Cycling’s Strange Affinity With April Fool’s Day And The Coriolis Effect
The history of April Fool’s Day possibly goes back to the 1600s, but it wasn’t until more recently, with the emergence of comedy websites (such as cyclingnews.com) that its reach has been able to fully penetrate the world of cycling. Thankfully there’s nothing that cyclists enjoy more than being fully penetrated.
Here’s just a sample of some of the classic articles from cycling’s impressive back catalogue:
1. The SBS Cycling Central website reported in 2014 that Paris-Roubaix organisers would be employing cloud-seeding technology to guarantee a wet race.
2. That same year, Carryology unveiled CamelBak’s new closed loop hydration system complete with urine filtration.
3. VeloNews revealed plans to pave the famous cobblestones of Flanders in 2011.
4. Cyclingnews reported in 2007 that Tour de France organisers had agreed to host an indoor prologue inside Dubai’s Mall of Emirates complete with an uphill finish to the top of its indoor ski slope.
But there is one April Fool’s Day joke that has been able to gain enough traction to stand above them all. In 2006 Cyclingnews published an article claiming that the UCI intended to reverse the direction of track cycling events in the northern hemisphere (changing to a clockwise direction) in order to eliminate the negative effects of the Coriolis Force on riders.
The actual physics of the Coriolis Effect are not really very exciting. It simply explains the deflection of objects whose motion is described relative to a rotating reference frame. It illustrates why a ball dropped on a rotating merry-go-round appears to take on a curved trajectory for a stationary observer.
In the world of meteorology though, it explains why cyclones always spin clockwise in the southern hemisphere and anti-clockwise in the northern hemisphere — an effect caused by the Earth’s rotation.
When it comes to cycling around a velodrome, there’s obviously no measurable benefit due to Coriolis forces from riding in either direction — the one exception being on an outdoor velodrome that fully encircled the rotating eye of a cyclone. But as far as I know, UCI track racing is normally conducted indoors so the only event likely to be at risk would be something like the Bendigo Madison.
But these are simply the facts. And on April Fool’s Day the facts — much like universal bottom bracket standards — have no place in cycling.
Another commonly held misconception is that the direction of spin of a draining plughole or toilet bowl vortex is governed by the Coriolis Effect. In reality though, the magnitude the Coriolis forces generated (due to the incredibly slow rotational speed of the Earth) are far outweighed by other factors such as the shape of the vessel and the original direction of water flow.
So although it might be nice to think that the toilet bowl vortex always spins clockwise in the southern hemisphere, this would not actually be the case unless your toilet was designed and used under strict laboratory conditions. And while professional cyclists have had to get used to laboratory staff overseeing their toilet routines, the chance of any evidence of the Coriolis Effect being detected is about as likely as the sophistication of the testing catching up with Spanish sports medicine.
Although we’ve already debunked the idea that a cyclist’s speed on a velodrome is in any way influenced by Coriolis Effects, the hoax, conversely, has managed to harness enough comedic rotational inertia to make a surprise return 8 years later. It appeared on another online cycling publication, Road.cc (‘the website for pedal powered people’), on April Fool’s Day in 2014. Interestingly though, this website reached the opposite conclusion about the effects of the force — that the advantage was to riders in the northern hemisphere.
Now, because the actual science doesn’t support Coriolis-based advantage in either direction, it’s of no consequence which website is more scientifically correct, however in the already confusing world of wheel-size dilemmas, steerer-tube diameters and hub-axle configurations, it would be nice to see some consistency in at least one aspect of cycling — even if only in Gregorian calendar-based hoax day articles.
If you thought that the longevity of this gag would have finally begun to wane by the end of its second independent — yet scientifically contradictory — online publication, then the joke is on you. It appears that this hoax, much like the Melbourne Share Bike helmet debate, is something that will be with us for a lot longer yet.
In October 2014, the Road.cc interpretation of this joke (clockwise Southern Hemisphere amendment) was cited as fact by The German Way — a language and cultural resource for English-speaking expats living in Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
This website included the citation as part of an article explaining international differences in circuit-based racing directions. Riveting stuff, no doubt, especially for the now growing band of European-based Coriolis Conspiracy Theorists who have most likely been bombarding the UCI’s Swiss headquarters with letters petitioning for this change.
While it would be easy enough to condemn The German Way author Hyde Flippo’s rather loose fact-checking, it might be more fun to try and get him to head up a seriously well-resourced lobby group with the intention of marching on the UCI headquarters in the small town of Aigle, Switzerland. The rally could be organised by English-speaking expats for April 1st 2016, concluding with a beautifully staged announcement by UCI president Brian Cookson that the track racing direction would indeed be changed. Then Jan Ullrich would unexpectedly emerge from a hidden door in the side of Mr Cookson’s lectern to inform Hyde Flippo (in his native tongue) about the comedic device known as sarcasm and the history of Aprilscherz. The revelry would then continue with much thigh slapping, strudel and lederhosen appreciation.
*PS. For anybody keen to know what clockwise track cycling looks like, check out this footage of a clockwise kilo team pursuit—it’s strangely hypnotic.
