Artistic Cycling

Artistic cycling is a form of bike riding that you may not be quite aware of. I know I sure wasnt before I came across it in research and I'd like to share with you guys what I learnt :)

First a little history - The first unofficial world artistic cycling world championship was held in 1888 by Nicholas Edward. Now this was primarily a publicity stunt to show off his tricks.
The first official world championships were first held for men in 1956 and women in 1970.

So - What is artistic cycling? Artistic cycling is a form of competitive indoor cycling where individual's perform tricks on fixed-gear bikes. The tricks they perform are of a similar format to ballet or gymnastics, so clearly these people have got to be pretty skilled! The tricks (or exercises, as they are professionally termed) are performed in five minute rounds before a set of judges, and can be either by singles, pairs and four or six man teams.

Here is an example of an artistic bicycle.

Now if your still curious as to how tricks are performed check out the following video (and more) on Youtube:

World Championship Artistic Cycling 2009

Pretty crazy huh! Definitely an interesting and unique sport to watch :)

Sandra