Photo Contest: The Ever-Present V
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”.
Me, my son Jack, VMH and my son Cal. The V that connects us.
My prodigal son displaying the V…
Great contest, off shortly in search of the all present V, Going to be some cracker photos from all brethren, I can feel it! Now just to find one of my 5 cameras and choose which of the 5 lenses will go with it ! Or just use my iPhone 5S, yep, thatll do !
Good luck in the search everyone, looking forward to the entries that will surely follow
I do monthly 161 km rides to stay honest. This was my, duck-out-on-work, early season run from Newhalem, WA to just the other side of Washington Pass and back. Alone, too little water and pretty much nothing but climbing for hours on end. The reward? Well maybe some would miss the prominent V described by the clean lines of rock that tower above the pass, but I had suffered enough to be granted the Vision, giving me the resolve to get back in the saddle for the return trip.
A study in still life.
These wheels demand that the V is offered up.
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Subliminal Messaging? :)
May the V be with you.
Nature’s V-shaped peloton heading south. They are key teachers to cyclists about the importance of aerodynamics. Note, too, the trees converging as the road heads upward…
Great contest idea… looking forward to some terrific entries, BUT…..
“Most miraculously, any number multiplied by five and then divided by five gives you the same number you started with and yields no remainder.” – HUH?
OMG there is a V cap. I just wet myself a bit…
Frank how can you delay releasing it, what casquette coquettishness is this ?
You know I have been waiting for a cap for YEARS… it’s not fair and I may well cry and when I’m not wearing cleats, stomp my feet.
@ChrisO
We’re designing it now and then it will take some time to make. Psyched. Like you, caps have always been my favorite bit of kit. Its been a massive bummer we haven’t been able to crank one out yet.
@Carl
You might want to re-trace your steps; you seem to have misplaced your sense of humor.
@frank Hot damn, well just put me down for Five… straight from the factory. In fact tell me where the factory is and I’ll go pick them up while they dry.
How about those matte black decals BTW ?
@ChrisO
Rule V. Pull yourself together, man.
@ChrisO Its the moment we have been waiting for!
The Cactus represents the V pt 1
A shallow V
the road ahead
@frank
I await eagerly. Chapeau.
@ChrisO
Ditto on both fronts…….especially the decals, bike quivering in anticipation.
Looking east & west at dawn in Autumn from Mt Lofty above Adelaide.
Cross on the rock last year. It was one of those miserable rainy days. The guy I was carpooling with called me up to tell me it was ok if I didnt want to go. I said I would go if he would. We were both looking for an out but neither was willing to give in. An hour and a half drive later through rains heavier than my windshield wipers could keep up with and we were there. 100 other fools braved the weather that day for some of the best and muddiest racing around. A lot of my best photos came from that race.
Morning V
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This one comes from climb 5 out of 13 in the recent Dirty Dozen ride that I put a video up from in the ‘Rides’, not dissimilar to the one of our dear leader during the Zoo Hill TT…
Thankfully the photogs were nowhere to be seen on the last few climbs of the day, those would not have been pretty!
Oh wow, I think the V is harder to find in day to day life, at least for me, than it is in riding my bike. (also mostly day to day, but that isn’t life, it’s Life)
But here I go, if there was ever a non-cycling photo of mine that represented the V for me it’s this one:
The “V” and it’s from an Italian sign as well!
@ScottyCycles62
Almost recognise that. What is it? Potentially stupid question, sorry.
@rastuscat
It’s the V from Vespa.
Oot for a wee paddle
@strathlubnaig
There is V in paddling–in a boat’s wake, in the intersection of two boats, in the relation between boat and paddle.
My friend Mike came over to play in my front yard for the day, and he brought some V:
The earth’s crust embraces The V.
Nothing literal. Just a muddy gravel road going up.
@PeakInTwoYears
@strathlubnaig
Great to see some other paddlers around here. At the risk of Blasphemerckx, paddling is truly my first sport. But I do it for work. Cycling I do purely for the love of it which makes it that much sweeter.
Downstream V?
@Marko
Big water in a canoe is V+.
(I’m a new paddler. All I have is enthusiasm and the ambition to paddle a sea kayak in surf and tide races.)
@Carl
Incredibly, I just checked on my calculator – the exact same thing happens with 113 … !!!
EdelVViess, edelVViess….
Plenty of V needed to get up to the little buggers too!
Some great photos already!
These contests always make me wish I’d opted for a new phone when I recently switched carriers. But, I’m committed to elderly Nokia “brick” phones because they are small, simple, cheap, and durable. Will have to put on the kiddie carry and use it to tow my old digital camera out on rides…