Editing Cycling (section)

===Racing===
[[File:TDF31472 groep met rodriguez (53062211809).jpg|thumb|[[Tour de France]] cyclists racing]]
[[File:Leon Georget 1909.jpg|thumb|Bicycle racing in 1909|alt=A black-and-white picture of a man on an old bicycle. Another man is holding or pushing the bicycle.]]
[[File:Peloton on GGB.jpg|thumb|A [[peloton]] of professional bicycle racers on the [[Golden Gate Bridge]]|alt=A group of bicyclist following a car.]]
{{Main|Cycle sport}}
Shortly after the introduction of bicycles, competitions developed independently in many parts of the world. Early races involving [[Boneshaker (bicycle)|boneshaker]] style bicycles were predictably fraught with injuries. Large races became popular during the 1890s "Golden Age of Cycling", with events across Europe, and in the U.S. and Japan as well. At one point, almost every major city in the US had a [[velodrome]] or two for [[Track cycling|track racing]] events, however since the middle of the 20th century cycling has become a minority sport in the US whilst in Continental Europe it continues to be a major sport, particularly in the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Italy and Spain. The most famous of all bicycle races is the [[Tour de France]]. This began in 1903, and continues to capture the attention of the sporting world.

In 1899, [[Charles Minthorn Murphy]] became the first man to ride his bicycle a mile in under a minute (hence his nickname, Mile-a-Minute Murphy), which he did by drafting a [[locomotive]] at [[New York (state)|New York]]'s [[Long Island]].

As the bicycle evolved its various forms, different racing formats developed. Road races may involve both team and individual competition, and are contested in various ways. They range from the one-day road race, [[criterium]], and time trial to multi-stage events like the Tour de France and its sister events which make up cycling's [[Grand Tour (cycling)|Grand Tours]]. [[Recumbent bicycle]]s were banned from bike races in 1934 after Marcel Berthet set a new [[hour record]] in his ''Velodyne streamliner'' (49.992&nbsp;km on 18 November 1933). [[Track bicycle]]s are used for [[track cycling]] in [[Velodrome]]s, while [[cyclo-cross]] races are held on outdoor terrain, including pavement, grass, and mud. Cyclocross races feature human-made features such as small barriers which riders either [[Bunny hop (cycling)|bunny hop]] over or dismount and walk over. [[Individual time trial|Time trial]] races, another form of road racing require a rider to ride against the clock. Time trials can be performed as a team or as a single rider. Bikes are changed for time trial races, using [[aero bars]]. In the past decade, [[mountain biking|mountain bike racing]] has also reached international popularity and is even an Olympic sport.

Professional racing organizations place limitations on the bicycles that can be used in the races that they sanction. For example, the Union Cycliste Internationale, the governing body of international cycle sport (which sanctions races such as the Tour de France), decided in the late 1990s to create additional rules which prohibit racing bicycles weighing less than 6.8 kilograms (14.96 pounds). The UCI rules also effectively ban some [[bicycle frame]] innovations (such as the [[recumbent bicycle]]) by requiring a double triangle structure.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://oldsite.uci.ch/english/about/rules/ch01_general.pdf |title=UCI Cycling Regulations |access-date=4 August 2006 |author=Union Cycliste International |year=2003 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120304223058/http://oldsite.uci.ch/english/about/rules/ch01_general.pdf |archive-date=4 March 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref>