Glossary

What the hell do Presta and Schrader mean?
I just want to inflate my tires!

Cycling enjoys a wonderful vocabulary of bizarre words in all sorts of languages! From Derailleurs to Bidons, Cadence to Intervals, Maillot Jaune to Ronde Van Vlaanderen, Cycling Lingo will leave even your local coffee shop Baristas scratching their heads!
Here you will find an "easy to understand" translation for any weird cycling term used in this blog!

BASE MILES: for Cyclists who train and race their bikes, this is the period of training which involves long slow rides to build a base of fitness in which to build speed when the season warms up( in other words: it's too damn cold to go fast)
BIDONS: Water Bottles that you put on your bike ( warning: may not necessarily be filled with water)
BUZZED: as getting buzzed by a car - having a car intentionally pass you at high speed at close proximity, creating a very dangerous situation ( usually by drivers trying to show you that riding bicycles on the road may become a very dangerous situation - kind of like robbing someone to show that they are in a potentially dangerous neighborhood)
CADENCE: The rate of speed in which you turn your bike pedals, measure in RPM's. ( hint: you should probably increase your cadence!)
DERAILLEURS: In a bike with gears, it's the mechanism that allows the bike chain to move from one gear to another ( adjusting your bike's derailleurs are trickier than tuning a Stradivarius - at least for me)
INTERVALS: training technique for bike racers consisting of going painfully fast for specific durations of time with ridiculously small resting periods in between ( dates back to the Spanish Inquisition)
IPA: "India Pale Ale" Beer ( a popular recovery drink consumed by groups of cyclists after long bike rides)
MACCHIATO: Espresso with a dollop of milk foam ( if you don't drink espresso, this is a good start!)
MAILLOT JAUNE: The Yellow Jersey the leader of the Tour de France gets to wear ( for cynics like me, anyone wearing that jersey probably has more than water in their bidons, if you know what I mean!)
PRESTA: or Presta Valve - most bike tires have tubes inside them, which in turn have valves where you connect the pump to inflate said tire. The presta valve is the trickier of the two valves typically used. ( and accordingly, it's the valve that is used in almost all road bikes today)
RONDE VAN VLAANDEREN: Tour of Flanders - a one day professional bike race in Belgium ( the most important national holiday for Belgians)
SCHRADER: or Schrader Valve - the other valve ( just disregard and refer to "Presta" instead)
STRAVA: an App that uses your mobile phone to track all sorts of information about your bike ride, including distance travelled, how fast you went, how hilly the roads were, even a map of your route (it also can turn everyday cyclists into virtual racing maniacs! more at Strava)
TRAINER: an indoor trainer is a machine to which you connect a bicycle (typically at the rear wheel) and provides resistance so that you can "ride" your bicycle indoors  ( another torture device dating back to the Spanish Inquisition)
TUESDAY NIGHT WORLD'S: a very fast training group ride that takes place in many different locations on Tuesday evenings after work - sometimes it will even be a sanctioned race as part of a training series, but most of the time, it's just friends having a good time trying to destroy each other by inflicting an insane amount of pain to each other, all in the name of fitness!
VELO: as in VeloDiet, VeloNews, etc. - short for vélocipèd in French (just a fancy way of saying "Bike")