It is my great pleasure to introduce this guest article, penned by my long time friend @Rob. I’ve know the lad since we were both in short pants. We both discovered cycling as something more serious than transportation at the same impressionable age. For Rob, his discipline gained from martial arts, his fearlessness on the…
Category: Guest Article
In our continuing guest article series, @eightzero weighs in on the modern cycling jersey. It’s made of some unholy material which has a half-life of fifty years and unless you crash in it, it’s still in your kit drawer. Yours in Cycling, Gianni – As the song goes, “we need dirty laundry” so goes the…
Stop the presses, North American Cogal #2 is off and running. @Jeff in PetroMetro is organizing a ride deep in the heart-o-Texas on December 4, 2011 for the rider who wants a taste of drought, dust storm, truck nuts and fun. Lest we forget what a Cogal is, “… A meeting of like-minded misfits brought…
Imagine my surprise when, while enthusiastically discussing the “porn show” down in Vegas, some of my coworkers expressed concern and declared the discussion of this subject during a conference call to be “inappropriate”. Apparently, there is some other kind of porn that doesn’t involve bicycles that also has a show there as well. Very confusing,…
A Velominatus is never to judge a book by its cover; appearances and predispositions are quickly cast aside at the discovery of a diamond in the rough. After all, the pursuit of perfection necessarily requires that we are a breed who turn over the last stone in search of it, even when all hope has…
Like almost anything in Japan, the creation of noodles is a deeply ritualized art. Recipes are closely guarded secrets, and cooks apprentice for many years in the creation of a restaurant’s specific type of noodle. Not surprisingly, this type of ritualization can be appreciated by the Velominati, and Cyclops (who happens to be a bit…
It is with an especially acute understanding of pushing oneself to ones limits, having just completed my second assault on Haleakala, with which I select this Guest Article, a first contribution from community member Scaler911. Especially acute in this case meaning that reading this account reminds me that I have no idea how to suffer…
If we liked breathing stale, recycled air, we’d all take up a sport like wrestling or indoor fly-fishing. But we love the feel of a gale on our faces. We cherish the smell of cow manure filling our nostrils with its almost tangible grittiness. We hold scared the privilege to breathe in diesel fuel while…
If we were meant to fly, Merckx would have given us wings. But he did give us two wheels and Physics. The first allows us to feel like we’re flying, and the second gives us the propensity to fall over and, as such, crashing – or the fear of crashing – is the constant companion…
Has anyone heard? Jeff in PetroMetro has a Look. So does Marcus. So does Ron, and probably some others who haven't told us (over and over and over). So does Cyclops. His old bike – his Cannonwhale – suffered from a mathematical challenge more so than it did from one of performance. Look is a…
Weight. There are few segments of the population more obsessed with it than cyclists, apart from teenage girls and young men hoping to be selected for the highschool varsity ballet team (wrestling). Our sport is unique in the respect that friction between road and rider doesn’t significantly increase or decrease with rider weight, meaning that…
We’re going to take advantage of our break in the Velominati Super Prestige to get a few articles out that have been sitting in the queue but haven’t had the opportunity to see the light of day due to the busy race schedule. Besides, we’ve spent the last two days bemoaning a couple skinny kids’ lack of…
Most 24 hour bike rides consist of teams of riders who trade off shifts and ride, as a group, for 24 hours. As far as 24 hour competitions go, that’s the smart way to handle it. It seems kind of weak, though, doesn’t it? Why bother with getting off the bike every few hours? Sounds…
In my imagination, I don't think there is anything cooler than a civilian – one of us – being allowed to take the red pill and go behind the lines with a Pro team. Oh, wait. There are two things cooler than that: the first would be to have that individual be asked to be…
Our lives as cyclists are made sweeter by the occasional intersection of our world with that of professional cycling. Spotting a pro out on the road, stumbling across a team training ride, sneaking onto the back of said team training ride, even stealing a conversation with a pro or ex-pro can leave a lasting impression and provide…
Not only do most of us have a tale of our Cycling Sensei, but we also generally have a story for how we came into our current Bike Number 1. Those of us who were online last week probably noticed Jeff’s manic posts regarding a Look that he spotted at a big-box retailer, for a…
Jarvis has been with us for most of the last year, and throughout has dropped hints about a back injury that not only kept him off his bike, but laying flat on his back in the floor. On the anniversary of the accident that caused the injury and as we start to look towards and…
While we generally try to space out our guest pieces by a few weeks at least, we simply couldn’t resist the temptation to chuck this one up right on the heels of Oli Brooke-White’s post on Spinaci’s. After all, this is probably the second time in the Velominati’s history that a direct reference has been…
The Velominati are proud to present the following guest article by our community member Cyclops. As if we needed more convincing, Cyclops has once again proven that a Velominatus has a tendency to be a bit out of dish when it comes to making budgeting decisions. In this particular tale, Cyclops takes us through the…
The Velominati are proud to present the following guest article by our community member Steampunk, who splits his time between peppering the site with his insight and humor and riding in the sacred Velominati colors. Michael Barry is one of the great domestiques of the peloton; loyal, hardworking, a hardman, a true cycling aesthete –…