Our Mission: To Help Other Road Riders by Sharing Experience-Driven HOW-TO Knowledge
We’re like most roadies: We love to ride. We ride when we can, as much as we can. It’s an important part of our lives.
But we’re not pros, and we never will be. We’re recreational roadies. We’re about real riding by real people. People like you.
Many of RBR’s contributors are cycling coaches (just not the big, famous, expensive ones!). Some are tech experts. Some of us race. Many don’t anymore but still like to ride fast and hard. Some prefer touring or just ambling about. Here’s the commonality: All of us have significant, useful experience to share.
We’re here to help. RBR offers the best, the broadest, and the deepest archive of HOW-TO cycling knowledge on the Internet. Whether you’re a new rider or a grizzled veteran, we’ve got info for you that will help you become a better rider and enjoy our shared passion even more.
We’re not a corporate site. We are, in fact, a guppy in the big cycling pond, owned by one guy who runs the site on his own, with the help of a few other dedicated roadies and coaches as contributors – all of us focused on our How-To mission.
We’re not a site focused on pro cycling news. There are a few corporate behemoths that do a great job of covering pro news. We do run some pro highlights now and then, but it’s just not our focus.
We’re not a product reviews-driven site. We do publish regular product reviews – based on thorough testing and offering insightful, useful information that serious rec roadies trust. But that’s only one aspect of our overall How-To driven approach.
We’re not a lifestyle site that ponders the deeper meaning of cycling and focuses on telling its stories. Again, we do some of that, but along with the How-To lessons that can help other cyclists learn and improve.
We’re not a generalist cycling site that offers a little bit about all the different forms of cycling. Corporate magazines have that covered. We’re focused on road cycling, and the How-To aspects of road riding. And we do it better than anyone.
We’ve been at this since 2001. And we’ve got thousands of pages of great, targeted, helpful articles – not to mention the best cycling eBookstore on the Internet, with over 120 titles in short-form eArticles and longer form eBooks.
And, yeah, we’re somewhat “old school” in that we’re going to ask you to support us financially in return for our hard work. It seems only fair. We’ve invested years’ worth of time, effort and money to create this great cycling resource – and it takes money to keep it going.
Our Offer: Subscribe, and Support Us If You Like Us
We’ll make you an offer: Subscribe to our free RBR Newsletter for a weekly dose of the best How-To cycling knowledge. Since 2001, covering more than 750 issues, it’s the gold standard of road cycling How-To Newsletters. There’s simply nothing else like it − or like the RBR site – around. Check out the vast array of great free content on our site, send us your own Quick Tips or article ideas, check out a video or podcast, visit the eBookstore – just enjoy what RBR has to offer.
Then support us by becoming a Premium Member. Your paid annual Premium Membership gives you 4 free eBooks (individually, they sell for $60 ),1 free eArticle ($4.99 value), and a slew of other great Member-Only Benefits, including full access to our entire content archive.
Here’s the coolest part: If you’re a Premium Member and have searched our site high and low and still can’t find what you’re looking for – then you can tap Ask RBR a Question. That’s right: Ask us directly. We’ll check with our network of coaches, experts and contributors to find you an answer.
One-stop shopping for everything you want and need to know about road riding. How great is that?!
Contributors
Lars Hundley
Owner, Publisher
I started cycling in the late 1980s during my freshman year in college, and was an editor in the early 1990s at the print magazine, Texas Bicyclist. When the opportunity arose to take over at Road Bike Rider in 2018, I jumped at it! I had been following the email newsletter for around 10 years. I’m excited to continue serving other long time readers, and to attract new readers to the site and newsletter. If you’re reading this and haven’t subscribed to our email newsletter yet, then I hope you’ll join us. If you’re on Strava, join the club there too.
John Marsh
Contributor, Former Publisher
My first 10-speed was a bright orange model from Western Auto that I got for my 10th birthday. I could hardly believe that I now had 10 different gears at my disposal! I wouldn’t be jumping ramps or riding through the creek on this baby, though, like I did on my banana-seat bike. This one was for the road—and was built for speed. It’s surely what set the hook that remains embedded in me decades later. Those feelings of speed, rolling through space for miles under my own power, the forces carving a tight, fast corner—they still bring me joy. Read more.
Jim Langley
Technical Editor & Tech Talk Columnist
Probably like most of you, I fell for cycling as a kid. But unlike most of you, when it came time to get a real job, I stuck with what I had done in college — and with what I loved — and kept working as a bicycle mechanic. That was my profession between 1972 and 1989 in shops in New Hampshire, Vermont and California, where I live today. I put my cycling knowledge to use as RBR’s Technical Editor and Tech Talk columnist. Read more.
Coach John Hughes
Coach, Author, Distance Cycling Expert
I’ve been riding for 40 years and coaching for 20. I’ve earned coaching certifications from USA Cycling and the National Strength and Conditioning Association and enjoy coaching riders with a variety of goals and fitness backgrounds. My cycling career includes course records in the Boston-Montreal-Boston 1200-km randonnée and the Furnace Creek 508, a Race Across AMerica (RAAM) qualifier. I’ve ridden solo RAAM twice and am a 5-time finisher of the 1200-km Paris-Brest-Paris. Read more.
Coach Fred Matheny
Ask the Coach Columnist, RBR Co-Founder, Ret.
I discovered the sheer joy—it’s not too strong a term—of pedaling when I began riding in the early ’70s to gain fitness for backpacking, mountaineering and skiing, my favored activities in my newly adopted state of Colorado. Riding also helped me lose the 50 pounds I had gained to play college football. But gradually, riding supplanted everything else as my primary recreation and means of fitness. Read more.
Coach David Ertl, Ph.D.
USA Cycling Level 1 Coach
I have been riding bikes as long as I can remember, and maybe even longer. I got my first bike when I was five years old – a cherry red Schwinn Typhoon. I began racing in 1973, so that makes this year my 42nd year of racing bikes. I do mostly road racing and some mountain bike racing but have dabbled in cyclocross and track as well. Read more.
Sheri Rosenbaum
Female Voice (of reason?), Product Review Crew
I’ve loved biking all my life and became a true roadie about 25 years ago. I’ve competed in time trials, triathlons and recently started fat biking. I’m an advocate to getting more people to join the sport of cycling, especially women. I own four bikes: two road bikes, a cyclocross and a fat tire bike. They all have names and get ridden regularly! Read more.
Paul Smith
Product Review Crew
I started road riding in 2003 after I got a nice bonus payment at work and bought an aluminum Specialized Allez, which my son now rides. Previously, I’d only done mountain biking. I was surprised how addictive being on the road became for me. I started commuting regularly on the bike, using it as invisible exercise around my family life and growing boys. Read more.
Coach Rick Schultz
USA Cycling Coach, Product Reviewer, Bike Fitter
I started bicycling as a kid. I grew up riding Schwinn BMX bikes and tinkering with them by putting motocross bars on them. That’s probably where I started my life-long interest in engineering – figuring out how and why things work the way they do, and can I make them work better. I am a USA Cycling Level 2 coach and specialize in bike fitting, power and pedaling efficiency coaching. Read more.
Brandon Bilyeu
Product Review Crew
After six years of competitive cross-country and track running, my body could no longer take the constant pounding, and I had to retire from running at the ripe old age of 19. I needed a new sport, and a friend convinced me to try road biking. I bought my first road bike in college and I’ve been hooked ever since. Read more.
Gabe Mirkin, M.D.
Health Matters Columnist
I am an 80-year-old retired sports medicine physician who loves to ride a bicycle fast; I know how to enjoy my second childhood! I believe that a person’s lifestyle determines how long and how well he lives. I know that the faster you ride, the less likely you are to suffer heart attacks, cancers, diabetes and premature death. Read more.
Mike Tierney
The Wheel Builder Columnist
My lifetime of cycling started at the age of 14, back in the early ’60s, in my native northern UK. I’ve spent most of my adult life in Canada, though, and have been a passionate home wheel builder for the past 52 years, and I specialize in taking the mystery out of wheels and wheel-building for Newbies.
Coach Harvey Newton
Strength Training Coach
In the mid-1970s, after a lengthy competitive weightlifting career, I figured it was time to make a switch. The first attempt was running. But that didn’t work out. With the first gas crisis hitting about the same time, commuting on a bike seemed a reasonable alternative. I soon found myself headed toward the nearby Central Florida race scene, where I slowly began the transition to endurance athlete.
Coach Dan Kehlenbach
Cycling, Strength and Conditioning Coach
I have been coaching cyclists and other endurance athletes since 1995. I’m also a certified strength and conditioning coach, and have worked with people from all walks of life – athletes, military personnel, police officers, fire fighters, and people simply looking to stay healthy and enjoy life. As a coach, I pride myself in creating a fun, dynamic, non-threatening environment that fosters the healthy physical and mental development of all individuals.
Coach Peter Wimberg
USA Cycling Level 1 Coach, ACE Certified Trainer
While I don’t feel like it, I guess I’m old enough where the numbers start to add up. I’ve been riding since 1980, the year I graduated from high school, and have logged about 265,000 miles, competed in over 400 time trials in the last 18 years, ridden over 150 centuries in the last 7 years, and in general spent an inordinate amount of time on the bike. It’s amazing I’ve been married for 28 years, given this compulsion.
Jim Kish
The Bike Builder Columnist
Jim Kish has been building custom frames and bikes for nearly a quarter century. His shop, Kish Fabrication, is located in Carrboro, N.C. He writes an occasional column for RBR centered on the topic of bike building.