International Cogal: Festum Prophetae
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.
It had been suggested a few times already by the time the notion came to me last winter, that Velominati should organize an international Cogal on which all of us around the world would climb aboard our bicycles in honor of each other, and devote the day to riding. It is, after all, what we do; we ride our bikes. The rest is detail.
While the idea is simple enough, the selection of a date has proven positively futile. Summer on the Upper Half of the planet (you know the one – the one that matters) means VVinter for the Lower Half. When the Lower Half (you know the one, the one with all the convicts and Aztecs) is in summer, the important side is snowed in or sopping wet. You simply can’t choose a day that works for everyone.
The solution, of course, is simple: I unilaterally pick a date for the entire community and shove it down everyone’s throat by the virtue of being louder than almost anyone else (with the exception of the bloke sitting just behind me and to my left at the café; that is one loud-mouthed bastard, that.)
Being the type of person I am, with all the personality defects I have at my disposal, I was still perplexed by the selection of a date that holds significant meaning for all our community. January first, so we may ride off our hangovers. October 3rd, to celebrate Leiden’s liberty from the Spanish. Then the epiphany as I flew down Lighthouse Hill towards the shore of Puget Sound, where Pearl Jam and Sound Garden once rocked out in the weeds: the Velominati International Cogal will be held every year in honor of The Prophet’s birthday, June 17.
Every Velominatus is free to observe this day however they like. Take a holiday from work; declare an exemption due to your specific religious requirements. Ride on the day, in a way that helps you honor the way Eddy rode himself. Ride lots, was his sage training advice. I like to surprise my rivals, was his explanation attacking 70 or 80 or 90 or 100km from the finish. However you ride, on Festum Prophetae each year, we will honor The Prophet. We may also choose, as is customary with other holidays, to arrange within our immediate community to designate the nearest convenient day to observe the holiday. If taking the day to honor him is impractical on the 17th, designate a nearby day that works better for you.
Mark your calendars for June 17, Festum Prophetae*. Personally, I will climb aboard my steel Bike #2 fitted with tubular tires, don my wool Molteni Jersey and head out with only a bit of food in my jersey pocket and water in my bidon with the express intent to meet the Man with the Hammer. No mean feat, considering the Seattle Summer Cogal will have taken place only the day before. Two Cogals in one weekend: I can’t think of a better way to honor him.
Vive la Vie Velominatus.
*A special thanks to @ChrisO for helping determine the “correct” latin phrase.
Is anyone else from the UK doing anything for this?
Rule #11 is very much the order of the day for anyone with kids; Sean was not wrong!
@936adl
Trossachs Ton on Sunday out of Stirling still has places – will be looking for signs of the V
@ChrisO
Dubai to Jerusalem on your day off? Quite a ride but your colleagues will be impressed by your recognition of the feast day.
Looking forward to seeing it on Strava.
@the Engine
If i was anywhere near the Trossachs i’d be sorely tempted. However i might have to settle for something nearer to home.
@brett @Frank
Thanks gents!
Reply still not working for me. Clearly beyond my computer tech ken. However, as I’ve already emptied my cache looking at the DeRosa, then the beautiful Fyxo woman, I no longer need a tissue…
Cheers
@ChrisO
In this case no need to worry. He was very good rider and spent time racing semi-pro based in Ghent.
He’s now old enough to appreciate his first De Rosa, and still got the legs to give it some serious attention.
(for the rest of us it’s like your mate has pulled a super-model and we’re all hanging around with our chins on the ground)
@markpa
Does he also happen to be a lotto winner? Just saw one of these sitting in the LBS (albeit with ‘just’ Super Record, not EPS) priced at $18k. You’d think that would be the most expensive bike in the shop, but no, the owner’s bike was right underneath.
Fondriest TF Zero with EPS at a lazy $21k
Boys – Tomorrow is the ride! Heading out with one of my favorite riding pals in the morning. Sweet as! I also get married in tomorrow! And it’s father’s day!
Rehearsal dinner in four hours – bbq pig roast, 140 friends attending, two kegs o’ beer.
Pretty solid two days ahead of me…
I hope everyone is excited for the ride tomorrow, has the proper bike, kit, route, and riding pals planned. Enjoy lads!!
Festum Eve — the gods conspired to shuffle the family off to a birthday party giving me time for a big ride. 90 km, climbed the aptly named Mt. Diablo, the biggest climb I can ride to from home. It was hotter’n hell out there.
@Mikael Liddy
Speaking personally I’d have compromised a little somewhere and bought proper shoes but each to their own.
@Ron Congratulations and best of luck for your Big Day, Ron!
@Ron
Congrats mate.
@Ron
Ronning! Well done, your enthusiasm is entirely appropriate.
Have a wonderful day, Ron. Your bride Is a lucky woman to have landed such a nice chap as yourself. And very nice incorporation on Rule #11 into the day. A true Velominatus. Cheers bro.
Happy Festum to you all. I had a nice ride today. La volupte was in effect. So rare. If I don’t get out tomorrow today will suffice. I just put a new gruppo on #1 though and it beckons me.
Unfortunately a combination of Rule #9 conditions (and a complete lack of confidence in my own abilities in them after my last crash) & a rather large evening last night has prevented me from doing the ride I planned for today…penalties will be indulged in tomorrow.
@the Engine yeah if he were a true Velominatus he’d have been in Adilettes.
@Ron Enjoy mate, it’s a sensational day.
@Ron
Big day, congratulations! Pig roast & beer — mmm, well done!
@ron
I can’t think of a better way to see out your single days than with a spit roast with 140 of your closest friends…
All the best mate!
Festum Prophetae ride completed – a nice 85km with a small but good group.
Can’t say La Volupte was much in evidence. After the ride on Friday I could barely walk, my calves were so tight and my left knee was sympathetically painful as well, but I was determined to get out today even if it meant needing surgery to recover.
That’s about it for me though – going into the off season. I’ll limp through the next week, then I’m away on business for most of the week and won’t get to ride, and when I come back I will just take it easy through July and August (and Ramadan) and try to do a bit more swimming as well. Hopefully that will see off some of my niggles.
Only a short 34km ride, but had to call upon a bit of Rule V after being caught by a friend who does a lot more riding than I. Going up the only hill on the circuit I thought I was doing well holding Dean, until he realised I was holding him and dropped the hammer. Once I finally caught him I was able to acquit myself reasonably on the flat, but it was definitely a notch above my comfort level the whole way around. Great to celebrate this auspicious day, even if only in a brief way…
Festum Prophetae greetings to you all, added felicitations to all of us who are fathers, and to Ron, I toast you with my morning coffee, and wish you a fabulous day, and hope you geet a full set of Assos or a new bike, or whichever is the more expensive, instead of a load of crystal for your wedding pressies
I was being lazy, and doing that tapering crap, before I head off on wednesday for the Pyrenees, until I read this post, and am now going to get my steed out, in fresh tanwalled slippers for a quick slide around in the rain
I see my bike club (NDCC Bangor) are endlessly quoting the Rules at each other on facebook on a daily basis – no-one has made the link to the V-kit that I am often seen wearing, though the link to the rules on this site have been posted there several times by a few of them … ;o)
I shall wish them all a Festum Prophetae and see if anyone knows what I am talking about – actually, the entire club are doing a 100km ride today with 1000 other cyclists for Charity, around our local peninsula – I guess they are celebrating FP without knowing why – sometimes that’s how it is!
A good day to y’all
@markpa
Pure filth
After reciting Eddy’s Prayer, seven of us rolled out at V past VV and headed into the cold. After the climb and fast descent of the Haywoods we headed towards the Moonshine climb. It was almost as far away from our start/finish that we could get. Perfect time for my derailleur to snap in half.
Luckily, a VMH friend lives fairly close by, and came to my rescue as the lads rolled on.
A car crash blocking the highway meant my VMH friend had to eject me halfway, as she had a rehearsal and was running late. My good mate Nath came to my second rescue and got me back to town. Cheers guys…
I met up with the guys back in town and we went to @bianchi denti’s place and watch the Ronde highlights and ate the birthday cake @rigid had baked for Eddy…
And it was a good day…
@brett Great celebration, but sorry to see your deriller shat itself wtf!?!
@Oli
JRA.
Ron – congratulations and felicitations, Mate. Do not listen to the cynics – marriage is a grand institution.
Brett – bummer about the rear mech. Commiserations.
All – Happy FP. I celebrated with a small ride – my first proper one for ten weeks (i.e. with hills and being able to stand up in the pedals without my bust foot making me squeal like a stuck pig). Ten weeks of no riding and instead drinking beer to console myself means I look a like a fat pig, and ride like one, but it felt good to be out there pretending I wasn’t one. Hope the rest of you find FP equally satisfying.
I can think of no greater act of worship than ripping your derailleur in half as far from home as possible, and baking a cake with the Prophet’s name on it – chapeau
@Fronk will be proud/ secretly jealous/ try to outdo this
@brett Bummer mate!
@Ron Congratulations!
@all well done with your celebrations.
I really wanted to celebrate today with a podium place in my category (slow buggers) at a small local MTB GranFondo. I was so keen that late yesterday afternoon I thought I’d go out and have a reccy of the course. Everything was going pretty sweet… as usual the climbing was pretty full-on something like 1100m in the first 15 kms but I got to the top ok. I figured I had an hour’s light left with only a sweeping downhill to do. No problem! Fuck me if the course markings didn’t suddenly dissapear.
I looked around for a path and I came to a spot where I found a hobo fire but no hobo, I figured he didn’t want contact and had hidden. I don’t know what the Italian equivalent of ‘dueling banjos’ is but it was playing in my head there was an old sign saying something about a MTB trail. I pushed on but what trail there might have been had long since gone even the goats thake the easier route. So with fading light, no battery left on my cellphone (no coverage anyway) I was forced to crash through the undergrowth on foot dragging the bike along. I eventually got down, not before considering abandoning the bike, and when I got back to the car it was dark. My wife was of course freaking out!
Result: my legs are cut to shit and! I’m fucked if I was going back for more today, but all said and done a good mission.
I’ll do a 100kms tomorrow in the 35C heat.
Happy Birthday, Eddy.
A deliberately intense 96km on 54/44 with an 11/21. Rolling hills and long sections.
Another similar ride today to honor Eddy. As if he cares.
I appreciate that it’s not really in the Cogal spirit but I went for a quality and not quantity effort today to mark Eddy’s Birthday. Managed a record average speed too!
Festum Prophetae ride completed: a solo 72kms of rolling hills. PRs on all Strava segments (aside from one) is my gift to Eddy (as versios said, as if he cares).
Not sure who is getting the gift today…Eddy or me!
170km solo ride in some rolling hills. Man with the Hammer kindly brought along his Wife with the Vice and toyed with me between 110km and 135km as the heat kicked up but then showed mercy and left me alone.
Boy am I glad I was’t able to reserve time on the velodrome to do an Hour today; did a little loosener after yesterday’s appointment with the Man with the Hammer and was just destroyed.
Had fun out on the steel though, for an easy spin to breath some life back into the guns and ride for the first time ever in my Molteni jersey. Looks great with the V-Bibs…
@brett
First of all, that cake looks awesome! Who knew RIGID was such a master chef!
And MASSIVE bummer about the rear mech. Did it actually break or did the rivets come undone? This after your shifter broke; did you get a defective rig?
My day didn’t turn out exactly as i first planned. I soon realised that 28,000 people were cycling from London to Brighton where I live on the UK’s biggest charity bike ride of the year. This means that a lot of the roads are shut, or full of cars driving to pick up their loved ones.
Due to this I left it late and had nice but short 33K along the coast before nightfall taking in the closest approximation we have to pave locally on the way home. The British summer providing a nice covering of filth to mark the day.
Happy Birthday Eddy. VLVV.
As if by divine intervention, @DoubleR mailed me a very cool shirt which arrived saturday and I fortuitously opened today. Thanks!
On Friday I cracked the seat tube-bottom bracket weld on my #2 so I get to start looking for a replacement frame. The main event was Saturday as Merckx connived to send the family off on another mission giving me 4+ hours to ride. Rule 9 heat and a big climb were the main event. Today a shorter ride for the v. paterfamilias, especially as my brain and legs got cooked on Saturday, featuring shit chipseal, a couple short steep climbs, and a gravel surprise. A good weekend — 120km, 2500m climbing, and future n+1 efforts. VLVV.
As usual, an unconventional but satisfying and appropriate way to celebrate the day: ” ‘cross trainin” the wee ones at the neighborhood school park. Was on the singlespeed with a couple 6 yr olds on bmx’s and 3 yr olds on striders going back and forth and all around. Like any good cross event, there was blood, crying and dust everywhere (before leaving the house) but fortunately and atypical for me, no mechanicals!
Happy Merckx bday!
And my Father’s Day card, very much in the spirit:
@gaswepass
Oh, I was almost able to keep with them. they did have to slow down occasionally playing follow the leader!
With life being what it is, I was happily pleased to be able to get out for a quick ride today. My goal was 130km, but unfortunately my rear tire sliced and the stan’s was only able to hold for 4km and the spare tube lasted another 1km. I did manage to sneak in 94km before this happened. Climbed 760m and kept the speed at an average of 36km/h.
This was my first ride in over a week as unplanned hospital visits had me and the wife out of town missing our bikes and children. The first km’s of the ride, involved a lot of deep thought. Then as the guns slowly woke up, from the week of sitting in chairs in hospital rooms, and the hips started to loosen, my thoughts disappeared and I hammered. Just me an the bike, no thoughts other than to hammer. Thanks be to all who make the parts on my bike. Thank you Ernesto for designing such a wonderful bike. And thank you guns for letting me take everything out on you.
@Ron Congratulations on the big day!
@brett Superb baking skills, always a tragedy to see broken Campy gear!
The day for us was one of celebration and sadness. Celebration of The International Cogal and day of Fathers and sadness as it was the last ride for one of the key member of our cycling group before he returns to his homeland. In true Merckxian spirit, we hatched a plan to see if we could get the Strava record for our departing buddy by working our asses off for him up a local 15km long Cat 4 climb, a section of the Tour de Langkawi. One by one we each went to the front and rode ourselves into the ground before peeling off, with the man of the moment sheltered at the back. With a couple of kms to go, the last domestique had popped and then, like a rocket, our friend shot off to the top. To show appreciation for all the hard work, he pushed himself so hard he chucked his breakfast several times after finishing. But mission accomplished, the fastest non-pro time up the mountain stage, a sub 36 mins. Our day was all about friendship, brotherhood, working your backside off for the success of others, oh and yeah after the ride about Fathers.
@Nate
Touches the heartstrings….you got a budding artist on your hands!
@Nate
That is fucking sweet! Zoom lines, the right color kit. Nailed it!
While waiting on the wife shopping Saturday, me and the little guy (2 1/2) decide to walk over to the local Performance Bike 2 doors down. Lo and behold he was able to pedal around on a little 12″ bike with training wheels. Needless to say, he’ll be getting one this week!
@Tartan1749
Can I give some gratuitous advice which you can ignore as you wish… no to training wheels.
As a father of three, our best effort on a bike was the one who started on a pushalong thing without pedals (Like-a-bike is one common brand but there are many others) where they sit and scoot with both legs but can lift up the legs and balance.
With the training wheels the boys got totally dependent on them and shit-scared of taking them off, cue much trauma and angst.
With the push-bike Lillian made an easy transition to a pedal bike when she was three years old. You should have seen the looks of the bigger girls and boys in the park, still on training wheels, when she went zooming past them on a proper bike.
In fact she was on a real bike before her bigger brother and I think it was only the embarrassment that forced him to do it.
@ChrisO
Wholehearted 2nd. #1 son started on the “skuut” and easily transitioned to pedal bike. It makes a ton of sense too- think how hard everyone starts out reefing on the pedal when never ridden before. Who wouldnt fall over? When he jumped on a pedal bike, first thing he did was start flintstone-style getting rolling, then pedaled like he’d been doing it for years. #2 daughter can make it the mile to the neighborhood park without difficulty at age 3. So i’m biased towards balance bikes over training wheels.
@Tartan1749
Thanks. And seconding @ChrisO’s advice — our 5 yr old started off on a Skuut balance bike at 2 1/2 and graduated to a pedal bike without training wheels by 4. #2 is about to start on the same program. Friends of the 5 yr old who have gone on training wheels haven’t been able to get off them.
@Adrian
That is a cool send-off, and probably one he’ll never forget.
I snuck out for a quick 35k while the house was empty. Came home to discover my VMH had our boys doing yard work, which is a rarity. Then I enjoyed a malted post-ride recovery drink, although sadly, it wasn’t Belgian.