About Velopedia
What Is Velopedia?
Velopedia is an independent bicycle reference for people who want to understand how bicycles work, how they are built, and how their technologies have evolved.
The site combines three complementary resources: a technical encyclopedia, a historical bicycle specification archive, and practical workshop tools.
Velopedia covers bicycle technologies, components, standards, manufacturing methods, brands, history, and engineering concepts. The goal is to explain not only what something is, but how it works, why it exists, and what its design means in practical use.
Information is presented without product hype, rankings, or opinion presented as fact.
What You’ll Find Here
Technical Encyclopedia
Velopedia’s encyclopedia documents the technologies, components, standards, systems, and engineering concepts that shape bicycles.
Entries draw from manufacturer documentation, technical manuals, compatibility information, patents, engineering sources, and practical mechanical experience. Articles preserve useful technical detail while making complicated subjects easier to understand.
Bicycle Archive
The Velopedia Bicycle Archive preserves historical specifications for more than 50,000 bicycle records across numerous brands and model years.
Archive pages can include original specifications, component information, sizes, colors, original MSRP, and bicycle images where available.
Historical specifications should be treated as reference information. Bicycle specifications sometimes differed by market, frame size, production run, or manufacturer substitution, and surviving historical information is not always complete.
Workshop Tools
Velopedia also develops practical bicycle calculators and technical tools.
SpokeMaster calculates bicycle spoke lengths from rim and hub geometry and lacing configuration. The Tire Pressure Calculator estimates independent front and rear starting pressures using rider and bicycle weight, wheel load, tire dimensions, surface, casing, and air system.
These tools are independently implemented and designed to make their inputs and assumptions understandable. Calculated results are starting points rather than substitutes for component manufacturer specifications or safety limits.
Why Velopedia Exists
Reliable bicycle information is often scattered across service manuals, compatibility charts, catalogs, patents, engineering documents, manufacturer websites, and technical publications.
Some of that information also disappears as products are discontinued and manufacturers update or remove older documentation.
Velopedia exists to organize and preserve useful bicycle knowledge while adding the context needed to make that information understandable.
Who Is Behind Velopedia?
Velopedia is created and edited by Jeffrey South, a bicycle mechanic and industry professional with 31 years of experience.
His background includes bicycle service, retail, technical support, parts identification, and shop ownership across multiple generations of mountain, road, gravel, suspension, drivetrain, braking, wheel, and e-bike systems.
That experience helps connect published technical documentation with the practical realities mechanics and riders encounter when bicycles are assembled, maintained, repaired, and ridden.
Editorial Approach
Velopedia follows several basic principles:
- Use manufacturer documentation, compatibility charts, patents, technical manuals, and established technical sources whenever available.
- Preserve important engineering detail while explaining it clearly.
- Separate documented facts from practical observations.
- Present advantages alongside limitations and engineering trade-offs.
- Avoid unsupported claims and promotional language.
- Distinguish historical specifications from current manufacturer information.
- Review and update material as reliable information changes or better sources become available.
Each subject is treated according to the information needed to explain it rather than being forced into a rigid article formula.
Independence
Velopedia is not built around affiliate rankings, sponsored product recommendations, or promotional coverage.
Brands and products are discussed when they are relevant to the technology, history, component, or system being documented. Editorial coverage is intended to be useful regardless of who manufactures the product being discussed.
The objective is straightforward: build a dependable bicycle reference for riders, mechanics, buyers, researchers, and industry professionals.
Corrections & Updates
Bicycle technology changes constantly, and historical records are not always perfect.
If you find an error, missing specification, outdated technical detail, or other information that should be reviewed, please use the Contact page to let Velopedia know.
Corrections are evaluated against the best available technical and historical sources, and entries are updated when better information becomes available.