Bicycle Software

Misc. Downloads

Nigel's Abacus

This Abacus page is for the retro cyclist, mathematician or traffic cone who drinks Carling Black Label, eats 3 shredded wheat for breakfast and believes ignorance of computers to be a virtue. These retro cyclists frequently ride around on fixed wheel bikes and are so cool that they can calculate gear ratios, spoke lengths, power requirements, derailleur gear shifting patterns, heart rate training zones, average speeds and hourly earnings in their heads! (Or perhaps on the back of an envelope).

This kind of rider firmly believes that easy things seldom satisfy so rather than use my high tech cycling software they reach for the and gear charts. If you believe that calculators and high tech cycling programs are strictly for wimps, how about something rather more challenging!

Are you the ultimate retro cycling mathematician? Can you design a Mars lander on the back of a beer coaster? Are you man enough, tough enough, brave enough to calculate your gear ratios with an abacus?

Don't worry if you aren't tough, brave, retro, cranky and determined enough to do your cycling calculations with an abacus. Below are some programs to do the work quickly leaving plenty of time for a bicycle ride ;-) At a system level your computer is nothing more than a very big abacus that can only add and can only count from 0 to 1 anyhow. This abacus calculates in base 10. So argueably it is more high tech than my computer!

If you are the kind of rider who thinks Carling is p***, the Abacus is a lot of balls, and that slide rules and log tables not only suck but swallow too: The following high tech programs and cycling software were designed with you in mind.