La Vie Velominatus, Part V: Un Jour Sans

A view from the cockpit; a reminder to meditate on The V

As I sat down to write this article, I noticed that the battery on my laptop needed charging. I stood to reach for the charger, picked it up, and then watched helplessly as it slipped from my hand and pin-balled off every possible surface between my hand and the floor. I then muttered something that suggested it was birthed outside of wedlock and asserted that it may not in fact be comprised of plastic and electronics, but entirely of fecal material, as is the customary reaction to such events.

Having successfully insulted the inanimate object and thereby preserved my dignity, I picked it up (again) and unwound its cord which then promptly whipped around and smacked me in the face. On some days, I’ve come to learn, I just don’t have it.

This pattern of general discombobulation spread it’s tentacles beyond my benign computer-charging activity; it affected my cycling. Having spent 27 years climbing aboard a bicycle, most of the associated activities are second-nature and thus require very little focussed effort. Shifting, drinking from the bidon, clicking into the pedals; all these things happen without so much as a second thought and never do they require me to look down.

Or, I should say, almost never.

On this day I found myself with the chain crossed on two separate occasions; once on the little ring and once in the big ring. The fact that I only noticed I was in the big ring as I came to the top of a climb I found unusually difficult did little to temper my disgust at the incident. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not afraid of a chain cross out of necessity, but I’m usually aware of it. What I found intolerable was the simple fact that I was caught completely unaware; that the connection between rider and machine had somehow been severed. But what I found most insufferable was the fact that I had to stare down at my feet and concentrate on the pedals in order to clip into them, lest my foot was left to dangle uselessly in the air just adrift of my pedals. I’m surprised I didn’t drop my bidon while attempting to replace it in it’s cage. Infuriating.

But even on these clumsiest of days, I can still spin the pedals smoothly enough to lose myself in the sensation of flight as my machine and I sweep through a series of hairpin turns together. I find I can still breath in the delightfully damp smell of a stand of deciduous trees or the sunbaked smell of a cedar pine forest. I find I can still indulge in the urge to make my legs burn for no reason other than to quell the doubt that I still can. Even on these days, when all the little things seem to conspire together to wear at my patience, the beauty of The Ride still unfolds before me.

Vive la Vie Velominatus.

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

mcsqueak says:

Sep 29 2011 at 1:33 pm

An artist's rendition of what Grumbledock losing his tubular may have looked like:
mrhallorann says:

Sep 29 2011 at 2:08 pm

That photo cracks me up every time I see it. Both their expressions are priceless.
Dr C says:

Sep 29 2011 at 3:45 pm

@Eightzero

In case you haven't seen it, the Giro organizers have gone absolutely fucking insane:http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/mortirolo-and-stelvio-to-feature-on-penultimate-day-of-giro-ditalia
Ho-lee-bat-fuck. But oh my Merckx is that gonna be something to watch.

I've set my sky+ for it already!

@mrhallorann
predecessors of the Schleckgrimace

@roadslave
sweet music Roadslave +1 indeed
I sense a secret, not so well concealed, desire to have Di2, but that you can live with the stretchy wire bits out of respect for the purity of it all

Di2 - meh, I want it - I know it's crappy cheating shit, but I'm done with not being able to set my FD up properly, and flicking the chain off as I am caught by the old pros who I blew off my wheel a few hundred ms back down the hill, who snort at my ineptitude as I spin the cranks against no resistance and fall off - I loved my Honda 2000, with it's lack of auto-grippybackend thingy, and it's roarty engine, back to basics handling, but I also love my 5-series BMYawn with the big sealed box under the bonnet with "no Trespassers" written on it.

@eightzero
"I want to make love to the bike, not fuck it" - yeh, but you know what I'm saying too bro'
minion says:

Sep 29 2011 at 4:18 pm

Can we drop the sexist garbage please.
Gianni says:

Sep 29 2011 at 5:23 pm

@King Clydesdale

Some days you make deposits, other days you make withdrawals. A bank of course with steep inactivity fees.

I like V-bank more than pain bank. The ratio of deposit to withdrawal is too steep also.
itburns says:

Sep 29 2011 at 5:47 pm

@roadslave
I like the fact that nothing needs to be charged on my ride. The only power source, poor as they are some days, are the guns. Will that become the next excuse for decanting out the back? My Di2 battery went dead?
frank says:

Sep 29 2011 at 7:09 pm

@roadslave

@frank... great article... love this series
@eightzero... I'm with you... I'm not sure how I feel about Di-2... On the one hand, the engineer in me thinks it is cool... Bikes catching up with fighter planes and cars and moving beyond the 'fly by wire' school of thinking, which as we all know is flawed because wires stretch and break, and expand and contract at different temperatures, requiring constant attention, tweaking and maintenance... But on the other hand, it offends my belief in the purity of cycling and self-sufficiency... In my head, I always imagined that when the apocalypse comes, I'll quickly stockpile an everlasting supply of Vittoria Open Corsas, and be able to carry on riding, Mad Max- like, long after civilisation as we know it has ended (hopefully wearing less black leather), because I'll be able to maintain my machine - for my lifetime at least - without requiring electricities, laptops or starbucks... Although thinking about it, I may need to get a cross-bike 'cos the road surfaces ain't going to improve, and I'll need to find a way to keep my shotgun (barrels and butt sawn-off for weight saving on the climbs, drilled-out carbon fibre pistol grips to match the bike) in my jersey pockets so it doesn't interfere with my stroke... Anyhow, I digress
... What I like about your post is that you've reminded me there is an art to shifting properly that will be lost when we are all on Di2 or whatever the Campag version will be (Italians and electronics... hmmm, a heady mix)... And yes, you old dogs out there will point out that we lost something when we moved from down tube friction levers to ergo shifters, but that was before my time (but I still LOVE the stories... The Stig, our tame racing cyclist, tells about using his knee to slam it into a bigger gear as he winds up his sprint... Or having to listen for changes in breathing from the peloton behind you to work out when the attacks are coming, because there was no tell-tale 'click' when they were up-shifting...etc)...
My post is already too long, but your post reminds me of a ride I did with @Houdini a while back... I had hoped he was on a jour sans (see what I did there, Frank?) as he hadn't started great, and was looking a funny colour (we'd been "carbohydrate loading" in liquid form 'til quite late the previous evening), but 30k in he found his legs, and was beginning to subtly apply pressure, just squeezing those pedals a little harder... No outward signs of doing anything different, if anything, looking more nonchalant and deadpan than usual... The usual passive aggressive stuff. The road was a false-flat, 3-4 percent, dead straight before rearing up half a klic ahead into the trees into an ugly 12 - 16 per cent ramp. I secretly vowed to myself not to buckle, and that I wouldn't leave the big ring until he did, so we carried on, pretending that nothing was going on, whilst our legs burned, our lungs seared and beads of sweat formed on our faces from the effort of maintaining our outwardly cool demeanour and easy breathing.
... 400m further on, with my legs caving and my inner chimp screaming Nooo!, and the road tilting only one-way, I knew I had to punch out (Top Gun reference: "it's too steep, I'm switching to guns")... At the exact same moment, Houdini did the same... Simultaneously, we pressed all four of our 'go' buttons, executing two perfect, synchronised double-shifts: big to small at the front, two up at the rear... We looked at each other, revelled in the beauty of the moment for a few seconds... And then broke out into fits of hysterical giggles... We crawled up that ramp, looking anything but pro, with no rhythm, style or panache, but really, really happy... I'll never forget the moment.
It just wouldn't have been the same with Di2... And that makes me melancholy.
Sorry for going on a bit.

Roadslave, mate, +1 Badge for you. I can't think of a better way to express how well I think you put that. The beauty of a cable, however flawed it is, is only emphasized by the involvement that it brings from it's operator. Quite simply, it takes it from simply being an action to being an art. That that transformation, in the countless forms its manifests itself throughout our sport, is precisely what makes it what it is.

Oh, and nipple lube.
sgt says:

Sep 29 2011 at 8:01 pm

@roadslave
Nipple, cable, and chain lube. Sheer fucking poetry that. You can have my cable shifters when you pry them from my cold dead fingers.
Steampunk says:

Sep 29 2011 at 8:16 pm

@frank

Oh, and nipple lube.

Et tu Brute?
scaler911 says:

Sep 29 2011 at 8:52 pm

I gotta go back to the original "nipple lube' post and ask; Exactly what brand and type of petrol product do you use to lube said nipples? I always just use a light chain oil. Nipple lube? Really? Is kinda chatchy though, Nipple lube.