I love the shape of it. Aroma of it. The way it feels to be around it. It will catch my eye from across the way; I will be powerless to resist taking in its form and perhaps allow my hand to graze its surface. The source of such beauty and harmony, it is a fountain of…
Author: frank
The founder of Velominati and curator of The Rules, Frank was born in the Dutch colonies of Minnesota. His boundless physical talents are carefully canceled out by his equally boundless enthusiasm for drinking. Coffee, beer, wine, if it’s in a container, he will enjoy it, a lot of it. He currently lives in Seattle. He loves riding in the rain and scheduling visits with the Man with the Hammer just to be reminded of the privilege it is to feel completely depleted. He holds down a technology job the description of which no-one really understands and his interests outside of Cycling and drinking are Cycling and drinking.
As devoted aesthete, the only thing more important to him than riding a bike well is looking good doing it.
Frank is co-author along with the other Keepers of the Cog of the popular book, The Rules, The Way of the Cycling Disciple and also writes a monthly column for the magazine, Cyclist. He is also currently working on the first follow-up to The Rules, tentatively entitled The Hardmen.
Email him directly at rouleur@velominati.com.
It came to me in a moment of absolute clarity, the kind of clarity which only arrives to one in an oxygen-depleted state and at high speed – usually down a steep descent. It would be awfully nice to justify wearing my Molteni jersey, rather than having it hanging in my workshop all the time….
Everyone knows that things like “tactics” and “thinking” are for the weak. After all, if you’re strong enough, loud enough, and stubborn enough, you should be able to outlast those pesky details like evidence, facts, or people who can ride their bikes faster than you can. Ivan Basso knows this, and Ivan Basso believes he…
Have a look around to see who you find occupying your immediate vicinity. Presently, I am surrounded by a pleasant-seeming bunch. Some are even going so far as to appear happy or at least not displeased; all of them are pale and none of them fit. My attention is drawn, however, to a a portly…
I feel it in my bones. I feel it in my breathing. I fixate on how much I feel it in my legs to the point where I find myself in a meeting, rubbing them to gauge how soft they’ve gotten. (Must learn to stop doing that in public as it can’t possibly improve my…
We gather here today to pay our respects to one of the most exciting developments the Cycling world has ever witnessed: the funny bike. For seventy years, the evolution of the bicycle was marked by incremental change; improvements to brakes, more gears, and better shifting followed one another as the sport grudgingly continued its slow journey towards…
The Rules are about cultivating a passion for riding our bikes to gain the maximum enjoyment possible. This requires humility, for one thing, and devotion, for another. It requires a balance between focusing on progress and enjoying the journey. It demands a reverence for our history paired with a hunger for evolution. The Rules teach…
With Keepers Tour: Cobbled Classics 2012 stitched up and in the history books, the challenge of documenting the trip became immediately obvious; how do you take the myriad impressions, experiences, and perspectives and put them down in a meaningful way – let alone in a way that can somehow be digested. Surely, to document even…
You don’t have to be in Flanders very long before you start to breathe in the history of the area. Horrible things have happened in the fields across Northern France and Belgium, like the Battle of Waterloo and the Battle of the Bulge. These are the kinds of things that hang in the air for…
Points of complication are usually both surprising and completely predictable. Take, for instance, international travel. We don’t really have trouble cramming a few hundred people who don’t know each other in a small, confined space and chucking in the air at 9,000 meteres to a destination several thousand kilometers away. That bit, apparently, is simple and is…
It was a simple time. Team kit was understated, with black shorts and a few colored panels on the jersey. Race Leader and National Championship jerseys were plain, and often even lacking in the name of the sponsor. National Championship jerseys in particular were a matter of national pride more than sponsorship; it was an honor…
It has been a busy couple of weeks in the Velominati Boardroom as we’ve been scrambling to finalize a few partnerships and get all the products for the Keepers Tour customers designed and produced. Suffice to say, fists and beers were slammed in tandem as we feverishly worked out the final designs. Producing V-Pints, V-Shirts, and…
While the rest of us where bickering over the style in which the finale of one of the most exciting editions of Milano-Sanremo played out, @Pedale.Forchetta was busy behind the finish line, living and breathing the reality of the race. He spent the day following the race to photograph the riders and tifosi and generously…
As Keepers Tour crossed from dream to reality and routes over the cobblestones of Northern Europe were sketched out, with it came the familiar tingling in my fingertips and uneasy sensation at the base of my spine as my mind starts its irrevocable journey towards categorizing as mandatory an unnecessary indulgence. I was going to need a wheelset and…
Those things in life that are worth having are those things which are difficult to come by; perseverance is made more rewarding by the volume of messages ignored by the mind as we work towards a goal. Fatigue comes in many forms and is normally framed in negative connotations; weariness, exhaustion – both things to…
This is Meg. Keeper Jim and I found Meg spinning loops around Mercer Island, big-ringing the rollers in the pouring rain. Meg likes sunsets, puppies, and had a gerbil named Fränk. Meg doesn’t need bad weather to be considered a badass; Meg rides her bike with one leg, so riding in the rain is hardly a blip…
There are few pleasures in life as great as to achieve a goal, to accomplish something that doesn’t come easily. Great lessons are taught through this activity; we learn that it is our determination and not our doubt that defines our limits. We learn that through studied discipline we can cultivate the skills required to…
Asheville, North Carolina holds the distinction of being the only town in the world wherein I came across an elderly gentleman who asked me where the “shindig” was. The shindig, I came to learn, was in reference to an impromptu bluegrass festival the town was having, and a while later we came upon the same gentleman busy…
Some years ago, Issue 12 of Rouleur reawakened an obsession in me, one with a peculiar nature to it that only bicycle parts can invoke. For as long as I can remember, Royce hubs have seemed like the ultimate bicycle component: painstakingly hand-crafted to the tightest tolerances for error in the industry. With a reputation for indestructibility, ulta-high performance, and unmatched beauty,…
One eye open and dreaming; were the building on fire, I suspect this shell of a man could hardly be bothered to move from his bench. As a Cyclist, the enormous weight of the total exhaustion felt by LeMond at this moment fills my spirit with equal measures of dread and envy.