Last week we completed the second stop in the tour for our book, The Rules; The Way of the Cycling Disciple. For the first two, we partnered with Rapha to do a five-to-six hour ride and then sign the books at the shop afterwards. In both cases, I was amazed by the quality of the riding…
Category: The Rules
Anecdotal research suggests that people are being let off-leash without adequate training to perform basic activities such as walking on sidewalks or through airports and busy city centers. I’m assuming this expands to shopping malls, but I never go there so I can’t be sure. It’s easy to blame the mobile phones which apparently grow from our hands, but even…
Here are a few lessons learned while in New York City. I’m sure leaving a bar at one o’clock in the morning is not how the serious riders prepare for a ride with a 9 o’clock morning roll-out. I am sure. Conversational pace for a group ride means different things to different people. Eddy could…
Given the fact that everyone over-tightens their pedals to the crank arms, one needs a long lever to get too much torque. Rule #94 decrees using the correct tool and using it correctly. While the proper tool has always been available, it is up to us to evolve, to understand the difference between right and…
The Rules lie at the beginning of The Path, not the end. In pursuit of La Vie Velominatus, we know of no end to the Path; each of us journey through an endless evolution of understanding and reverence. As such, The Word continues to be handed down from high upon Mount Velominis and The Rules…
One of greatest cycling pleasures is riding with a mate. Riding ten centimeters off each other’s rear wheel for hours; trust is a beautiful thing. You swing over, ease your effort slightly so your mate rides through, you then tuck behind, in the draft, close and fast. It is the best. @Kah touches on this…
We recently lost our beloved Great Dane, Kirki, who we nicknamed Beene for reasons that elude logic. She was a good dog, more sweet than clever. A sad side effect of big dog breeds and their short lives is that it wasn’t until nearly the end of her life that she made certain key discoveries…
Strength can be a fickle thing this time of year, when the training isn’t as consistent as it should be; it comes and goes, sometimes several times in the span of a single ride or even a climb. Like a rosy-eyed dreamer I keep awakening as I train, thrown like a rag doll between a state…
Rules! Hear me fools: The Rules mark the beginning of the path to enlightenment, not the end. There are higher planes, expanding dimensions. Beyond the color of your bar tape exists a man, a mountain, and a bike. This is where the world begins. Keeper Jim wrote this, reporting on his utilitarian climb of Mount…
We’re not really supposed to have favorites, but everyone does. Just ask your parents. So while I’m not supposed to have a favorite, I do, and its Rule #9. Bad weather immediately separates the wheat from the chaff, and so the weekend warriors stay indoors and leave the roads to the devout. I talk most…
Always be casually deliberate, even when riding. You have just attacked off the front to take a town line sprint. It was a just-the-perfect-amount-of-dumb yet successful move. You went deeply anaerobic for a sprint no one else was even mildly interested in, but you did crush them unrestrainedly. Now, to hide your effort, you deploy…
Assuming you ride somewhere outside the borders of Antarctica, you have likely already heard about the injustice being imposed on our friend and fellow Velominatus, Dan Richter who goes around these parts as @Dan_R. I’ve been riding Dan’s wheels for a bit over a year, and they are the best I’ve ever had. After hearing…
Finding The V-Locus is something of an extension of the Goldilocks Principle; bars set somewhere between Sit Up and Beg and a face-plant, saddle height somewhere between speed skater and Baryshnikov, and reach somewhere between a unicycle and the Batpod. This is art more than it is science, a process of iteration and refinement. And…
Every other Tuesday night, I put on my tweed jacket with the leather elbow patches, fill a Thermos with Earl Grey and drive the Rover 3500 to the designated home of one of my fellow members of our esteemed Book Group. As a big fan of the brilliant British television show of the same name, I was hoping that…
My trouble isn’t with being a good descender; it is with cornering and stopping – and sometimes both. Or, as G’rilla puts it, “Descending is like sex; how good I am at it has nothing to do with how much I enjoy it.” Descending is demanding and requires great skill. It is not a time…
Saddle bags have no place on a road bike, and are only acceptable on mountain bikes in extreme cases. Saddle bags: how do we define them? Is it a saddle bag if it attaches to the seat post and the saddle, if it has a zipper, if it is leather, has two natty straps with…
As surely as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, if you ride a bicycle you can bet your ass against an apple that you are going to get a flat. Not if, but when. Death and taxes, and all that. This could be Pierre or Antonio or Jean-Michel, most likely…
A friend recently asked my advice for how to prepare for the longest ride he’d ever done. My approach is somewhat unorthodox when it comes to this sort of thing; I like to train to ride a lot farther than the event itself, and whenever possible, throw in a handful of sessions with my old…
Domination, at least from the spectator’s point of view, can quickly wring the suspense and excitement out of watching an event. In most cases, the sporting events we look back on most fondly are those most closely fought; even in recalling my own competitions, those where my winning margin was smallest feature most prominently in…
June 20th, 2013, to paraphrase FDR; a date that shall live in infamy. The Queen is in deep seclusion. Today is Scepter’s official release date for The Rules. Yes, despite people already sneaking it out of England’s bookstores, today really is the day. And as part of the EU, hopefully the book is available across the…