Gunslinger

Keep the guns under cover until it's time to fight.

It is well known that knee warmers look better than leg warmers. Which isn’t to say leg warmers can’t look the business as well, but they will never look as good as knee warmers. The science is very clear on this.

Nevertheless, I’ve been enjoying wearing full leg warmers even when the weather doesn’t necessarily require them. Something about the orange bands getting nice and cozy with my orange Bonts has me mesmerized. But, since they were designed for the Classic V-Kit with the chevrons running along the cuffs, they don’t properly match the VLVV V-Kit. Which presents a small challenge because then the cuffs on the jersey doesn’t match the cuffs on the leg warmers, so that shit needs to be covered up. Which means if I’m riding in that kit with leg warmers, I’m compelled to wear overshoes irrespective of the weather. Which are also orange and also mesmerizing.

This is all very natural, there is nothing mysterious in it.

But what has always been mysterious is how a rider with the kind of impeccable taste, style, and class like Tom Boonen could suffer the indignity of wearing his leg warmers over the legs of his bibs. Everyone knows they go under the bibs and booties, and over the socks. Basic laws of Physics, right there with gravity and e=mc². Tom often wears them properly in training, so it is obvious he understands this. It has, until recently, completely dumbfounded me.

Thanks to me being a strangely obsessive individual with a unjustifiable willingness to ask near-strangers to clarify things that should not be kicking around in anyone’s head in the first place, I have managed to gain clarity on this matter. One evening during the Rouleur Classic at a noisy hotel bar, the question was loudly posed to none other than Chris Juul-Jensen, whose approachable nature made him seem like the right guy to ask. He raised an eyebrow and immediately agreed that it looks completely rubbish and he would never do it himself. But he went on: it turns out that the big boys in the bunch do this as a statement that their race does not start until 50 km from the finish. In a race of 250 kilometers, only the last fifth matters, and it is more important to Look Fantastic on the finish line than on the start line. Particularly if you happen to be the one with their arms in the air. Until then, the gunslingers are just sitting in and trying to stay warm while the domestiques are flogging themselves to bits on the front.

If you’re a gunslinger, and you’re bringing your game to the party, then this is how you tell the wee folk that you’re what’s going to happen.

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.

Next An Argument About Gloves »

Previous « Guest Article: Awesome British Women - Beryl Burton

View Comments

frank says:

Mar 4 2016 at 11:21 am

@Caley Fretz

Thanks for reaching out, Caley. While I'm pleased to see the community come to our defense, I certainly agree that this isn't plagiarism, although I was flattered by the similarity of the subject.

Anyway, I appreciate you reaching out and no worries about it from me.

And how awesome is that photo?

This one ain't bad neither, but is useless from the leg warmers perspective.
Ron says:

Mar 4 2016 at 11:42 am

And...it was caught by none other than...Fred!

Since the Velominati care about style and class, I feel the need to comment, Mr. Fretz. I really wish "as evidenced by" would disappear. "As demonstrated by" is stylistically V to the V power superior.

And don't get me started on "grow your business," which isn't about style, but about a serious grammatical assault by MBAs on language. You grow turnips, not businesses.
Buck Rogers says:

Mar 4 2016 at 11:50 am

@Caley Fretz

@frank

Right, well resolved in a gentlemanly manner. I'm sure many were hoping for frame pumps at dawn but good to see cooler heads prevail.

But, my main take home point out of all of this is that Mr Fretz obviously needs to spend more time around here.

Might even help to bring velonews back up to the standards of the "Golden Age" of oversized newspaper printed issues that were eagerly awaited for every month while I was a rider of 17 years of age in the pre-internet age like Christmas morning for a five year old!
Ron says:

Mar 4 2016 at 11:56 am

@frank

@Ron

Can someone please misspell another Italian name? It has been a few posts since that happened.

Wear gloves if you want, or don’t wear them. But if you think I’m going to base my estimation of your Vness on that, you’re wrong.

…and third helping of coffee on the keyboard! What a great morning read this has been.

Holy CANNOLI! Or should I say canoli? Or was it cannelli I was after? Or cannelloni.

As a lover of riding bicycles and an avowed loather of liquid speed (and the marriage of cyclists to that bad-breath, brown teeth diuretic)...I might have to officially retire now that I've succeeded in getting a Founder to lose his coffee.

This has made my day, now that I'm seeing it. Can't BELIEVE I got Frank to spit out that foul stuff. Incredible! I shall mark this as the first crack in the foundation, the first major win for my movement Cyclists Against Coffee.

As everyone should know, we should all be on hallucinogens if we're gonna ride bikes. What else would Albert Hofmann do after the first purposeful ingestion of LSD? Go for a goddamn ride, man!
litvi says:

Mar 4 2016 at 1:01 pm

@Ron

This has made my day, now that I’m seeing it. Can’t BELIEVE I got Frank to spit out that foul stuff. Incredible! I shall mark this as the first crack in the foundation, the first major win for my movement Cyclists Against Coffee.

Easy there, @Ron. It was just coffee. When you get @frank to spit out his IPAs (plural, because he gets them in multiples), you're on to something.
Caley Fretz says:

Mar 4 2016 at 1:19 pm

@Ron

I use up all my grammers at work and have none left for extracurricular activities. But point taken ;)
Teocalli says:

Mar 4 2016 at 2:07 pm

@Caley Fretz

@Ron

I use up all my grammers at work and have none left for extracurricular activities. But point taken ;)

Dang, though there is something wrong with the punctuation keys on your keyboard - we don't use them things around these parts.
Fred says:

Mar 4 2016 at 9:09 pm

@Caley Fretz

Hi all,

All due respect to Frank’s excellent post, but this is something that comes up every spring when the journos grab a beer in Belgium. It was not invented by Frank.

Further, I was unaware of this post until someone sent it to me yesterday. I’m not a frequent reader here (perhaps I should be?), as evidenced by the fact that I’ve spent the last 10 minutes trying to get this comment to show up.

Further further, we used that shot because when you search “Boonen Taaienberg” in our media library, it’s the first thing that pops up.

So, please send your accusations of plagiarism and thieving bastardism elsewhere. Two stories on broadly the same subject does not constitute plagiarism, and the two stories in question share no narrative structure or phrasing. There is plenty of content theft about, if you’d like to look for it. Just take a peek over at BikeRumor. In this case, I can only assume that great minds think alike.

Caley

A denial worthy of Pharmstrong himself. The text of the actual articles may be substantially different but almost everything you wrote about was contained in the V article or the comments below. And yes, you should read things here more often. (Hint: because Frank is dutch, he trumps all of the rest of you journalist types--just ask him).
Fred says:

Mar 4 2016 at 9:13 pm

@Ron

And…it was caught by none other than…Fred!

Since the Velominati care about style and class, I feel the need to comment, Mr. Fretz. I really wish “as evidenced by” would disappear. “As demonstrated by” is stylistically V to the V power superior.

And don’t get me started on “grow your business,” which isn’t about style, but about a serious grammatical assault by MBAs on language. You grow turnips, not businesses.

Like a very famous sailor--"I am what I am"
Sparty says:

Mar 5 2016 at 11:16 am

@Buck Rogers

Might even help to bring velonews back up to the standards of the “Golden Age” of oversized newspaper printed issues that were eagerly awaited for every month while I was a rider of 17 years of age in the pre-internet age like Christmas morning for a five year old!

Yes please. Those issues were the best!