Originally Posted by
southpawboston
We should start a thread on cycling misnomers!
Fulcrum, a word Sturmey Archer misused to mean cable stop.
Main triangle, which refers to the quadrilateral formed by the top tube, head tube, down tube and seat tube.
Rear triangle, which refers to the array of two seat stays, two chain stays, plus those rear fork ends or those things we sometimes call dropouts and then get chastised for calling them dropouts. The shape of the seat tube plus one seat stay plus one chain stay actually does make a triangle, but we use the term rear triangle to refer to the pair of these triangles as a single structure.
Handlebar: Do I put my pair of hands on a pair of handlebars, or am I putting them on my handlebar?
Bottom bracket: In that film that Raleigh made in 1947, the speaker referred to all the lugs as brackets. The one where we put the crank was obviously the bottom bracket. But now, bottom bracket refers not to the bracket but to the bearing (cups, balls, and spindle) rather than the bracket.
Bearing: a bearing is something that bears (weight). A headset is an example of a bearing. Most bearings we see are of the ball type, so they are ball bearings. We inaccurately call the little balls in the bearings "ball bearings" but they are actually bearing balls, i.e. balls for the bearings.
C: 700C is a series of tires, and it refers to the diameter of the bead. To specify a tire size, we often say 700x28C as if it is 700C tall and 28C wide. But it's really 700C x 28mm. C is not a measurement of distance!
Fork: In the US, the fork is the steerer tube, possibly a fork crown, plus a left blade and a right blade. In the UK, this structure is called the forks. Both make a bit of sense. The bigger structure is like a two-prong fork. But a fork blade, with a tip for one end of the wheel axle, is also fork-like in its shape, because of the fork-shaped tip.