By John S. Allen, CRW Safety Coordinator

Let's look into principles which support good braking skills.

Safest against skidding is no braking at all. The force vector (blue arrow) due to the weight of rider and bicycle extends directly downward from the center of mass. Its length is scaled here so that the weight takes it from the center of mass to the ground.

And the most conservative braking on a bicycle is with the rear brake alone. Using it alone is unlikely to result in a fall. The rear wheel may skid, but the front wheel continues to roll, and the rider can steer to maintain balance. Rear braking is weak, though. Using the rear brake alone can result in failure to slow or stop in time.

Why does the rear wheel skid?

The center of mass of bicycle and rider is high above the road surface. They want to continue moving forward but the force slowing them is down is at the road surface. So, braking places more weight on the front wheel and less on the rear wheel. When rear braking overcomes the reduced traction of the rear tire, it begins to skid.

Using the rear bake alone is the safe option though when riding on a slippery surface. That is, as long as you go slowly enough!

The blue force vector in the image below, as in the earlier image, represents the weight of rider and bicycle. The green vector is the force of deceleration due to braking. The red one is their vector sum, combining the downward force of gravity and the forward force of deceleration. This vector reaches the ground closer to the front wheel than the one from gravity alone, reflecting a transfer of weight from the rear wheel to the front wheel.

On a good, paved surface, rear-wheel braking lightens the weight on the rear wheel considerably, and skidding becomes a serious problem. A single stop can wear a flat spot in the tread of the rear tire. Long skid marks left by bicyclists provide ample evidence of this issue.

Those long skid marks also testify that the rear brake is very hard to modulate. To understand this, it helps to look into how friction works.

Skid marks at a Chicago intersection. The right-hook threat here is grist for another article! 

Sliding vs. static friction

Braking is about friction, of two kinds: sliding and static. Sliding friction is only about 70% as strong as static friction. So, when a wheel goes from rolling to skidding (static to sliding),braking decreases by about 30%. 

The tire must re-establish static friction to get rolling again. At the same time, to allow the wheel to turn, the brake must go from static friction to sliding friction. The two effects, together, require about a 50% reduction in brake-lever force to get the wheel rolling again. When it does start rolling again, braking is only half as strong.

Reducing force on the lever slightly would intuitively seem to get the rear wheel rolling, but it does not. Reducing force on the lever by half, then restoring it to nearly what it was before, is highly counterintuitive.The required rapid, precise control of the brake lever is impossible in practice.

Rear-brake bicycle culture

Just as with a rear hand brake, a foot-controlled rear brake -- a coaster brake -- is hard to control because of the static-vs.-sliding friction issue. A bicycle with a fixed gear -- no freewheeling -- gives more "road sense" than a coaster brake when the rider is pushing back against turning pedals, but the braking force rises and falls twice per crank rotation. At the top and bottom dead centers, there is almost no braking. The only continuous strong braking on a brakeless fixed-gear bicycle is with a "skip stop". The feet are planted on stationary pedals, the rear wheel skids and the tire wears out quickly.

Expectations about brake performance shape bicycle culture. Countries where coaster brakes are usual, or were till recently, have a conservative culture of slow riding and separation of bicyclists from motor traffic. Hipsters who ride brakeless fixed-gear bicycles go to the opposite extreme, addressing their poor braking performance through denial and risk-taking. Good use of dual handbrakes is more compatible with bicyclists' operating as normal road users. In any case, a bicycle should have two independent braking systems, because one or the other will fail sooner or later.

Two brakes

Conventional advice to bicyclists with front and rear hand brakes is to use the two brakes equally. So, now let's introduce the front brake.

Equal use of the brakes is usually safe. It can, though, skid the front wheel and result in a fall on a slippery surface or when leaning into a turn.

Equal force on both brake levers reduces stopping distance compared with use of the rear brake only, but braking still has to weaken substantially to take the rear wheel from skidding to rolling. 

Equal use of the brake does make the best sense on a long downgrade, so neither brake overheats. 

Front brake only?

It's heresy, but it's fine for moderate, straight-ahead braking on a good pavement and not riding into a slippery patch.

With only the left hand on a brake lever, you can shift a rear derailer or internally-geared hub as you slow down. This is very practical when approaching a stop sign or red traffic signal.

Anti-lock bicycle brakes?

A motor vehicle with anti-lock braking keeps each wheel rolling by using repeated, very brief skidding to test the limit of static friction. That is why the car shudders in hard braking. ABS also controls the level of braking separately on each wheel. For these reasons, a car with ABS can stop shorter than one without.

ABS on motor vehicles uses electronics to detect the rotational rate of the wheels. ABS is also available on motorcycles, and on some high-end e-bikes. A purely hydraulic system using pumps in the hubs might be practical on a pedal bicycle, but for now, that is just a thought.

A bicycle has braking advantages?

So, you might then ask, does the lack of ABS amount to total loss for bicyclists?

No. I count five compensating advantages of a bicycle:

• A bicycle only rarely attains high speeds typical of motor vehicles.

• Reaction time can be shorter with the hands covering the brake levers than with a foot that travels from the accelerator pedal to the brake pedal. 

• A bicyclist has an unobstructed view ahead, and no hood extending forward. 

• With dual brake levers, a bicyclist has separate control over the brake on each of the (only two) wheels.

• A bicycle’s short wheelbase and high center of mass set the limit to front-wheel braking at pitchover rather than skidding.

Four of those features make good intuitive sense, but is the pitchover threat also an advantage? 

The image below shows a bicyclist who has applied the front brake hard enough to raise the rear wheel. The blue force vector, as in the earlier images, represents the weight of rider and bicycle. The green one is deceleration due to braking. The red one, their vector sum, points ahead of the front-tire contact patch. If this vector reaches the ground ahead of the front wheel, as it does here, the rear wheel will rise. Only quick reflexes to release the front brake will prevent pitchover once this happens.

(The weight and combined vectors in the image do not reach the ground because they represent the same forces as in the earlier images, and the weight stays the same.)

Applying the advantages of bicycle brakes in hard braking

Well, the situation looks tough, but let's look at the advantages one by one and see how they can work for you.

The first advantage, lower speed, works even better than intuition would suggest.. At half the speed, perception and reaction distance is half as long. But braking distance is proportional to the square of speed, a quarter as long at half the speed. Even a bicyclist with only a rear brake has about the same braking distance at 15 mph as a car has at 25.

Shorter reaction time, unobstructed view, no hood -- all effectively reduce stopping distance

Separate control of the front and rear brakes can prevent overuse of the front brake, avoiding front-wheel skidding on a slippery surface. But overuse of the front brake still can result in pitchover.

But that pitchover risk can actually be an advantage! It allows safe use of the front brake much more strongly.

The front wheel will never skid in hard, straight ahead braking on a good, paved surface. As braking increases, more and more weight transfers from the rear wheel to the front wheel. When there is little weight on the rear wheel, only a very light application of the rear brake is enough to make it skid. Then, modulating the front brake easily adjusts the weight on the rear wheel enough to take it back and forth between sliding and rolling friction -- a useful signal to modulate the front brake.

This completely transforms the conditions for ABS, making human control possible. The modulation rate is within human abilities, using weight transfer of the entire bicycle-and-rider system, rather than rotational speed of the front wheel.

In hard braking, the weight on the rear wheel changes proportionally much more than that on the front wheel. So, for example, if the front wheel goes from carrying 70% to 80% of the weight of bicycle and rider, that is an increase of 14% in weighting. Meanwhile, the rear wheel goes from carrying 30% to 20%, a 33% decrease. 

With light weight on the rear tire, skidding wears it only lightly. Braking this hard is in any case needed only for emergency stops.

How to be human ABS

Increasing braking safely up to where most weight is on the front wheel does take a second or so. For that reason, using the rear wheel's signal to modulate the front brake is practical only at higher speeds. At low speeds, it is necessary just to know how hard it is safe to apply the front brake. The amount of deceleration felt through the arms provides a clue. Braking distance is in any case much shorter at low speeds. Pitchover is slower, too. so it is possible to get the rear wheel back down. It should be second nature to release the brakes whenever the bicycle starts to go out of control.

For a bicycle with dual handbrakes in good condition and an expert rider, on a good, dry paved surface, maximum deceleration, about 0.5g, is achieved mostly with the front brake. (One g is the force of gravity.) For a car with ABS, maximum deceleration is about 0.8g. So, at any speed, the bicycle has about 1.6 times the braking distance. That translates, though, only to a bicycle’s having the same braking distance when going 60% as fast as a car, say 18 mph instead of 30.

The image below shows a bicyclist at the limit of braking short of pitchover. The vector sum of weight and deceleration is at the front-tire contact patch. The force from deceleration is about half the force of gravity, 1/2 g. The rider could improve this somewhat by sliding back on the saddle, though the forward location of the brake levers on this bicycle with drop bars makes that option less practical than on a bicycle with flat bars.

Direct, mechanical control to release the front brake when the rear wheel lifts has been invented and reinvented repeatedly, and is currently (2026) available on at least one brand of children's bicycles. I have not tested it myself.

Condition of the machine

It should be needless to say, but good braking requires the brakes to be in top condition. Braking needs to be smooth and even. A rim spread wider by a pothole impact should be replaced. Brakes wear and need adjustment, unless they are self-adjusting hydraulic brakes, which need frequent inspection because they offer no sign that they are worn out. A brake lever should not go all the way to the handlebar. But also, the brake should engage when the lever is depressed only slightly, so it is not a "jiu-jitsu" lever where nothing happens till the lever is halfway to the handlebar, then it grabs, and you skid or go over the handlebars.

Handlebar choreography

In the USA, it is standard for a bicycle's left brake lever to operate the front brake. The conventional explanation is that most people are right-handed and the right hand is stronger. That makes little sense. People manage to play musical instruments using both hands, after all. As already mentioned, it is convenient to shift down while using the front brake. And on an e-bike the throttle also is on the right

Most hand signals are with the left hand, but braking with only one hand on the handlebar is not a good idea anyway. In any case, hand signals are rarely necessary when braking. 

If you think of hand signals as communication rather than just announcements, you coordinate it comfortably with braking. A turn signal is usually a request to be let into line, when riding at a steady speed. Once the correct lane position is established, turning is usually obvious from lane position, or you are stopped and both hands are free. A slow signal usually serves to inform a motorist or another bicyclist that passing is unsafe; shifting is usually unnecessary then.

Stopping pedaling indicates that you are slowing (one more reason to keep pedaling on an e-bike unless you are slowing or stopping.)

Note however that the left-hand lever of a motorcycle operates the clutch, while the right-hand lever operates the front brake and throttle. If you also ride a motorcycle, you do well to switch the brake cables on your bicycle. Once good braking technique is burned into muscle memory, a machine with the front brake on the wrong side feels as if the brakes are defective!

More about braking from Sheldon Brown, who recommends operating the front brake with the right-hand lever. And it works differently in countries where traffic keeps left, too. Different spokes for different folks!

By Lorenz J. Finison, Club Historian

For CRW's 60th anniversary, WheelPeople and Club Historian Lorenz J. Finison are taking a look back through the club's history. This article is the first half of an article originally published in November 2016's issue of WheelPeople under the title "The Early Days of the Charles River Wheelmen: Part 3."

In March 1972 the Charles River Wheelmen (CRW) newsletter headlined “A Massachusetts Bicycle Trail System!” Two state legislators, John Ames and Bob Wetmore, had cosponsored a bill to mandate trails in every county of the state. CRW announced plans for a “huge ride to the State House” to support the bill. In August, CRW members rode out to Marlboro to escort a Pittsfield-to-Boston Pedal Against Pollution trek in support of bike paths and lanes. Bike facility proponents, like CRW founders George and Bruce Bailey, were also opponents of increased highway construction: specifically the never-built “Inner-Belt” and the I-95 extension from Route 128 to Boston via the also never-built Southwest Highway. Better to travel, as they did, by bike or multi-modally train and bike. Bicycle manufacturers, too, were hot on the idea of bikeways. Starting in 1966 the Bicycle Institute of America published a nationally circulated newsletter Boom in Bikeways.

What happened to CRW’s foray into bike facilities in the decade after its 1966 founding? Reactions to the Ames-Wetmore bill and others must be understood in the context of auto dominance, the rise of vehicular cycling, and the inadequacies of 1960’s-era bike paths.

Historically, successful cycle paths – early roadside paths called sidepaths, not sidewalks – developed in scattered pockets around the United States, especially in rural upstate New York. Robert McCullough’s book, Old Wheelways: Traces of Bicycle History on the Land, traces the sidepath movement during the bicycle Craze of the 1890s and its decline during the bicycle Bust, post-1900. Boston cyclists of the Craze tried to get bike paths and trails across Boston Common, in Franklin Park, around the Emerald Necklace, and along Commonwealth Avenue. Largely, they failed. During the Bust, highway rights-of-way which had or could have been allocated to bike paths were frequently sacrificed to widen the roads to accommodate more cars at higher speeds. Urban streets had long been recognized as public ways for multiple uses – transportation, play, leisurely walking, and neighborhood gathering. Sidewalks helped keep pedestrians out of the mud and manure, but walkers were not restricted to them. After 1910 streets were more and more claimed for automobiles passing through or parking. The term “jay-walking” helped enforce auto dominance.

The bicycle Bust and an epidemic of cars, interrupted only briefly by World War II restrictions and rationing, ended any talk of bicycle facilities until the Renaissance of the 1960s and 1970s. Dr. Paul Dudley White (made an honorary member of CRW in 1969) started the movement again with his Committee for Safe Bicycling (CSB), which pushed for bike paths on Nantucket (1958) and along the Charles River Basin (1960). But the Nantucket sidepath inaugurated by White only extended a thousand yards along the state road (Milestone Road) and even when finished did not go into the village streets of Nantucket and ’Sconset. The Charles River Basin path has had its own complicated history. Among other problems, it dead-ended at the Boston University Bridge until 1977 and the construction of a wooden underpass around the base of the bridge.

Bike facilities, including bikeways of various kinds, were of considerable interest to early CRW members. Its 1966 founders included many bike commuters. One-third of CRW members lived in Boston or Cambridge in 1970, compared with 14 percent today, and they might be thought sympathetic to bike facilities.

But leadership in bike facilities flowed elsewhere – with mixed results. In 1971 Boston Parks Commissioner Joseph Curtis led a group of lunch-hour cyclists, including Boston’s “bike coordinator,” Lou Antonellis, through the first section of a new Green Belt Bikeway, designed to go across Boston Common and through the Public Garden, the Commonwealth Avenue Mall, the Fenway, and the Jamaicaway to Franklin Field. A Boston Globe writer parodied the route and the event in a story headlined “City Opens Bike Path, but Ride is Risky.” She likened the dedication ceremony to a “saké rite for departing kamikaze.” Most of the route was on the road and she added, “The Jamaicaway, dangerous enough to drive in an automobile, can only be described by a bicyclist as thrilling.” Antonellis announced that they planned to install some small ramps to eliminate the problem of having to “portage bicycles over the many curbstones enroute.”

By the following year, the Association for Bicycle Commuting (ABC), supported by the CSB, partnered with Commissioner Curtis, who had a $50,000 bike budget and hoped to combine that with another $50,000 in federal matching funds to improve the “Green Belt” route. The Globe reported that cyclists considered the present route “rough and bumpy and in many areas unsafe.” ABC organizers like Randy Selden and Nicholas Peck, and Commissioner Curtis, spoke of bike lockup facilities and small concrete shelters along the route to protect cyclists from rain storms, and to be equipped with lights, phones, and handy vending machines dispensing drinks and tire repair kits. Curtis also proposed closing several downtown streets to auto traffic, and push button traffic signals to assist cyclists at intersections. He spoke ambitiously of extending the Green Belt back from Franklin Field to Boston Common to make a complete circle, but warned that this “could involve some risk and would entail some extra traffic markings along the roads.” Little happened other than installation of signage – soon to disappear.

At the state level, Ames and Wetmore filed several bills in 1972. The first asserted that a highway be defined to “include a foot or bicycle trail wherever such trail would be of significant benefit to the community.” This might allow highway funds to be expended for trail purposes.

A second bill proposed that the Commonwealth establish “a program to assist the cities and towns which have established conservation commissions under section eight of chapter forty in acquiring lands and in the planning, designing, and constructing bicycle paths and hiking trails.” A third bill directed the “commissioner of natural resources and the commissioner of public works to develop a system of bicycle paths and hiking trails in Barnstable, Dukes, Plymouth and Nantucket counties,” all recreational areas. The bill was later amended to include the entire state, and then further amended to add the Metropolitan District Commission, but to require only an “investigation and study” relative to the “development of a master plan and a method of financing a system of bicycle paths and hiking trails.” No report emerged, or it has been lost to the historical record. Bike path/trail planning fell into a legislative limbo.

State Senator William Saltonstall of Manchester had a keen interest in cycling safety. In late 1971 he circulated a draft of proposed legislation that got MIT professor of mechanical engineering, CRW member (and CSB member) David Gordon Wilson’s attention. After telling Saltonstall diplomatically that “we are delighted that you are putting forward a bill to provide better regulation for bicycles,” Wilson spent much of his letter pulling the draft apart. In particular he objected that the paragraph “requiring bicyclists to use bicycle paths when provided could bring opposition; a similar ordinance was fought for many years in Britain. The reason is best illustrated by, for instance, Memorial Drive and the Charles River bikeway. This may be an excellent facility for recreational Sunday-afternoon bicyclists, but for commuters [such as Wilson] it may be far more dangerous than using the drive, in my opinion. This is because any bikeway in which the intersections are shared with motor vehicles, and in which bicyclists therefore suddenly appear at these intersections, is bound to be more dangerous than if bicyclists pedal with the traffic.”

One section of Saltonstall’s 1972 redraft would support designs “upon the public streets to be used as bicycle lanes.” Beyond that, cyclists should have “all of the considerations of motor vehicle drivers”; cyclists should (may in the final 1973 bill) ride in the rightmost lane except when turning left; be careful when passing a standing/ moving vehicle; hand-signal before slowing down, stopping or turning; stay off limited access highways; slow down at all intersections; ride single file; ride on a seat (!); display a white front light (or a white front reflector in the final bill), and a rear reflector after sunset; have adequate brakes; and have a bell or horn, but not a siren or whistle;  not obstruct pedestrians or vehicles when parked; or be towed by another vehicle. After age 13 (an age criterion not in the final bill) cyclists could ride sidewalks (outside of local business districts) unless prohibited by local ordinance.

Cyclists could not or carry a passenger except in a basket (baby seat in the final bill) or trailer. or have an extended fork. The extended fork was popular among youth since it allowed them to ape motorcycle styles, and they loved to carry passengers on the crossbars, handlebars, rear fenders, and axle pegs.

Another cyclist, Richard Lotreck of Natick, protested the revised Saltonstall legislation in a letter to CRW He called the whole movement a “fiasco” and suggested that more restrictive legislation would yield still more restrictive legislation. And he wrote that if legislation was necessary, then CRW should push for “a requirement that a motorist give a cyclist at least six (or some such number) of feet clearance when passing.”

Saltonstall met with the CRW board along with Randy Selden, ABC president – and got another earful of cyclists’ opinions. In the final bill, most of the cyclists' goals were achieved and it was signed by Governor Sargent in September, 1973. The new law incorporated a watered down version of Lotreck's proposal, amending the motor vehicle code to read: “in approaching or passing a person on a bicycle the operator of a motor vehicle shall slow down and pass at a safe distance and at a reasonable and proper speed.” (emphasis added). This important detail did not make it into local press accounts.

The debate over bike safety and paths, lanes, and trails took place in the context of big interest among Boston university students. The Urban Bikeways Design Collaborative (UBDC) started in the early 1970s and brought together students and faculty from several Boston area universities with a base at MIT. A UBDC member drafted federal legislation that resulted in a budget line item of $100 million approved by Congress for urban bicycle paths. UBDC also sponsored an urban bikeways design competition, raised $10,000 in prize money, advertised it in the Boston Phoenix, and to universities nationally, and received dozens of entrants from around the country. Leading entries were published in a Bikeway Design Atlas (1974). UBDC gave special honors to John Williams’s study for the City of San Louis Obispo. Williams created a typology of cyclists: five levels of tourists, two levels of family cyclists and two levels of commuters. He then critiqued each of five levels of bikeways.

Williams quoted extensively from John Forester, a vocal bikeways critic, and concluded: “since the publication of John Forester’s initial article on bikeways ... a tremendous change has taken place. At that time, almost every bike club and magazine endorsed and lobbied for the construction of bikeways. Now, one and a half years later, no major bike group supports the bikeway concept (with the exception of friends for bikecology).” UBDC turned to other alternatives to increase bike safety and urban bicycling.

In September, 1975, UBDC designed and produced 12,000 copies of a Stanford bicycle safety comic book - Sprocketman. The name “Alice B. Toeclips” was slyly inserted as a UBDC contributor. This was obvious reference to the 1960s counter-cultural heroine Alice B. Toklas, the writer Gertrude Stein's lover. She was also the author of a cookbook with a recipe for what became known as Alice B. Toklas fudge/brownies, whose main (psycho) active ingredient was hashish or marijuana. The brownies played a prominent role in Peter Sellers' popular 1968 movie: “I Love You Alice B. Toklas,” which spiked a nation-wide surge in home-kitchen brownie production. The comic title itself paid cultural homage to the Elton John song “Rocketman,”  a hit single in 1972. Several more editions were tailored to specific localities and in 1976 the federal government's Consumer Product Safety Commission printed half a million copies to promote bicycle safety.

Subsequent UBDC publications included Cyclateral Thinking – a 1976 compendium of ideas about bicycling and bikeways written in a youthful and engaging style. The back cover of Cyclateral Thinking  included a “King of The Road” playing card image, perhaps a playful allusion to the popular 1964 song written and originally recorded by country singer Roger Miller. 

Douglas Smith’s introduction to Cyclateral Thinking repeated John Williams’s bikeway typology, and explained the problems with each type. Class I, for example, involved complete separation, as in the 19th century sidepaths or in a typical rails-to-trails arrangement. Smith pronounced this unrealistically expensive for urban areas. Even on vacation-land Martha’s Vineyard a bikeway had cost $100,000 per mile to construct in 1974, according to UBDC associate and landscape architecture student Eti Katoni. Additional articles by Williams and Forester stated that in urban areas the major safety problems were not on the straightaways, but rather in the frequent road crossings, for which a bikeway offered no protection.

Several “blueprint” drafts of a UBDC bike map dedicated to alternatives  circulated to the cycling community. Ben Olken of the Bicycle Exchange in Cambridge provided seed money for BU student and UBDC member John Troja. Troja was able to parlay that money into larger funding from the Environmental Protection Agency - which funded bike related projects to reduce air pollution. The resulting UBDC-EPA Boston bike map (1976) brought in a cartographer, David Weaver, along with coordinator Duff Bailey, son of ardent cyclists and CRW members George and Lucy Bailey. Rather than bike lanes on the roads or specialized bike paths off-road, the map was subtitled “Toward Intelligent Commuting,” and featured “the key to an alternative route system.” The mapmakers went on: “Automobiles are the major cause of Boston’s most serious air pollution: Carbon monoxide and smog. Riding these routes will help you become part of the solution.” Few actual routes were mapped; many were proposed. Cyclists were invited to send their own route suggestions to Cathy Buckley of the Commonwealth’s Central Transportation Planning Staff.

Boston Area Bicycle Coalition (BABC) (and soon to be CRW) member John Allen was a route consultant for a 1978 edition of the Boston bike map, which featured the locations of bicycle shops; inter-modal connections to bus, rail, and subway; cultural institutions; and considerably increased routes – often on less-used residential streets. Safety instructions and suggestions for inter-modal transportation, including folding bicycles, were prominently featured on the map's back, in triptych line drawn form. The map featured Alice B. Toeclip's “Intermodal ride to adventure.” Readers were encouraged to “follow this red route and learn with Alice as she puts Sprocketman's Cycling Skills into practice. ”

The bicycling Renaissance of the 1960s and '70s had ignited a national battle over bike paths and lanes. Legislators and regulators were attracted by the money for urban paths, and they worried about cyclists' safety on the road (with the increasing flow of traffic). One option, which prompted cyclist horror stories across the country, was of localities and even states banning bicyclists from the road where parallel bike paths existed – this was part of Saltonstall’s first draft bill, too. The League of American Wheelmen [LAW] Bulletin printed letters from cyclists who had been stopped by police and ordered onto the sidewalk! Opposition soon developed, led by John Forester and his followers – who were eventually called vehicular cyclists.  The subsequent battles are described in Part 4.

----------------------

The article is based on Finison’s book: Boston’s Twentieth-Century Bicycling Renaissance: Cultural and Political Change on Two Wheels. University of Massachusetts Press, 2019. The book is a follow-up to Boston's Cycling Craze 1880-1900: A Story of Race, Sport, and Society. University of Massachusetts Press, 2014. Many of the source materials are in the Bicycle History Archives at UMass-Boston Archives. A footnoted version of the article is available at: Bostonscyclingcraze.blogspot.com

***SHARE YOUR RIDE PHOTOS WITH CRW!***
Email them to: media-share@crw.org

The Kittie Knox/Juneteenth ride.

The Lexington Revolutions ride.

The Cape in a Day ride.

The CRW Board of Directors met virtually on May 12, 2026, for a broad discussion covering century ride planning, club branding initiatives, membership operations, and technology improvements supporting the 2026 cycling season.

Century Ride Planning Continues

Planning activity continues across CRW’s major 2026 century rides.

Organizers for the North to New Hampshire Century reported progress on water stop approvals, route vetting, food logistics, volunteer coordination, and event operations planning.

The Climb to the Clouds team shared updates on volunteer outreach and promotional efforts tied to CRW’s century training series, including content planned for Chain Link and WheelPeople.

The Cranberry Century planning group reviewed permits progress and BikeReg setup, including allowing non-members to register while simultaneously purchasing a one-year CRW membership. 

The Board unanimously approved supplemental funding for 2026 century medallions.

60th Anniversary Planning

The 60th Anniversary Committee reported ongoing work related to venue planning, food budgeting, participant fees, guest participation, and commemorative swag. The Board approved charging up to $15 per attendee for the anniversary event while committee work continues on final details.

Branding, Website, and Club Gear

The Club Promotions and Events Committee (CPEC) shared updates on communications and branding initiatives, including logo survey feedback, website strategy, social media outreach, and club gear planning.

After reviewing member feedback from the logo survey, the Board agreed to continue using the current logo while gathering broader stakeholder input before considering future branding changes.

The Board also discussed moving ahead with updated club kit and jersey design options using the existing branding while visual identity discussions continue. Vendor-supported design assistance and possible try-on events are being explored.

Additional communications discussions included homepage improvements, century-page enhancements, Google Ad Grant usage, Strava promotion, and possible podcast outreach opportunities.

Membership and Technology Updates

The Integrated Operations Committee (IOC) reviewed implementation of the club’s updated waiver system, membership trends, Wild Apricot operational considerations, guest management controls, and possible long-term platform alternatives.

The Board also reviewed ongoing development of SMS-based ride support tools designed to assist with ride check-in, rider communication, roster visibility, ride status updates, and event operations.

Board members were additionally informed that the maintainers of the Sheldon Brown cycling website may no longer be able to continue supporting the resource. The Board agreed the topic should first be evaluated by IOC before any formal proposal returns to the Board.

Ride Leader Development

The Board reviewed follow-up efforts related to ride leader training. Approximately a dozen participants attended recent training sessions, and board members may assist trainees as they complete remaining ride leader requirements.

CRW continues its mission of promoting cycling through rides, events, education, and inclusive community engagement throughout the Greater Boston cycling community.

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Thank you to everyone who came out to ride the North to New Hampshire Spring Century!

Please join us for a celebration of the life of Eli Post. 

When: Sunday June 14

Time: 9:30 AM for 24 miles or 44 miles
           Bench dedication at 10 AM at Heart Pond

Where: Byam Elementary School, Chelmsford

Register HERE

We will dedicate a bench for Eli along the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail in Chelmsford MA near Heart Pond, and reflect on his contributions to Charles River Wheelers.

Eli was the living embodiment of CRW. He was a core member of the club, serving as president, VP of Rides, editor of Wheel People, and of course ride leader.

He was a great motivator and encouraged others to give back to the club. He dedicated many hours improving how the club ran, organizing newcomer rides, making sure Wheel People had quality content, and even manning the hot dog grill after century rides. His contributions are too numerous to list here.

Participants will ride a short distance from the start location to the bench at Heart Pond. Riders may share their memories and stories of Eli, and the bench dedication will take place at 10 AM.

After the dedication ceremony, we will continue our ride (24 or 44 mi) on the back roads of Chelmsford and Westford together, as engaging in a club ride is the best way to commemorate his service to the club.

Kittie Knox featured in The Bearings, July 18, 1895

Join CRW, NECCD, MassBike, and Blue Hills Cycling for the longer Kittie Knox / Juneteenth Unity Ride!

This metric-century-plus route honors Kittie Knox's 1890s century rides and connects with the Kittie Knox Legacy Ride events in Watertown.

This CRW listing is for the 8:00 AM long-route ride: 68.8 miles with about 3,480 feet of climbing. Expect a steady 15-16 mph pace and come prepared for a longer road ride.

When: Friday, June 19 at 8:00 AM

Where: Filippello Park, 191 Grove St, Watertown, MA.

Register HERE

This route starts at the park rather than Mount Auburn Cemetery; Mount Auburn Cemetery is planned as a return/stop point along the Watertown-Cambridge Greenway.

Ride Leader(s):

NECCD / Blue Hills Cycling ride leaders. Additional leader details may be updated as the ride plan is finalized.

Link to RwGPS Route

• 68.8 miles Kittie Knox Metric+ 2026

By Ken Schwarz, CRW Century Coordinator

Is riding a century something you’ve always wanted to do, but it just seemed like too much? Almost every first century begins the same way: with a promise you make to yourself. The good news is that keeping that promise is much easier in the company of like-minded cyclists working together to reach that goal. Read on and decide whether you’re ready to make that promise to yourself today.

Introducing the CRW Century Training Program!

Make no mistake: riding 100 miles in one day is a real challenge. But with proper planning and preparation, it can be the kind of big ride you can end with a smile, not a sufferfest!

This summer, CRW is launching a Century Training Program: a series of supported training rides and guidance to help members complete their first CRW Cranberry Century in October. It isn’t a race plan, and it isn’t about suffering. It’s about learning the skills that make long rides feel manageable, and building the specific kind of fitness that lets you finish strong and enjoy the day.

Who the program is for

The program is designed for riders who today can ride about 30 miles comfortably but haven’t gone all the way to 100. You’ve been on group rides, maybe many of them, but not for the whole day. Or maybe you’ve done a metric century but want a better experience—more joy with less gruel? If so, this program could be for you. If you have time for one long ride on the weekends and a couple of shorter spins during the week, you should be able to do it.

What you’ll learn

A century goes well when a few fundamentals are in place. Over the summer we’ll focus on:

• Pacing: riding at your optimal effort level for the day and climbing hills without exhausting yourself early.

• Durability: building aerobic endurance, muscular endurance, and contact-point comfort (hands, neck, butt, feet).

• Fueling and hydration: eating and drinking in a way that keeps your energy stable and your spirits bright.

• Self-sufficiency: what to bring, what to practice, and how to handle the inevitable hiccups.

• Group riding skills: get comfortable riding with others to gain drafting benefits while maintaining safety and control.

How it works

The program comprises a series of nine supported weekend rides starting August 17 and running through the October 18 Cranberry Century event.  The rides will start at 25-30 miles and gradually build your capacity and make the pacing and hill-climbing skills needed for a century feel like second nature. 

Details like exact dates, routes, and meeting points will be shared with participants as we near the program start. Routes will piggyback on existing CRW rides. Training rides are designed to be no-drop whenever staffing allows, with leaders and sweeps helping the group stay together.

Coming soon: “Your First Century” article mini-series

Over the next three months, we’ll publish a practical mini-series of articles to support program participants and all CRW members alike:

• July - Prepping the body & bike: confirming bike fit and comfort, progressive ride plan, long-course endurance pacing habits.

• August – What to bring: the right layers, repair kit, lighting, charging discipline, and navigation redundancy without overpacking.

• September – Century countdown: the checklist for the week before and the day of the ride, including fueling, stops, handling the blahs, and smart decision rules.

What you can do now

In July we will open the program for new century riders who have signed up for the Cranberry Century. If you are interested, now you can:

• Block your calendar so that you can ride progressively long weekend rides every week from August 17 through the Cranberry.

• Join the CRW Slack space, and follow the #century-training channel. Feel free to drop your questions here! 

• Let Ken Schwarz (ken.schwarz@crw.org) know that you would like to participate. The more visibility we have for interest, the better we can recruit the ride leaders we’ll need.

• Start noticing your “comfort ceiling.” Where do you feel discomfort or stiffness? In your neck? Your hands? Take notes from your next 30-mile ride and share them with Ken; we’ll look to address them in the July issue.

• Make that First Century Promise today!

Are you guessing at how to do things on Ride with GPS? Do you find the help pages to be confusing or just not giving you the answers you need?

There is help for you!

Tsachi Avrahami is CRW's Ride with GPS manager and he's making himself available to answer your RwGPS questions! Questions can be about general usage or specific to the use of the club RWGPS account.

To maximize efficiency he will take your questions before the webinar. Contact him at rwgps@crw.org at least one day before the event.

Event Info:
When: Wednesday June 17 at 7:00pm
Where: Your computer! A link to the event will be sent the day before to all who sign up
Cost: Free to CRW members

Register HERE

Put an end to your ride planning aggravation and join us for an evening of RwGPS enlightenment. Tsachi will show you the way!

By Lorenz J. Finison, Club Historian

For CRW's 60th anniversary, WheelPeople and Club Historian Lorenz J. Finison are taking a look back through the club's history. This article was originally published in April 2016's issue of WheelPeople under the title "The Early Days of the Charles River Wheelmen: Part 2."

In 1969, the C.R.W. Newsletter reported that "touristy Rockport was dazzled by a League of American Wheelmen Roundup parade led by Dr. Paul Dudley White," a heart specialist, advocate of bicycling since the 1930s, founder of the Committee for Safe Bicycling in 1957, and activist for bike paths. At Rockport: "Little Miss Heart paraded with twenty high wheelers and other antique cycles, five unicycles, and hundreds of other bicycles." A "showstopper" family group rode tandem: Charles and Alma Harris with their two daughters, 2 1/2-year old Bonnie and 5-year old Louise. "All wore matching blue and white jerseys and Bonnie rode in a backpack on her daddy's back while Louise rode in a child's seat on the back of the tandem."

As the Newsletter exulted: "Not many people at the bandstand will forget the performance put on by the antique cyclists and not many will forget the New England clambake served outdoors by the ocean with the smell of the sea air. The highlight after the clambake was a speech by Dr. White. The luxurious Ralph Waldo Emerson Inn was filled to capacity that night with tired cyclists." White's presence connected in other ways. The Bicycle Institute of America, representing the bicycle trades, had commissioned Norman Rockwell, the famed illustrator, to provide a portrait of Dr. White, and prints were auctioned off for over a thousand dollars to benefit the Heart Fund. The cyclists got great media coverage including twelve minutes on the WBZ-TV show, New England Today.

A year prior to the Roundup, C.R.W. president Ralph Galen was elected L.A.W. New England States director and biked 1,000 miles to the L.A.W. national meeting in Marion, Indiana. The L.A.W. had been mid-west dominated since its revival in the 1950s. A proposal surfaced during the fall to put the next annual Roundup in New England.  C.R.W. co-founder Fred Chaffee started exploring venues, and settled on Rockport. The L.A.W. president at the time, mid-westerner Hartley Atley, suggested that Galen not only do the local arrangements, but do the whole program too, since Atley would be frequently out of the country. Galen pushed back, suggesting that "now you are asking me to do what in my opinion you should be doing yourself." Within a few days, Atley resigned and made way for Galen to organize  the Roundup, and to be elected L.A.W. president. He was the first L.A.W. president from New England since the early 1900s.

The Rockport Roundup represented opportunities to ally with other cycling organizations. And C.R.W. made the most of these connections. Headliners and organizers included: Eugene Cummings, President of the Northeast Bicycle Club (the main racing club in the area, started by Dick Ring and Buddy Dodd in 1957); John Moore, an industrial arts teacher, and advisor to the Cyclonauts Bicycle Club of Hampden (started as a teen club in 1965, and rode a double century meeting up with members of the C.R.W. in 1968); and "Tip" O'Neill, Cambridge Congressman, and auctioneer for bikes donated by Columbia and Schwinn to White and Rockwell.  Dan Henry of the New York City Cycle club and inventor of the "Dan Henry" road arrows, auctioned off the Norman Rockwell prints. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the Town of Rockport issued proclamations for "bike day" in honor of the occasion. Of the bicycle dealers present, Ben Olken stood out as the most consistent booster of cycling organizations since he opened the Bicycle Exchange in Harvard Square in 1933. He supported the American Youth Hostels, White's Committee for Safe Bicycling, and the Charles River Wheelmen. The Bicycle Exchange was a central place for C.R.W. communications and new member recruitment.

In theory, cycling bonds would be cemented further in after-roundup trips to Nova Scotia (led by John Likins, an electrician-in-training, and Stuart Bradford, a young biologist faculty member at UMass-Boston). The tours included C.R.W. members, but cyclists from other parts of the country too, eager to take the "Blue Nose" from Bar Harbor to Yarmouth and cycle far beyond. Twenty-eight cyclists joined, but as one leader remembered it, the tour was "loosely structured due to different interests and capabilities," and the rain and gloom of the Nova Scotia coastline.  Likins went off with C.R.W. photographer Henry Soron to Peggy's Cove and Halifax, and then out the Annapolis Valley and back via the south shore to Yarmouth. Ralph Galen and John Vanderpoel ended up on Cape Breton Island and the Cabot Trail. The rest went out to Smith's Cove or Digby and did day trips, including a century ride down Digby Neck and back.

Boston was in the midst of a bicycling Renaissance! In the fall following the 1969 Rockport Roundup, C.R.W. members joined Dr. White, Boston Parks and Recreation Commissioner Joseph Curtis, and a representative from the Mayor's office to initiate the "first of what [the Commission] hoped would be many rides, with a ride starting from City Hall plaza on October 14." The C.R.W. members included Mary Jane Condon, Ralph Galen, Harry Kriche, Ronald Sinjian, and Cutler West - a wealthy retiree from Polaroid. "The park commission wanted help from C.R.W. and other cyclists for future rides and other activities like laying out bike routes and paths." A Boston Herald story about the event featured bicycling as a means to physical health coupled with bicycling as a means to environmental health - to reduce air pollution.

Taking a cue from such activism, Division of Family Health Services program director George Gulick, along with Re-Creation '70 and Ecology Action, organized an October 8, 1970 "Ride Your Bike to Work Day,” to include Curtis and led out by Paul Dudley White. Curtis told the press that “the city has proposals before the federal government for funds to construct new bike routes through the city, provide racks and build bike stops with benches, shelters, trees and planting.”

The Bike-to-Work Day rally featured two cycling engineering workers from the Boston Naval Shipyard – both African American – Charlie Lee (an ex-Tuskegee airman) and Wilbert Mason, unusual in the largely “white” world of bicycling in the 1970s. Both were members of the Charles River Wheelmen, and both ran for the C.R.W. Board in 1971. Mason was elected. Also in 1971, World War II veteran Frank Williams, a black electrical engineer at Boston Naval Shipyard, and participant in the Nova Scotia tour, chaired the bulletin mailing committee for C.R.W.

Days after the Bike-to-Work event, Gerry Wright, an environmentalist and founder of a transition house for youth, Dynamic Action Resident Enterprise (DARE), organized yet another Bike Day ride into Boston to converge on Boston Common. Streams of riders from all over the Greater Boston region coalesced. Wright went out to the Old North Bridge in Concord to gather up riders for the commute to Boston. Ralph Galen rode his 1886 model high wheeler, and Commissioner Curtis promised that the city would make a major effort to provide "more space for cyclists." Cutler West, a commuting cyclist and C.R.W. member helped to pay the expenses for the Common event out of his “Bicycle Foundation,” which sought to encourage “utility as well as recreational cycling.”

Earth Week in April, 1971 also included a Bike to Work Day, sponsored again by the Division of Family Health Services and held in conjunction with the opening of a Green Belt Bikeway which stretched, in theory, from the Boston Common to Franklin Field.

That fall, to promote commuting, a competition was organized by Randy Selden, founder and head of the Association for Bicycle Commuting, and Lou Antonellis, the city bike coordinator. Nine auto-bike pairs assembled at various locations in a “morning race to the office.” Everyone had to observe the rules of the road, including stopping at all red lights. Final score:  bicycles 7, autos 2. Among the pairs were the two Bailey brothers, founders of C.R.W. George Bailey took on the new undersecretary of human affairs Donald Scherl, from near Coolidge Corner, Brookline, and made the trip in 16 minutes, beating Scherl by five minutes. His younger brother Bruce competed on a ten-speed bike against newly elected city councilor Larry DiCara, from Di Cara’s home on Codman Hill avenue in Dorchester. DiCara took the Southeast Expressway and Bailey cycled up “Dot Ave.” Bailey made it to City Hall in 26 minutes and won by three minutes.  “Bailey described his route as ‘hairy.’ ‘I didn’t cheat. I stopped for every red light. If I didn’t, I’d have been wiped out.’” In a letter to the Boston Herald, the previous year, DiCara, despite his opposition to the overbuilding of highways, had ridiculed the idea of the Green Belt Bikeway. He called it an “insult to the citizens of the city,” and a “needless and costly luxury,” especially considering that it would “benefit only a few and some would not be citizens of the city.” His letter prompted a response from David Gordon Wilson, C.R.W. member, MIT engineering professor, and member of the Paul Dudley White's Committee for Safe Bicycling: “Compared to what?  The Southwest Expressway [I-95 extension]? The Inner Belt [I-695]?” Both of these highways were resisted by strong community-based organizing, including some C.R.W. cyclists like George and Bruce Bailey, and indeed, by DiCara himself.

The bicycling Renaissance invigorated other organizations too, most importantly expanded Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) and American Youth Hostel (AYH) cycling options, and connections to charity. Charity rides spread rapidly in 1969 when the Massachusetts Teachers Association sponsored "Ride-a-Bike," to aid the Massachusetts Association for Retarded Children (MARC).

In September, 1971,  and for several years after, Donna Haines, C.R.W. member, AYH ride leader, and Tewksbury school teacher, promoted AYH/MARC rides. C.R.W. members frequently joined in with these rides and actively championed them. What was the difference? One former AMC bike leader, Warren Sass,  summed it up in one word: "accomplishment." In his view, the  "accomplishment" bikers all gravitated to the C.R.W." Accomplishment in a broad sense was a feature for all the clubs, as witness the care in doling out distance badges in this era. But the balance between physical accomplishment, sociality, naturalist/environmentalist and charitable interests in the ride and beyond it differed amongst the groups.

The C.R.W. was certainly the beneficiary of enthusiasm generated by the environmental movement: it was in on the beginning of the bicycle Renaissance.  In 1972, George Bailey, reflecting on the history of the still-young C.R.W. indicated that membership was over 300,  and "is still increasing and its activities are broadening. It has members whose interests range from casual cycling to racing, from family tandems to single thousand-mile journeys.  The membership also includes a far broader range of interest, background and viewpoint that did its predecessor, the Boston Bicycle Club, with its singularly 'Social Register' membership."

Bailey may have exaggerated the differences. The Boston Bicycle Club of the 1880s was more upper middle-class professional than of the truly wealthy elite. It included doctors, dentists, lawyers, newspaper men, and politicians. If you could have added a large dose of engineers to the mix, it would have looked like the C.R.W. founders. In the 1890s bicycling became more varied in its class membership, and clerks of various kinds took up the sport. Like now, however, cycling did not extend to factory operatives or others of similar social position.  

Bailey claimed that:

The present club has held its share of the inevitable cocktail parties, but it has reached out beyond these environs. Dr. Galen himself brought a group of inner-city youngsters along on the 1968 Wheel Around the Hub. The boys found the experience a great success.

Now the Wheelmen look not only to continued cycling activities but to greater political involvement. Efforts will continue to involve larger numbers of bicyclists, and safety programs to eliminate or modify dangerous road fixtures will be encouraged. A bicycle path program and the reservation of sections of public highways in some areas may well be workable - programs which follow the example of the Cape Cod National Sea Shore. In many other ways, the Charles River Wheelmen will endeavor to add new dimensions to the goals set by their historic elder pacemakers in the promotion of self-propelled ground transportation.

The year 1972 closed out very well for cyclists. C.R.W. had increased in membership from a struggling 35 in 1967 to over 300 at the beginning of the year. Rockport rider Bonnie Harris, was now six years old. On October 1, wearing her C.R.W. cap, she climbed on the back seat of a tandem with its sprocket “welded up high enough to accommodate her first grade legs,” and set off with her father Chuck on a 138 mile three day “Pedal Against Pollution” from Pittsfield to Boston.

In Amherst the cyclists heard an impassioned speech about bikeways from Olympian racer John Allis, and then rode to Marlboro where the C.R.W. came out to escort them to Boston’s Government Center. At the end, Bonnie hopped off her tandem and told the waiting press, simply: “Cars are no good.”

The Pedal Against Pollution represented a flowering of environmentalist bicycling. Despite Allis' championing of bike paths to achieve that end, however, paths were by no means universally accepted as practical wisdom or philosophy. The C.R.W. founders were almost all commuting cyclists, and yet the club was dedicated to recreation. How these conflicting allegiances, practices, and priorities interacted is another story to tell.  Stay tuned for Part 3.

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The article is based on Finison’s book: Boston’s Bicycling Renaissance: Cultural and Political Change on Two Wheels. University of Massachusetts Press, 2019. The book is a follow-up to Boston's Cycling Craze 1880-1900:  A Story of Race, Sport, and Society. University of Massachusetts Press, 2014. Many of the source materials are in the Bicycle History Archives at UMass-Boston Archives. A footnoted version of the article is available at: Bostonscyclingcraze.blogspot.com