drops are probably more concerned with speed and aerodynamics than they are about ringing a bell at the people in front of them. For the touring market, a product like this might be very much appreciated, but I don’t know how many bells I’m going to see in the road cycling crowd.

My Rating: 7 Out Of 10

More information can be found at: www.mirrycle.com

Additional photos below:

The product featured here was sent to Bicycle Touring Pro at no expense for the purpose of this review.

If you’re even the slightest bit concerned about your safety when traveling by bike, you should consider getting yourself a Road ID.

Road ID is kind of like a military dog tag, used in the event of an emergency to contact your loved ones and help medical professionals quickly diagnose your situation. Unlike a military dog tag, however, the Road ID has been designed specifically with runners, cyclists and similar athletic individuals in mind. The basic premise behind the Road ID is that there is a small stainless steel tag, on which your name, contact phone numbers, and medical history is engraved. You can see my name, date of birth, home city, contacts and medical history engraved on the Shoe ID above. I have blurred out the phone numbers for privacy reasons.

The idea behind the Road ID is that in the event of an accident (you being hit by a car, attacked by a dog, passing out, etc) someone will come along and find you, see your Road ID, and instantly know who to contact.

The Road ID is especially important for individuals who have specific health conditions. With the Road ID, you can engrave just about anything you want on it, so if you have a specific health condition, be sure to include that information on your ID. Then, when medical personnel find you during an emergency, they’ll know how to treat you and won’t waste any precious time trying to figure out what’s wrong with you or how to treat your condition.

The Road ID comes in a number of different designs (including products for your wrist, ankle, and around your neck), but the Road ID featured here is the Shoe ID.

The Shoe ID consists of the regular metal identification tag featured on the other Road ID products. But instead of wrapping around your wrist or ankle (which some people may not like), the Shoe ID uses a small Velcro strap to wrap itself around the laces of your shoe and stay in place while you go about your day.

The Shoe ID is super lightweight (you won’t notice it at all) and is easy to install. (See the photos below for instructions on how to secure the Shoe ID to your shoe and see a picture of the Shoe ID in place on one of my favorite pairs of shoes.)

At $19.99 USD, the Shoe ID from Road ID is a no-brainer. This is the type of product you hope you’ll never have to use, but if something horrible were to ever happen to you while on your travels or even around your home, this inexpensive piece of emergency gear could literally save your life!

For more information on the Shoe ID and to see the other Road ID models that are available to you, please visit www.roadid.com.

In recent years I’ve become increasingly interested in “The Great Helmet Debate”. My interest has come largely due to the fact that every time I post a photo of myself riding a bike without a helmet (I do that sometimes – not always), I tend to get a flood of comments/criticism about my lack of head gear.

Coming from America, I’m pretty used to this. It’s practically a sin, it seems, for an American cyclist to go out on a bike ride without a helmet on his or her head. And it seems to be even more common for a cyclist like myself to be berated about the lack of head protection when in contact with other American cyclists.

In Europe (and many other parts of the world), however, where cycling is viewed as more of a “lifestyle” activity (rather than as a “sport” like it is here in the United States), wearing a helmet is somewhat of a rarity. It seems that helmet use in the European Union is often times limited to two major groups: toddlers learning to ride and hard-core professional cyclists.

Now, this article isn’t really about whether or not I personally believe bicycle helmets to make us as cyclists any safer (although you can probably feel some of my uncertainty on the matter). Instead, the purpose of all this is to tell you about a recent article I read on Cracked.com titled, “5 popular Safety Measures That Don’t Actually Make You Any Safer.” In the article, bicycle helmets are discussed at great length… and this is what the people at Cracked had to say:

Safety equipment on vehicles creates a kind of weird Catch-22. On one hand, you can show in the laboratory that anti-lock brakes do make cars stop faster. Bicycle helmets do protect a skull when it hits the pavement. But then you factor in the element of human behavior — namely, the fact that most of us are insane — and much of that goes out the window.

It starts with something called the Peltzman effect which Almighty Wikipedia defines as “the hypothesized tendency of people to react to a safety regulation by increasing other risky behavior, offsetting some or all of the benefit of the regulation.”

This fits in with what the Highway Loss Data Institute learned about anti-lock brakes. A 10 year study showed no reduction in the frequency or severity of crashes due to anti-lock brakes. A person in an ABS vehicle actually has a 45 percent greater chance of dying in a single-vehicle crash than someone without ABS. Science’s explanation? Unskilled drivers driving more aggressively thanks to their false sense of security.

Likewise, there are multiple studies showing that bicycle helmets, in the long run, don’t actually reduce the number of injuries. In 2006 a researcher in Bath, England posted up the results of a study showing that when bicyclists wear safety equipment like helmets, people in cars are more likely to hit them. A scientist/test subject found that motorists came an average of 3.35 inches closer to his bike when he rode protected. The sight of the safety gear turned off the common sense part of their brain.

Still, you’d think that in the long run, there’d have to be health benefits to head protection. After all, some countries, like Australia, have made helmets mandatory for all cyclists. A bunch of states in the U.S. have bike helmet laws, and the fight for helmet laws in other states rages on. Some people think it’s weird that the government can tell you what kind of hat to wear during a certain activity, but at least bike fatalities have gone down. They have gone down, right?

Not according to science. Recent studies from Australia suggest that mandatory helmet laws have the opposite effect. Between 1982 and 1989 — prior to the helmet laws — the country saw its number of cyclists double (bicycles actually give pedestrians a decent chance of outrunning the crocodiles and flying jellyfish). You’d expect bike-related injuries and fatalities to have shot up during the same period.

Instead, they dropped — deaths plummeted by 48 percent, while injuries fell 33 percent. This seems a little counter-intuitive until you account for human behavior. More people riding bikes leads to motorists who get used to sharing the road with them. But then, in 1992, they passed the laws making bike helmets mandatory. It was a disaster. 1995 and 1996 saw higher numbers of cyclist head injuries than any year prior to the law’s passage.

How is that possible? Well, the fashion consequences of mandatory helmets caused the women of Australia to stop cycling. Apparently they valued the hair on their head more than the brain inside it. Since there weren’t any girls to impress, the boys stopped cycling too.

When cyclists are rarer, motorists are less likely to be on the lookout for them, so there are more accidents. And — to make it even worse — you lose the health benefits you were getting from cycling. In total, Macquarie University found that Australia’s helmet laws cause as much as half a billion dollars in health-related costs every year. It doesn’t matter what kind of data you get from a helmeted crash test dummy; a real human just doesn’t want to look like a dork.

While the Cracked article is obviously supposed to be of a humorous nature, I think the information presented makes a whole lot of sense. But I wanna hear what you have to say.

Do you believe that mandating helmet use lowers the number of cyclists on the road, which in turn increases the number of accidents? And do you think wearing a helmet makes you more or less likely to be involved in an accident? Let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment below. Be nice!

Photo by Let Ideas Compete