We’ve been busy working away at some more features that will hopefully continue to strengthen the community here at Velominati. This is just a small release, centered on the community. First, we’ve introduced a new badge for community members who have contributed one or more Guest Articles; they’ll be posting with the same v-emblem that…
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.
Arms draped casually over the bars, wrists canted inward, knees tucked in neatly towards the top tube, bottom perched on the saddle’s rivet, chin dropped low to the stem. During maximum effort, all the elements of the rider seem to converge toward one point, an invisible spot on the machine where we may worship at…
Tyler Hamilton’s win in La Doyenne in 2003 was one of the highlights in what was generally a fantastic season. A great Spring campaign, a great Giro, a great Tour, a great Fall; unpredictable races, and closely-fought battles littered the events. But, with the luxury of 20-20 hindsight and a quick cross-reference of results listings to…
Today’s stage of the Giro finished on a steep dirt road. But when we talk about dirt roads – even the ones in of the Strade Bianchi – we are still generally talking about well-maintained roads. Leafing through CycleSport this morning after the stage, I noticed this shot of the Croix de Fer. Before jumping instinctively…
I’m not quire sure which climb this is, but I’m certain the race is Liége-Bastogne-Liége and I’m guessing the climb La Redoute. On the surface, we have the end of a bygone era; when the big names contested not only the cobblestones of Roubaix and Flanders, but also the Côtes of Wallonia. The looks on these…
Experience is something that we can only develop over time. We take it to imply there is some associated wisdom, garnered principally through those experiences that contributed that wisdom through hardship of some kind. As a society, we also refer to this as “learning from our mistakes”; mistakes make a much more convincing guide than does success. I happen to…
Our last Look Pro edition discussed moving Sur la Plaque as you approach the top of the climb, thereby reducing your riding companions to withering leaves of wet lettuce. But the article ignored the other component of climbing like a Pro, which is commonly referred to as going Steady Up with More Speed. Right from the…
Balance. It can be achieved by never deviating from the middle, or it can be achieved by violent swings to and fro. It is said, however, that the great peaks can’t be reached without crossing through deep valleys. Tragically, we were reminded today that our sport is one of great peaks and deep, deep valleys….
If I was going to describe to you what our order management process for the V-Kit has been like, I might start by likening it to Communing with Butterflies, only with invoices. It’s been a highly manual process with invoices for deposits being assembled based on The Big Board, which was compiled by Gianni from…
There’s something not quite the same about how the Pros climb and how we climb. They go faster, I suppose. There’s that. They’re skinnier, too, and climb better for their weight to boot. And they’re stronger, that probably helps although I can’t speak from personal experience. I’ve also noticed that while under pressure, theirs is…
A lot has been made lately of the fact that riders today are lacking a little bit of the V. It’s not so much a criticism of how they conduct themselves during a race (although that has also been called into question lately), but in their general demeanor towards their life as a cyclist. It doesn’t…
Before my dad bought his C-Record Merckx in the late 80's, the family stable consisted of mostly Shimano bits, with a light smattering of Suntour. All these components were things of beauty – after all, there is something of fundemental beauty in any bike part – but none of these trascended time. In a sense,…
The power of hair is not to be underestimated. Especially when it comes to having it carefully disheveled, with little bits poking out of the vents of your helmet. Indeed, hair sticking out of your helmet vents can be thought of as a conduit to The V; the strands reaching into the Ether, channeling its power like…
I suppose it's just a sign of how rich our sport is and how enthusiastic we are about it that some of the most iconic rides in cycling go virtually unmentioned in these pages. It almost seems as though they are so tightly woven into legend that we take them for granted, these rides. Nevermore,…
Here stands a man. A quiet man. A hard working man. A Belgian man. A man from a life of grit, cold, and rain. Here stands a man who has chosen a life of hard work and sacrifice; a hard life even within the context of Cycling. A man who spends long hours in the wind…
It wasn't created from nothing by the concentrated will of an obsessive Velominatus, nor by the grace of Merckx out of pure ether. No, as with all of our stables, mine started simply, and grew over the years. My first honest bike was a Cannondale SR600 with hot pink decals that I bought in 8th…
There is something about Northern Europe in general and Flanders in particular that exudes The V; you feel it in the air the moment you set foot into the region. Such terrible things have happened here for so long that living with hardship and suffering has not only become part of the culture of the region, but being tough…
Perusing the Velominati Archives of Cycling Photos Liberated from the Interwebs (VACPLI), I stumbled across this little gem. I’m sure they are lovely people on the inside, but this photo showcases one of the most unflattering examples of spectators we find along the roadside of the Great Races. I’m not sure how you can be…
Daylight Savings always represents a turning point for my cycling season. In Fall, it represents leaving my season’s goals behind as I find once again the simple pleasure of riding my bike for the sake of riding my bike; the sensation of the rhythm, the hypnosis of rain dripping from my cycling cap’s brim, the…
I’m not particularly fond of this photo, but it certainly tells you a thing or two about Le Blaireau. A man more comfortable speaking with his appendages than with words, he was patron of the last peloton that truly represented the working class sport that cycling originally was; one where riders escaped a tough life of manual labor…