Feargal McKay
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cycologies.com
Feargal McKay
@cycologies.com
1.8K followers 99 following 3.4K posts
Reviewing cycling books and writing about professional cycling's mythological past and the reality behind the stories told and retold by cycling's duff historians

cycologies.com 🇮🇪
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cycologies.com
Feargal McKay @cycologies.com · Sep 13
"To ride a bicycle is one thing. To learn to ride a bicycle is another. Did you ever see a man learning to ride? I saw one, and I laughed so much that I was too weak to eat dinner that evening."

Nellie Bly, the pioneering American journalist, wrote about learning to ride a bicycle in 1889.
Nellie Bly on a Bicycle
An 1889 newspaper article by Nellie Bly
cycologies.com
cycologies.com
For all the fans of the Cycle to Work scheme - and they are many and vocal - how about someone explains why the multiple operators of the scheme (itself something that should be queried) charge bike shops 15-20% 'commission' on each sale?
Bike retailers saddled with lower margins in state cycle scheme
Complaints by manufacturers lead to talks with Cycle to Work providers about size of commissions
www.ft.com
November 27, 2025 at 7:35 PM
cycologies.com
Ronde van Vlaanderen will not sell ticket ... except for the bits where it sells tickets.
November 27, 2025 at 7:05 PM
Reposted by Feargal McKay
financialtimes.com
Steroid Olympics backers try for a superhuman feat of finance on.ft.com/44BORwn | opinion
Steroid Olympics backers try for a superhuman feat of finance
The Enhanced Group, creator of the games, plans to go public at a mooted enterprise value of $1.3bn
on.ft.com
November 27, 2025 at 5:17 PM
Reposted by Feargal McKay
jameslonghurst.bsky.social
_Bike Battles: A History of Sharing the American Road_ (2017) from @uwapress.uw.edu and (Castellano) Spanish from @katakrak54.bsky.social 🗃️ #bikesky katakrak.net/cas/editoria...

uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295...
November 27, 2025 at 3:22 PM
cycologies.com
Never heard of him. Is he better than Pogačar?
Copenhagen Documentary Fest CPH:DOX to Pay Tribute to Belgian Cycling Legend “The Cannibal” Eddy Merckx
The Danish premiere of Christophe Hermans and Boris Tilquin's doc 'Merckx - Race of a Champion' and a podcast event will put the spotlight on the man who has been called the greatest cyclist of all ti...
www.hollywoodreporter.com
November 27, 2025 at 2:21 PM
Reposted by Feargal McKay
oispooky.bsky.social
🎤🤹 Researchers, artists, comedians, charities, big thinker types, poets (maybe?), performers, industry partners, all disciplines, all formats, propose ideas, send them to us, and join us in Southampton! #BSF26 ⛵🦠

There's a boat show on there at the same time, if you like both boats AND science >>
britsciassoc.bsky.social British Science Association @britsciassoc.bsky.social · 1d
The British Science Festival needs you!

Our Open Call for #BSF26 with @unisouthampton.bsky.social is now LIVE.

You don't need to be a scientist or linked to Southampton - anyone can propose.

Find out more and send us your event ideas here:

www.britishscienceassociation.org/open-call
British Science Festival proposals - Open Call
We are currently accepting Open Call proposals for the British Science Festival 2026.
www.britishscienceassociation.org
November 27, 2025 at 10:26 AM
Reposted by Feargal McKay
xkcd.com
Fifteen Years

xkcd.com/3172/
Comic. Panels up to the 10-year point are grayed out. New panels since the Ten Years comic, which chronicles the first ten years of PERSON 1's journey with cancer: (1) [two people in bed] PERSON 1 (woman): One more chapter? PERSON 2 (man): Don’t we both have to get up early? PERSON 1: Nnnnnggggh PERSON 2: Sure, good point. (2) [many people wearing masks, walking while looking at graphs on their phones] (3) [birds landing on people] PERSON 2 in beanie and scarf: Hah! They like *my* seeds best. PERSON 1 in scarf holding phone with a bird sitting on it: Wait, how do I take a picture of this one? (4) [two people rowing boats with tree landscape] (5) [Person 1 carries overflowing stack of things to Person 2 in bed] PERSON 1: I brought you honey lemon tea, more pillows, a cinnamon roll, Tylenol, another blanket, a– PERSON 2: It was just Appendicitis, I’m really– PERSON 1: *It is my turn to take care of you and I am going to do it right!* (6) [Two people in car] (7) [still in car) PERSON 1: Oh my god. PERSON 2: Oh my god. (8) [car driving] PERSON 1: Pull over! PERSON 2: I am! (9) [both people get out of car] (10) [Large colored panel of aurora borealis over water with both people looking on] (11) [Person 1 sits against tree while Person 2 lies on the ground] PERSON 1: Fifteen years. No sign of the cancer. (12) I *am* having some weird symptoms. Joint pain. Fatigue. I think I’m losing my close-up vision. PERSON 2: Yeah. Me too. (13) PERSON 2: I think we’re getting old. (14) PERSON 1: I guess that’s okay. PERSON 2: It’s all I wanted.
November 26, 2025 at 10:32 PM
cycologies.com
Germain & Shirley. Not two housemates who work as bottle cappers in the Shotz Brewery (ask your grandad), but two trackies, Achille Germain 🇫🇷 + Reginald Shirley 🇬🇧 (the first Brit to enter the TdF!) photographed en route to New York in 1909 for the Madison Square Garden International Six Day Race.
B+W photo, poor quality, clipped from newspaper. Two men dressed in civvies - shirts and tie and great coats, on board what looks like an ocean liner.
November 26, 2025 at 8:48 PM
Reposted by Feargal McKay
genkigalcycling.bsky.social
Onto the 1955 #tdf the Veteran Cycling Club sent me this little gem of a Hercules brochure written by Bill himself
Then repeat it, ten, twenty, thirty times. The slightest mishap and you'd be over. With luck, on to the road. Otherwise ... straight over the unprotected edge into the ravine. Repeat all that over again ... an agonising climb up Cayolle, 7,600 feet up, and a terrific thunderstorm and inches of rain flooding the road on the descent to make it even more of a death trap. Why, from one group of twenty who crossed the summit of Cayoile together, only five reached the valley without a spill! Up again, over the Vasson pass... over 5,500 feet up... and down again, through the Var valley to the sea at Nice. One more climb, over the tortuous La Turbie... only 1,600 feet, but terribly tricky, and so to the stage-end on the sun-lit shores of the Mediterranean at Monte Carlo. At the finish, hardly a rider did not show scars and abrasions of the many tumbles in the mountain descents. What sort of man is he who can survive this, day after day? And what sort of a bicycle can stand up to this? For without one hundred per cent. confidence in his bicycle and every piece of equipment on it, no rider could take those death-rimmed descents at the speed necessary to stay in the racc. The race is over. The honours won. The British riders have survived their apprenticeship in the hardest school of all ... the Tour de France In 1955 ... only two finished, 29th and 69th. Behind them from the 61 who quit the race, were world's champions, previous Tour de France winners, Tour of Italy winners, national champions ... some of the cream of Europe had dropped out. Just to finish the Tour is honour indeed. A triumph for the two gallant British boys, Brian Robinson and Tony Hoar, and an equal triumph for the technicians in Birmingham who design and make the Hercules bicycles which carried them through, and whose skill is behind every Hercules bicycle sold in Britain and in 135 Countries of the World. By BILL MILLS Famous Newspaper Reporter and British Broadcaster (who broadcast the Tour for BBC)
November 26, 2025 at 6:15 PM
Reposted by Feargal McKay
majortaylor99.bsky.social
Born on this date, Nov. 26, 1878: Marshall "Major" Taylor, aka the Worcester Whirlwind, 1889 world champion cyclist, author of "The Fastest Bicycle Rider in the World." Grateful to Alex from @massbike.bsky.social at Worcester Public Library for the glow-up.
November 26, 2025 at 7:15 PM
cycologies.com
November 26, 2025 at 7:21 PM
cycologies.com
Christmas has arrived! Normally we get one of those horrible upturned ice-cream cone Christmas trees - a Ken doll's nether regions in tree form - but this year we have been blessed with a real live dead one.
A Christmas tree in the town square, as yet undressed and with men-at-work barriers around its base
November 26, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Reposted by Feargal McKay
jim.londoncentric.media
Lol congratulations to whoever briefed that the chancellor was going to axe Cycle to Work, then didn't. Whatever was going on behind the scenes, you've just done wonders for London's bike shops pre-Christmas.
jim.londoncentric.media Jim Waterson @jim.londoncentric.media · 8d
If my group chats are anything to go by, Treasury briefing "we're going to end the cycle to work tax break that enables people to buy a large family-sized e-bike" has done more than any other advertising campaign to boost the uptake of family-sized e-bikes. Sales must be through the roof this week.
November 26, 2025 at 1:51 PM
cycologies.com
Told ya it was a kite flying exercise...
November 26, 2025 at 2:23 PM
Reposted by Feargal McKay
peterwalker99.bsky.social
So it looks like Rachel Reeves has *not* abolished or cut back the cycle to work scheme. Perhaps she has read the Treasury's own 2023 assessment of the scheme, which found that in terms of creating modal shift, and thus boosting public health, it is very, very effective.

www.gov.uk/government/p...
Evaluation of the Cycle to Work Scheme: quantitative and qualitative research
www.gov.uk
November 26, 2025 at 2:04 PM
Reposted by Feargal McKay
lutzfernandez.bsky.social
Cars that kill--and look like they will--has been a theme of MAGA's rise.
The Home Economics of Lib-Owning
Fear, identity politics, and going broke for conspiracy theories
nobody-wants-this.ghost.io
November 26, 2025 at 11:25 AM
cycologies.com
"No guv, you're wrong, we're not FUD merchants using fear, uncertainty or doubt to mess with you. We're not like that at all. We're just asking questions."
domestiquecycling.com Domestique @domestiquecycling.com · 3d
Is the Queen Stage of the 2026 🇫🇷 Tour de France at risk?

A petition opposing the inclusion of the Col de Sarenne has already gathered almost 6,000 signatures.

Fun fact: the petition was started by someone named Stelvio😅

📰 www.domestiquecycling.com/en/news/almo...
November 25, 2025 at 10:23 AM
cycologies.com
Excalibur, Tír na nÓg and Icarus are myths.

Movistar being a hot mess is reality.
domestiquecycling.com Domestique @domestiquecycling.com · 3d
🇧🇪 Cian Uijtdebroeks counters 🇪🇸 Movistar myth: ‘The support structure is excellent’

📰 www.domestiquecycling.com/en/news/uijt...

📸 Cor Vos
November 24, 2025 at 8:17 PM
cycologies.com
Some sites thrive on the anxiety economy.
Is the Tour de France 2026 Queen Stage in danger? Petition against return of famous climb gathers thousands of signatures
Environmental concerns surround the Col de Sarenne
www.cyclingweekly.com
November 24, 2025 at 4:11 PM
cycologies.com
Gosh! Didn't see that coming!

(What's that Skippy, the same stories were written in 2013? Get the fuck out of here you Australian marsupial!)
November 24, 2025 at 2:25 PM
cycologies.com
Tasking everything back to whatever my latest bugbear is 😜

Parc des Princes was a velodrome, owned by Desgrange and his business partner, Victor Goddet (Jacques Goddets Da). The last stage of the Tour ended there through to the 60s.

People had to pay to watch the finish of the Tour, for decades. 😱
genkigalcycling.bsky.social Angela Mills-Bannon @genkigalcycling.bsky.social · 4d
The paper’s French correspondent, Leulliot reports “Predictions are going wrong …I will take the risk and say that those "Bicycle" readers who are on the Parc des Princes on July 25 will see Charlie Holland come out of the tunnel to finish the Tour. I may be wrong, but I sincerely hope I'm not.”
November 23, 2025 at 6:52 PM
Reposted by Feargal McKay
genkigalcycling.bsky.social
This afternoon me and my Dad opened the last bound copy of The Bicycle that we have - it’s been sealed in brown paper with (we think) Bill’s writing on it. We’ve been immersed in the pages of July-December 1937. And what a year of cycling this was!
November 23, 2025 at 5:28 PM
cycologies.com
Me as your Bsky therapist:
November 22, 2025 at 8:23 PM
cycologies.com
Johan Bruyneel is calling out Greg LeMond's claim to have had a VO2 Max of 92.5 m/l.

- LeMond joined ADR in 1989

- His hunting accident was April 1987

- He was back on his bike in July 1987

- In October 1987 he joined PDM

- Fagor signed Stephen Roche before the 1987 Worlds on September 6th
"I knew we were going to talk about Pogacar so I was thinking has anyone asked Greg Lemond to prove if he had that VO2Max? Back in the days the measurement wasn't so sophisticated... I talked about this many years ago with someone... I actually have a result of a VO2Max test of Greg Lemond," the Belgian pundit says. He goes on to show a document on his phone which shows a test result of 74.7. Whilst this value can change depending on the rider's fitness - which is likely the case here too, the variation changes are noticeably large. This is a test from 1988, as he explains: "I think it was the season before he went to ADR, in the time he had his hunting accident, so he was obviously not in great shape, he was overweight, didn't have great season at all. But I know that he was trying to find a team and there was one French team called Fagor who ultimately signed Stephen Roche instead of Lemond, but Lemond did a test with a doctor of that team and guess what: This doctor I met and here I have the VO2Max test of Greg Lemond when he was trying out for Fagor".
November 22, 2025 at 7:16 PM
Reposted by Feargal McKay
genkigalcycling.bsky.social
This was an easy Google research find but so far, one of my favourite stories about Bill hosting the #Olympiccycling team in his house for the 1948 Games from the www.sportsjournalists.co.uk/sja-news/sja...
November 22, 2025 at 9:30 AM