I am thrilled to announce that for the first time in my life, my chest measurement is smaller than my hip measurement, an accomplishment I’m not sure many men around the world would be proud to admit. A Cyclist has no use for an upper body, we’re not going about lifting things with our arms; we are…
To hold opposing truths in one’s heart is a beautiful thing; to find resonance within contradiction is a liberating force that opens one’s mind to a wide world of possibilities. Life lived in black and white is a bland, simple world, after all: everything interesting in life happens in the gray space in between. There is…
I have it on excellent authority that life is good when you’re at the top. I myself am, of course, nowhere near the top but I felt a glimmer of it today, briefly savoring the unique palate of having some semblance of form in January. Which feels a lot like a victory over Christmas. And kicking Christmas’ ass feels pretty…
I do love my Dutchmen. That much I admit. I also admit my love for the Americans with whom I share a passport. These affections are expressed erratically and sporadically, often at high volumes, and sometimes with some unreasonably held or possibly non factual evidence to support my passion. At this point, my love for…
I profess to understand every mannerism and habit of the Cyclist. I’m Dutch, and I’m a writer, so it all comes pretty naturally. The problem is that thinking you understand something and actually understanding it are two completely different things; the first is confidence, the second is wisdom; there is no Venn diagram that has an…
As 20VVV comes to a close, we’d like to once again thank each and every one of you for your readership and participation in this amazing community. Each of you are what makes Velominati the most exciting (if divisive) community in the Cycling world, and none of it would mean a thing if not for…
The Germans are onto something. They call a bike a “rad”. From a linguistic standpoint, that is the most accurate name for a bike in any language. They call Cycling “riding rad”. I’m not even making that up. Radfahren. When they put it in a sentence, it translates roughly to “I’m practicing being rad.” I accept the…
I think the most exciting Christmas present I ever received as a child was an Avocet 30 in what must have been 1989. Being in Minnesota and it being December, it meant my bike was going nowhere near the road any time soon, so I kept the silver dollar-sized computer in my pocket wherever I went,…
I get to certain parts of my training when I begin to crave his blows, especially in winter. Winter is the time of year when training is a time for reflection and spending hours on the bike. Thoughts of hill repeats and intervals don’t creep into even the dampest corners of my mind as I…
The V surrounds us, it penetrates and binds us together. Through disciplined practice we are able to draw from it to push harder and go farther on the bike; what we do on the bike then informs how we face our lives. The masters, such as the Prophet Merckx and the Apostle de Vlaeminck, could channel…
I was recently asked how one is supposed to handle the delicate situation when departing a traffic signal and you are unable to clip in immediately. The obvious answer is that you’re supposed to clip in right away (use your toe to position the pedal and then pop your shoe into it) but I admit…
Sad news today that Erik de Vlaeminck, older brother to Flemish Cycling legend Roger de Vlaeminck, passed away today at the age of 70. He was a dominant Cyclocrosser winning a whopping seven World Championships, six of which were back to back from 68-73. He was apparently suffering from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. I don’t know…
They say you can measure the quality of a man’s character by his ability to admit when he’s wrong. That in itself seems wrong, since it would obviously be better to be right in the first place, but I’m probably missing the point because I’m Dutch and everyone knows Dutch people are 97% more righter…
Whenever I drive somewhere in my car, I find myself wondering what the road would feel like from a bike. Driving in a car feels like cheating, especially on a windy day; roads are gobbled up at constant speeds irrespective of the conditions. On a bicycle, you learn what it costs to move up a gradient…
My office is organizing a holiday 12K run, an invitation to which I replied that one is only to engage in running when one is being chased, and even then only fast enough to avoid capture. I am a Cyclist, not a savage fleeing a beast in the jungle. I walk as little as possible because I hate…
Whenever I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the human race. HG Wells The world is a strange place. Our planet is more globally connected than ever before where our differences are measured by increasingly smaller margins, yet they represent apparently unbridgeable chasms. The horrific events in Paris and elsewhere around the world emphasize…
The difference between Style and Fashion is that Fashion changes, but style is something that persists through the ages. You can’t buy it, and you either have it or you don’t. In other words, you can get all the best and expensive kit and still look complete crap if you don’t have Style. Conversely, you can…
I’m proud to declare that I am fluent in three languages: Hyperbole, Dutch, and English. All of them rubbish. The language of the peloton is, by and large, the most beautiful and expressive in French and Italian, which already make anything sound sexy. But they really excel in le langage du peloton: Sur la plaque, La Volupte,…
We will always have strength, we will always have Paris, and we will always have the Tour de France racing to the finish on the Champs Élysée in July. Our thoughts are with the victims and people of Paris. Vive la France.
The thing about the cold is that you can never tell how cold it is from looking out a kitchen window. You have to dress up, get out training and when you come back, you then know how cold it is. – Sean Kelly Apart from the obvious lesson in Rules #5 and #9, hidden…