Categories: EtiquetteLa Vie VelominatusLook ProThe Hardmen

The Illusion of Transparency

Mah-mah-mah-mah-mah poker face – mah poker face.

The illusion of transparency is perhaps the most important tool the Velominatus has in their toolbox, apart from having some measure of competence, being Casually Deliberate at all times, Looking Fantastic, and being able to dish out and endure heaping helpings of The V.

Cycling is suffering, and one of the most crucial lessons we have to learn is that we are rarely the only one who hurts. When the pressure is on or the group is heading uphill, every rider in the bunch is dying a thousand silent deaths. The rider on the front, while doing the most work, does enjoy a slight psychological advantage of being responsible for the pain disbursements, but they are suffering perhaps more than anyone else. Because everyone is momentarily cohabiting in the hurt locker, those riders who are best able to give the impression that they are in fact at ease maintain a distinct advantage over the others; there is nothing more demoralizing than feeling like a pig on a spit while the rider next to you is smiling and talking about the amazing view.

It turns out that as a species, we are really bad at judging other people’s emotions by their facial expressions, and generally over-estimate how good we are at it. In other words, everyone has a poker face and everyone sucks at reading them them. This plays into our advantage as Cyclists because it means it’s not all that hard to hide your suffering from other riders or, in fact, make them believe you’re suffering even when you’re not.

The most common tactic in this area is to keep your facial expression neutral and your pedaling smooth and relaxed despite how hard you’re pushing yourself. This takes lots of practice, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes second nature. Another tactic is to look about the bunch casually, take in the scenery, or futz about with your kit; this builds the impression that you are so completely at ease that you are distracted from the heavy work at hand.

My favorite approach is to engage in casual conversation during the hardest parts of a climb. There is a real art to this, because all that talking will get in the way of the most important element of climbing: your breathing. But you can work around that problem by being the one driving the conversation; you can choose your words to make sure they are short so you can continue to breath even as you’re speaking. The best thing to do is to fake an interest in the rider personally and ask them loads of questions. Seduced by the opportunity to talk about themselves, their ego will step in and force them to answer your questions at length, sending them into a spiral of accelerated hypoxic fatigue. It’s all bollocks, of course – you could give two shits about where they went to school or what their view is on the protests in Kiev – but they won’t catch on because they suck at reading your facial expressions while you carefully regulate your breathing and prepare to drop them. At which point you feign surprise that the pace was high enough to cause any damage.

Its gotten to the point where I don’t even realize I’m doing it. The more I’m suffering, the more likely I’ll be to strike up a conversation. And, should my Too Fat To Climb ass be successful in somehow dropping my companions, I’ll gulp in air like a rabid monkey at the top to make sure I’ve fully caught my breath by the time they catch back up so I can make idle conversation about how nice that climb is and how much I love that road and its so amazing that when I moved here I thought that was a tough climb but now I hardly even notice it and I’ll probably install a 42T because the 39T just feels so small.

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.

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View Comments

antihero says:

Mar 1 2014 at 5:55 am

@The Grande Fondue

I got dropped by a guy in cutoff jeans riding a fixie last week. My only consolation was that we passed a lot of other cyclists before I blew up. Full credit to him - he might have broken every Rule, but The V was strong in him.

I take great joy in dropping carbon craplets upon my ancient Bottecchia fixed-gear, and I laud him for his insouciance. That said, I can't bear to get on the bike without at least attempting to Look Fantastic, and cutoffs don't qualify.
Dave Wright says:

Mar 1 2014 at 6:16 pm

All a rider needs to be deeply annoying to surrounding cyclists is to be riding a couple percent below their limit. A couple years back on Blood Sweat & Gears I found myself on the steepest climb, holding back a bit to stay near a friend, and spinning alongside a college team rider who was short on fuel but not breath. We rode the pass chatting easily about area rides and cycling in general, picking off and pissing off riders all the way up. Highlight of the day.
scaler911 says:

Mar 2 2014 at 7:16 am

This. This is a old and magical trick that was taught to me back in my HS cross country and track days. I remember the conversation our track coach having with us like it was yesterday: him standing there, smoking his 5th, 6th cig during our workout "now on this next 400, I want you guys to keep relaxed, smile a bit, and chat about your history class." Once we had it down, it worked wonders at meets. Going to pass an opposing team member on a steep hill, slow down a bit, ask them "how's it going? Nice little course you have here". Very demoralizing, and just one trick that had our CC team undefeated for 4 years.
frank says:

Mar 2 2014 at 8:44 am

@ChrisO

@Isaac

Eating and drinking or taking of a gilet/jacket next to someone suffering is always a good way to turn the psychological screws, but my personal favorite is riding no hands and cleaning your sunglasses on your jersey.

Until someone attacks while you're doing it.

Kudos if you can maintain composure while you casually re-place the sunglasses/fold the gilet neatly before calmly bridging the gap, perhaps with a small sigh of pity at their futile self-destruction.

More likely however it will result in an unseemly scramble to shove stuff haphazardly in the jersey, clench the glasses in your mouth and burn the last match desperately trying to reach the last wheel. Negative V-points in that scenario.

Yes, getting caught out like that is perhaps due to the hubris of making too big a display.

If, on the other hand, you pull it off before the attack goes, then spot fucking on.

The reasonable would probably state that as part of being Casually Deliberate in this case would come the notion that you are able to read the race and only eat/take off kit when there is no imminent attack coming.

Top points for timing it such that you finish the futzing about, pay the rider you just crushed mentally a kind farewell, start moving to the front and casually slip onto the back wheel of the rider attacking right at the moment s/he makes their move.

@Nate

I didn't complain about the video, I complained about the number of references made to tandems.
frank says:

Mar 2 2014 at 8:54 am

@PT

I imagine if you still have it in the big ring and are braking for the hairpins, any further demonstration of capability is considered ostentatious.

Presumably when you're doing that, you're riding alone with everyone else choking on your dust. So why the fuck would you be talking? Trying to psyche yourself out?

Sorry, but my dissociative identity disorder isn't quite that developed.
frank says:

Mar 2 2014 at 9:03 am

@The Grande Fondue

The other part of this is how to pass people on climbs when you aren't riding with them. Obviously once you pass someone you must actually die and fall off the bike before you let them pass them again.

Part one of this is how you pass them. Either you sit back, get your HR down, then fly past and get a gap, or you pass them slowly, with a cheerful "how's it going" as you go past.

Once you are past, then you need to look relaxed and calm. This is where the smooth pedalling comes in. Short of a heart attack one must keep that smooth pedalling going.

The biggest problem is looking back. Clearly actually looking over your shoulder is a sign of weakness (unless maybe you do it COHO style). I'm pretty sure this is why hairpins were invented - that way you can casually glance over and see how your vanquished (?) opponent is going as you go around.

Never look back. Ever. But you can look to the side (to casually admire the scenery) and use your peripherals.

Another good approach is to come flying up, hit the brakes when you reach them and then have a little chat about how nice the day is oh and that's a nice bike they're riding how do they like it oh really I've never heard that and I've wondered about those bidon cages are they as secure as the fizik cages yeah that's great ok well enjoy your day!

And then casually accelerate to 2x the speed and duck into the nearest pub as soon as you're out of sight.
frank says:

Mar 2 2014 at 9:08 am

@VeloSix

It's my "indoctrination into hating people experience" that people generally only listen to one thing while your talking to them, or someone near them. They are listening for you to take a breath, because they have already composed their next thought, and are only listening for you to breathe or pause so they can take over. They have no interest in adding depth or complexity to your conversation, they just want to be the one talking instead of you.

I am going to go out today and practice my enabling....

It really is incredible. I do this during heated meetings at work: when I see the person I'm debating with doing this (normally indicated by them stopping their subtle reactions to the points you're making and their mouth moving every time they anticipate you stopping).

I will stop mid sentence and calmly say something like, "I can clearly see you've stopped listening and are just waiting for me to stop so you can make the point you have already decided to make, so why don't you go ahead so we can continue the conversation productively?"

This has not once had the result of them making their point, but instead results in them either encouraging me to continue or asking how I knew they'd stopped listening.
frank says:

Mar 2 2014 at 9:10 am

@unversio

@Gianni

Baldato, Ballerini, Tchmil, LeMan ('s foot and calf).

Would be interesting to record audio of a race going down the pave and isolate all the chain slap' going on.
frank says:

Mar 2 2014 at 9:14 am

@antihero

@The Grande Fondue

I got dropped by a guy in cutoff jeans riding a fixie last week. My only consolation was that we passed a lot of other cyclists before I blew up. Full credit to him - he might have broken every Rule, but The V was strong in him.

I take great joy in dropping carbon craplets upon my ancient Bottecchia fixed-gear, and I laud him for his insouciance. That said, I can't bear to get on the bike without at least attempting to Look Fantastic, and cutoffs don't qualify.

There is an enormous chasm between a fixed-gear and a fixie. One is a tool for training, the other a hipster's gimmick.

@Dave Wright

All a rider needs to be deeply annoying to surrounding cyclists is to be riding a couple percent below their limit. A couple years back on Blood Sweat & Gears I found myself on the steepest climb, holding back a bit to stay near a friend, and spinning alongside a college team rider who was short on fuel but not breath. We rode the pass chatting easily about area rides and cycling in general, picking off and pissing off riders all the way up. Highlight of the day.

This.
frank says:

Mar 2 2014 at 9:15 am

@scaler911

This. This is a old and magical trick that was taught to me back in my HS cross country and track days. I remember the conversation our track coach having with us like it was yesterday: him standing there, smoking his 5th, 6th cig during our workout "now on this next 400, I want you guys to keep relaxed, smile a bit, and chat about your history class." Once we had it down, it worked wonders at meets. Going to pass an opposing team member on a steep hill, slow down a bit, ask them "how's it going? Nice little course you have here". Very demoralizing, and just one trick that had our CC team undefeated for 4 years.

As demonstrated kindly by Vince Vaughn.