Columbus Rides Bikes!

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Huilo Huilo - Bikepacking for Beginners from Robohorse TV on Vimeo .

A study by Cambridge University scientists has shown that you gain more health benefits from cycling to work than you sustain damage from the air pollution. The levels of air pollution, especially in the UK’s biggest towns and cities, is  often cited as a reason  why people do not take two-wheeled transport to work and is blamed for causing 10,000 deaths per year. The study, published  in  Preventative Medicine ,  claims that only one per cent of cities around the world would have air pollution levels high enough to negate the benefits of active travel. [Keep reading at Cycling Weekly]

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SRAM's  12-speed Eagle proves that a one-by drivetrain can match or better the range of a multiple-chainring transmission, which in turn, has doused any hopes that the front derailleur's smoldering embers will ever be rekindled. Eagle was a must for the Chicago-based parts maker, because its premier XX1 ensemble could not match the range of Shimano's sharp-shifting two-by drivetrains, and descriptors like "virtually," "similar to," or "nearly," are not the vocabulary of a winning team. The addition of a 50-tooth cog to its 10 by 42, eleven-speed cassette provides a 500-percent gearing spread, which exceeds Shimano XTR and XT's ranges and thus, should silence all doubters, even the staunchest two-by holdouts in Germany. That twelfth cog, however, may have consequences that reach beyond range and MSRP. [Keep reading at PinkBike]

If you rent a bike from Citi Bike in New York this week (and look carefully) you might notice something new: some of the bikes are now made in Detroit. The company that manages the bike-share program—along with many of the other major bike-share networks in the country—has decided to start manufacturing bicycles in the U.S. In part, that's because bike share is growing quickly, and Motivate, the company that runs the programs, wanted to be able to respond equally quickly with production. As recently as two years ago, bike share was struggling; Motivate, then known as Alta, was on the verge of bankruptcy, and it wasn't clear if fledgling bike-share fleets would all survive. Executives from Equinox and Related  took over the company , renamed it, and turned things around. [Keep reading at Fast Coexist]