Tour de France 2017: your essential guide

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Roll up, roll up – it’s the greatest show on earth. With an intriguing route and an incredible lineup, the 104th edition of the Tour de France is set to be a stunner. Iain Treloar tells you what you need to know. The Tour de France needs little introduction. It’s the world’s biggest annual sporting
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Reservoir Road

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Iain Treloar reflects on a lifetime spent riding up the same hill.  Up at the reservoir, the golden hills roll down to the sea. The air is hot and arid, and other than the distant howl of a truck’s engine brakes as it descends the Main South Road, it’s peaceful. A breeze sends a shiver
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Road positioning for bike riders

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Like your body language says as much as your words in a conversation, your riding language —where you ride on the road—tells others what you’re doing. Simon Vincett suggests strategies for communicating to the traffic. Whether you are blessed with bountiful bike lanes or you have to mix it with the traffic for all your
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Butchers and Bicycles review

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This “built-to-tilt” machine transforms how you ride a tricycle. Adding an automatic transmission and electric motor creates a new paradigm of cargo bike. Simon Vincett reports. In three key ways the Butchers and Bicycles Mk1-E with NuVinci HSync is a great leap forward in cargo bikes, providing the most viable car-alternative on the Australian market: it is
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The Old Beechy

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With a deadline for dinner drawing them on, Peter Foot recounts a beguiling journey through a surprising landscape. Mouldy carpet and body spray. I pull open the door and it hits me—full-bodied, tangy, evocative. It is the smell of the end carriage of a V/Line train. The smell of a thousand trips into the countryside.
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Can bikes stop global warming?

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Limiting global warming and defining sustainable development have both been recently negotiated at the global level. Simon Vincett asks Australia’s leaders how bike riding can play a role in our national commitments.   In November 2015, the Paris Conference on Climate Change reached, for the first time since the inaugural Conference of Parties (COP) in
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Ride with confidence

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Know the rules and best strategies to reduce your risks and ride with confidence. Simon Vincett explains. Communication Scan ahead and slow down if you’re not sure whether someone has seen you or if they will give way. Communicate using your bell, your voice, hand signals and eye contact. Put on your lights when it
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Bikes for cities ~ cities for bikes

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With multi-party interest at the federal level in making our cities more liveable and productive, will governments embrace bike riding for all it can offer? Simon Vincett investigates.   Advocates of active transport in Australia could heave a sigh of relief when Malcolm Turnbull replaced Tony Abbott as Prime Minister in September 2015. Gone was a head of government ideologically committed to more roads for cars as the sole solution to transport
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Time to train

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Too busy to get as much time on the bike as you’d like? Don’t worry—Lee Rodgers explains that the secret to improving your performance is to train smarter, not longer. “If only I had more time to train, I’d be so much quicker!” It’s a common refrain of the time-­constrained cyclist, bemoaning the lack of
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Room for change

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Bart Sbeghen reports on the growing phenomenon of premium end-of-trip facilities in some of the nation’s most progressive commercial buildings and offices. Photos: Karl Hilzinger, Hormuzd Khodaiji. The phenomenon may not be obvious to most people, probably because of the movement’s quite literally underground nature. That was until a front page article in The Financial
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