Five is an important number. Assuming nothing has gone amuck in our development or our usage of cutlery, we each boast five digits on both our hands and both our feet. Most of us have five senses. Most miraculously, any number multiplied by five and then divided by five gives you the same number you started with and yields no remainder.
The Babalonians considered the Pentagram to refer to the five directions (forward, backward, left, right, and up – they had no appetite for down, apparently) and these represented their five known planets. For the Greeks, or more specifically the Pythagoreans, it represented mathematical perfection and – when turned upside down with two legs pointing up, it represented the womb wherein the cosmos were born. Ancient Chinese teachings (Wu Xing) tell of the five basic elements: water, tree (wood), fire, earth, and metal. The Hebrew Torah refers to five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Christianity uses the pentagram to identify the five senses; the Old Testament considers five to be the number of divine perfection.
Five is all over the place in Hinduism; the figure of Anjaneya has five faces, the great Yogi Sri Vinayaka transcended the five senses. The god Vishnu is identified by the five-pointed star and has five aspects of himself. There are five qualities of Supreme Being: truth (satyam), knowledge (jnanam), infinity (anantam), bliss (anandam) and purity (amalatvam). There are five means to know, do, and experience. There are five sacred fires, types of devotion, types of worship. The calendar is based on five parts. They have five times as many holidays as we do.
Then we have the occult, satanism, and just about every made-up, imagined, or real secret society. We don’t do much “Math” or “Research” around these parts, but five also plays an important part in the golden ratio, which – I’m given to understand – is what makes stuff stop sucking.
All these groups missed the fundamental importance of five; the Velominati is perhaps the first community to discover its true secret. It was the Romans who cobbled together the most diabolical numbering system know to humanity, but they stumbled upon a hidden secret when they chose to represent the sacred number 5 as a V. The V is what surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds us together. The V is the everywhere around us, waiting for the initiated to absorb it, and convert it into force for strength, change, personal development, and tearing the legs off our riding mates.
The V is everywhere. In road signs, in the clouds, in paintings, in the spreading of water from our wheels as we ride in Rule #9 conditions. It is in our quads and our calves. It is in the angles of our frames. We hereby open the second Velominati photo contest: post your photo of the V revealing itself in daily life. Photos will be judged for content as well as composition. The winner will be awarded an as-yet unreleased cotton Velominati cycling cap. Submit your photos by November 1 in order to be considered. The photos have to be your own, or belong to a person who has given you permission to use the photo for this purpose.
Update:
Please don’t name your photo “The V” as it will bugger up the code until I get a chance to fix that bug. Also, don’t believe your preview if you are copy-pasting photos on iPads or elsewhere; it will not work after you push “submit post”.
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Sorry, @frank - had the V in the title. Changed it to the Tree and success. As before taken on the Canada Road Loop in Gilroy, CA
@strathlubnaig
Does your kilt double as a spray skirt?
Obligated to post V1 and V2 -- Campagnolo white symbol decals that were authorized to be reproduced in the 1990s. The full set of symbols were hand cut by myself from amberlith and then screen printed.
V? I didn't take it....
I took this picture on my 265 km, 6600 m, HTFU solo ride over the passes Susten, Grimsel, Nufenen, Lukmanier, and Oberalp in 2011. The V appeared to me several times that day, as you may find out looking at the other pictures I took. But the one that showed up at the Nufenen pass was certainly the most impressive one.
@harminator Glad you can appreciate a little OC-1. All forms of paddling do it for me but OC-1, expedition paddling is really where it's at. This was a play day this summer on a trip in Manitoba. Gotta be a V in here somewhere.
Are you allowed more than one entry ? Here's one anyways, just for fun. The V, at work.
I'm surprised this omnipresent little red V doesn't get mentioned more often.
@Brill_Brum
They do.. I wish they were mine but ErikdR might have something to say about that
@Marko The V would be the swarm of black flies in formation just out of frame that are chasing you down to carry you off and eat you whole.