La Vie Velominatus: The Choice

Koblet in all his Cyclist Majesty

The only people I would care to be with now are artists and people who have suffered: those who know what beauty is, and those who know what sorrow is: nobody else interests me.
– Oscar Wilde

I have a theory that every living being is designed to cope with a certain level of stress in their lives, that if our lives are somehow free of stress, we will invent new ways to meet our mind’s infinite capacity to worry about things it can’t control; I call this phenomenon the Suck Equilibrium.

The ability to cope with stress is what makes a person great; in Einstein’s case it was the stress caused by a desire to discover the Unified Theory, in other cases it might be to balance the checkbook. The driver isn’t important; that it pushes us to do more in life is what matters.

The Suck Equilibrium dictates that we adapt to the amount of stress we carry; no one is free of this burden – the hungry seek a meal, the homeless a home, the bike-less a bike, and the millionaire more millions. There is no cure, there is no remedy; no matter the level we reach, our natural inclination is to seek more from ourselves. In the end, there is only Rule #5.

The Cyclist is a unique character among the others. While the artist suffers because they must; the Cyclist suffers because they choose. To me, the greatest artist is that who choses to suffer, and who discovers the beauty in that choice. I am proud to call myself a Cyclist.

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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Optimiste says:

Oct 4 2013 at 9:10 am

@Teocalli

@ErikdR

@GeeTee

@ErikdR

My dad is getting old now, and was showing some signs of what might have developed into dementia. (His mum went totally crazy). But he's also pretty self-aware, and he has a terrific specialist, who said the best thing he could do was as much physical exercise as he could take. So dad, at age 85, started going to the gym nearly every day. I cleaned up an old hybrid bike for him which he rides a couple of k's most mornings down to the post office, or to the pool for a swim. And he's not forgetting things ....

Wow... that's amazing. Big kudos to him. It fascinates me how we seem to become more and more aware of the human specimen as an intricately connected mind-body system, rather than merely "a mind, in a vehicle called a body", so to speak.

I read an interesting research article on this recently about how it has found that exercise seems to promote the brain to reconnect synapses and can help in the battle against Dementia so bears out the above. Affirms that old adage of "use it or lose it". VMH's Mum is not well at all with Alzheimer's but my Mum is fine at 89 and is booked to come skiing with us in Colorado again this year. I hope I have a good packet of her genes.

Cycling: good for what ails you.
Or as the Cogal Reports indicate - Cycling: what good ales for you!
Teocalli says:

Oct 4 2013 at 9:17 am

@Optimiste

@Teocalli

@ErikdR

@GeeTee

@ErikdR

My dad is getting old now, and was showing some signs of what might have developed into dementia. (His mum went totally crazy). But he's also pretty self-aware, and he has a terrific specialist, who said the best thing he could do was as much physical exercise as he could take. So dad, at age 85, started going to the gym nearly every day. I cleaned up an old hybrid bike for him which he rides a couple of k's most mornings down to the post office, or to the pool for a swim. And he's not forgetting things ....

Wow... that's amazing. Big kudos to him. It fascinates me how we seem to become more and more aware of the human specimen as an intricately connected mind-body system, rather than merely "a mind, in a vehicle called a body", so to speak.

I read an interesting research article on this recently about how it has found that exercise seems to promote the brain to reconnect synapses and can help in the battle against Dementia so bears out the above. Affirms that old adage of "use it or lose it". VMH's Mum is not well at all with Alzheimer's but my Mum is fine at 89 and is booked to come skiing with us in Colorado again this year. I hope I have a good packet of her genes.

Cycling: good for what ails you.
Or as the Cogal Reports indicate - Cycling: what good ales for you!

+1
Optimiste says:

Oct 4 2013 at 10:10 am

@Buck Rogers

@Optimiste

@ErikdR

@Buck Rogers

Surround yourself with optimists and people who are interesting and that do things. If you hang out with crazy, energetic, interesting people who REALLY live, chances are you will too and if you hang out with coach potatoes, you will probably have a fat arse.

Now thÃ¡t is beautifully written...

I realize I'm arriving late, but mind if I hop on? I've been following for a while, but don't want to be a wheelsucker.

This post, indeed the way of the Velominati, encapsulates what I have attempted to convey to family, friends and co-workers for decades. I have often said, whenever we employ a labor-saving or time-saving device, our minds and bodies find a way to compensate. As @Buck Rogers alluded, with that extra time and energy we can CHOOSE to do things, or we can CHOOSE to be a couch Potato. But if we choose the latter, we will be REQUIRED to spend that extra time and energy hauling our fat arse around.

At times, when I'm exploring the Pain Cave, a thought will creep in saying "you know you could slow down." Instinctively, my response is "why would I want to do that?"

Welcome aboard this crazy ship of fools!!! Sounds like you are well qualified to be an inmate! Just saw this quote over on the Peloton Mag site in remembrance of Amy Dombrowski and though it fit perfectly. I remember reading this book the summer before heading off to college and being blown away. Just loved it and still do.

"the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!" Jack Kerouac

That quote speaks volumes. Although I didn't know Amy (only of her), it does fit her perfectly. R.I.P.

Clearly it fits as well to this community. I've tried living without the madness and passion of cycling, thinking I was doing the mature, responsible thing. In reality, my world became an dull, dark void. Fortunately, a faint ember was fanned and stoked back to a raging fire. The 2 catalysts: 18 months ago, a lifelong friend convincing me to join him on a crazy 1-day 331-km road race (with only 4 months to train after a 20 year hiatus from meaningful riding) and 1 year ago, this community.

The race reminded my that I love cycling. The Velominati reminded me what it means to be passionate about cycling. It's taken me this long to feel I can engage and contribute, but I'm here (riding, racing, reading) and grateful for the daily reminders.
Teocalli says:

Oct 4 2013 at 10:42 am

@Optimiste

my world became an dull, dark void. Fortunately, a faint ember was fanned and stoked back to a raging fire.

It's not my quote and I can't remember who's it was but I live by "You can't help getting old but you can stay immature for ever".

Live your life forever young.
Ken Ho says:

Oct 4 2013 at 1:58 pm

I like where this threads is going ! Definitely taken a turn for teh better.

LI use a technique I call marooning. I ride as fr as I can in one direction, and then I turn around. Also, ride loops thatcannot be escaped from. Once begun,teh journey can only be completed. Puts those "turning around" thoughts whee they belong.
kixsand says:

Oct 4 2013 at 4:55 pm

@ErikdR

I'm in full agreement with you appraisal of the above article. My little brain refused to follow along with the progression of arguments as made. It just felt like a bit of reach in trying to connect the two ideas.
starclimber says:

Oct 4 2013 at 10:54 pm

@Ken Ho

LI use a technique I call marooning. I ride as fr as I can in one direction, and then I turn around. Also, ride loops thatcannot be escaped from. Once begun,teh journey can only be completed. Puts those "turning around" thoughts whee they belong.

I never used that term, but that's what my first forays into meeting the man with the hammer were: map a spot 60 miles from home, ride there, guaranteed 120 miles were going to be done. Or, map a loop that was flat past the half way point, but hillier the farther in I got, so turning around meant a stupidly long ride home but continuing on meant pushing on with horrified legs. No escape from the hammer. Sometimes, I wish I could revisit those glorious days of ignorance and misery, heading out with nothing but water in a single bottle. And then I think...'what a fucking retard I was'.
paolo says:

Oct 13 2013 at 1:06 pm

@ChrisO

Charly Wegelius says something very similar in his book.

There's a moment where he looks out of the team bus and sees a man walking home with a newspaper under his arm. The man, if he's a cyclist, probably thinks How Fucking Cool it would be to be on that team bus, and Wegelius thinks he would give anything to swap places with him.

But he has the self-awareness to realise that it was the stress and shit which was motivating him to suffer for the last 10 years, and without that he isn't going to cut it at the top level.

But more generally I think this is true in many areas of life. Someone said to me just last weekend that having lived in Singapore and other places abroad they had noticed that expats had an unfortunate tendency to get worked into a lather about small stuff, because they often had so little to stress about that they needed to look for other things to worry about.

I'm a bit late to that party here but that last bit about expats resonates. I've designed my life to be stress free and as a result when I do get some stress I probably don't handle it as well as I should.