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“One of the little things in cycling which bothers the average rider is the gradual escape of air from new and practically perfect tyres*…
“A French scientist has just discovered a reason for this. Rubber, it appears, is more porous to the oxygen in the air than to its other constituent, nitrogen. The consequence is that all the oxygen of the imprisoned air gradually either leaks out or is absorbed by the rubber, which is said to have quite an appetite for that vital gas. Chemical change is thus proceeding, and the remaining gas is called Azote, and it will not leak through the rubber. It is, therefore, recommended that cyclists should never entirely deflate a tyre if it can be avoided, for the old gas inside the air tube improves with age. Fresh air may be all right for the rider, but it is not good for the tyres.”
“Cycling Notes”, The Derby Mercury,
Wednesday 30th August 1899
* Fortunately, modern butyl inner tubes do not suffer from this problem…
“Every village in this country, in Switzerland, Germany, and so on, has its cricket, football, tennis, nine-pins, pigeon, musical or singing clubs. Other societies are much more numerous, and some of them, like the Cyclists’ Alliance, have suddenly taken a formidable development. Although the members of this alliance have nothing in common but the love of cycling, there is already among them a sort of freemasonry for mutual help, especially in the remote nooks and corners which are not flooded by cyclists; they look upon the “C.A.C.” – the Cyclists’ Alliance Club – in a village as a sort of home…”
– Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid, A Factor of Evolution, London 1902, p.230
R:B
Just stumbled onto this and I really hope I’m the first to blog it… :c)
An article in August’s International Journal of Andrology examines the “Influence of moderate cycling on scrotal temperature” (International Journal of Andrology, Volume 31, Number 4, August 2008, pp. 403-407).
No, really!
Apparently we should rest assured that “moderate cycling under standardized conditions…is not a major genital heat stress factor”. Fancy!
So, there’s nothing to worry about provided you cycle with an array of thermistors hooked up to your crotch and bike saddle – I have to assume that’s what they mean by “standardized conditions”.
Curiously, their results show that the right, erm, side is marginally cooler than the left. A cooling breeze off the chainwheel, perhaps? I dare say not at the rate I pedal!
rb
