Bicycle Parts and Components:

Speed: Bicyle Parts from shifters to derailleurs and crank arms to bottom brackets must be designed to operate like a finely tuned engine. Bearings need to run smooth and gears need to shift lightening fast to satisfy your and my needs for speed.

Strength: Bicycle handlebars, crank arms and wheel rims are the bicycle parts that need to have the most strength. Bunny hopping stresses all these components, the cranks take all my weight, and handlebar fatique sent me into a rock face.... so knowing what to buy if you like to stretch the capacity of your bicycle to the limit may save you money in the long run.

Reliability: There's nothing more frustrating then seeing your buddies going off in the distance while you perform the miracle of road side repair, so reliable bicycle parts rule. Finding out your seat tube can't handle your weight 10 miles from home is not the most pleasant return ride.

Wheels are my passion! So I'm sharing with you all the things I have learnt while training, racing and tuning my mountain bike as the toy that burns off countless amounts of frustration after studying my engineer textbooks!

I've also included a little information about Cycling in Italy. If you have time to travel this is an awesome opportunity with routes for all types of bikers from casual to suicidal. Just make sure you know which is which. It's nice if you come home alive.

For those sick minds, that take any learning curve further than most, I've also include a small amount of basic information about the materials that are used in constructing the typical bicycle components; steel, aluminum, carbon fiber and titanium etc.

Bicycle parts are getting increasing sophisticated and it is getting harder to understand the various subtleties of 2014 vs 7075-T6 aluminum for instance, that I thought this might be interesting. So here's the basic information from my last class on material science.