Categories: CyclotourismDefining MomentsLa Vie VelominatusNostalgiaThe Rules

On Rule #12: The Luxury of Passion

No Graveur needed here.

Rule #12 is a luxury of passion; the #1 for good weather and epic rides or races, the Nine Bike for bad weather, the Graveur (which is neither a cross bike nor a road bike), a ‘Cross bike, a mountain bike, a townie, a track bike, a time trial bike. Add in steel, carbon, titanium – a bike for each material and a material for each bike. The only logical conclusion is that we all need – need – a bare minimum of somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 bikes. Columbo couldn’t poke a hole in that case.

On the other hand, there is something to be said for just riding your bike wherever you happen to point it, in whatever weather you happen to be riding in, on whatever kind of road you happen to have at your disposal.

We should collect as many bikes as we can love, but we should also remember that bikes were meant to be ridden, not pampered. 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

tessar says:

Feb 3 2015 at 12:52 am

@pistard

@Steampunk

No, just a guess. A friend was looking into their road frame and thought it might be Marinoni. I do see quite a few Nonis, new and old, around here.

The metric system for gearing is "metres of development" which is the distance travelled for one rotation of the cranks. MoD = drive wheel circumference (in metres) x chainring teeth/cog teeth.

Sheldon Brown's "gain ratio" is a system that hasn't really made it into popular use, but accounts for crank length. It's the total distance travelled divided by the distance travelled (in a circle) by the pedals during one rotation. GR = drive wheel radius/crank length x chainring teeth/cog teeth. The result is a ratio independent of measurement units.

Since we all use 700c wheels on our road bikes (and most of us use the same tyre size as well) it's a good-enough approximation to just use the teeth ratio. Crank length is insignificant anyway for those calculations, unless you like to measure your muscle contraction velocity.
mouse says:

Feb 4 2015 at 6:46 pm

@Steampunk

Brilliant. Sounds like it's quite near you!

I'm quite fortunate to live about 800 metres away from where Jack Bobridge had a crack at the Hour Record last weekend.

Gear inches. Always gear inches. It's tradition going back some hunnert years.

If you tell of racing on a 94 inch gear, people at the velodrome will know what you're speaking of. Any other complicated re-calculations will just confuse people.
pistard says:

Feb 4 2015 at 10:41 pm

@Steampunk

@tessar

@mouse

Yes, always speak gear inches at the track. Tooth ratios mark you as a roadie or fixie kid. I only mentioned other systems because math.

51x16, 48x15 and 45x14 are pretty much the same, but it's easier to say 94 inches.

And as @mouse says, gear inches is the oldest standard. Obvious when it was the diameter of your high-wheel; now we have to whip 'em out and download an app.
therealpeel says:

Feb 21 2015 at 11:27 am

Hear, hear! @frank love the duality of art and function in bikes.