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”.
And, oh boy, caps on the way! That is great news.
I’m sure the Keepers will do it right. Too many custom caps have bills as big as ball caps. The local CX guys just got ones made and they are horrible. I had to make up an excuse when a pal said I could buy one, didn’t want to hurt his feelings and say I’d never put it on my head.
Spring event this year up around Derwent Water. We were sooooo lucky with the weather. The following day was a true “Lakes day”. V in the valleys and the roads. As UK folk will attest the climbs in the lakes may not be of the Alps hight but they go straight up. No switch backs.
Every now and then, as I ride my 13 mile commute, the V finds me and kicks my arse thoroughly around the town.
The choice is simple: channel the fifth or ride home in a cab.
BTW, humans have somewhere between 14 to 20 senses. Five is a common misconception: http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/question242.htm :)
Here the V of the valley points at the road requiring a certain amount of V. Newland’s Pass in the Lake District.
The business end of my 1986 blue steel Moser, shown here with the shoes I use when riding it. The shoes are ‘Vittorias’: old and cleatless, scuffed, dirty, but still going strong. They are actually older than the bike…
Look hard into the V. That’s campbellrae1 and he did clean that section.
@JohnB Those shoes look insanely comfortable!
@frank
Who did you find to make them in the end?
@Marko
This.
C1 – Half the paddle, twice the man.
V in the jersey by the neck but probably oozing all over the place after my P-R ride in 2012. Hardest day on the bike in my life, hands down.
@ErikdR Beautiful stuff!
Brett’s Vth Beer and V Hat
@frank Too much V for the code? I’m guessing that your code doesn’t like file names with more than one letter V in them as it messes with your lexicon linky thing. It’s shown up in the preview each time.
@Buck Rogers
Great shot. Sums it up perfectly.
Can’t wait for the Cobbled Classics to roll around again.
I parked next to a car yesterday that had a license plate that said “Rule 9”.
@Chris
Yes…A few V’s in the image name is OK, but the two V’s followed by a space and another V in your filename blew the code’s tiny little brains all over the wall.
EleVator Up?
(I especially like that there’s a Help button…)
As nature intended – HTFU – Canda Road Loop, Gilroy, CA
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.
@Marko
Very cool. You sure look like you have your shit together. I’m always in awe of people who can keep composed in moving water. I did about a gazillion OC days on flatwater but only irregular white water days – enough to stay well on the ‘anxiety side of flow’. Never got my roll solid. Aussie creeks are usually dry or flooding and full of rocks. The lads I lived with for a while in the 90’s used to put in to the local hydro release every day – they tried to educate me but I heard enough of their stories and saw enough of their movies to know I didn’t have the right stuff. Maybe one day…
@Marko that’s fucking awesome. I’ve never really tried the canoeing or kayaking thing but I love sailing and swimming in rough open water. That looks like a blast.
@strathlubnaig an old friend from school does that sort of thing for a living, I think it’s his way of keeping the excitement in life after leaving the marines. Mental bastard.
@Marko
Just…wow. There is a whole side to your life I admire. When working at MWM – which you know was a hugely important part of my life – I never got into white water kayaking – but I really wanted to dive into white water canoeing. In my mind, I would be in a little boat designed for that shit. Not in the fucking canoe my parents and I took on Gull Lake. Fuck me, dude, that is an awesome shot, and the ultimate of looking Casually Deliberate in a high-stress situation. Top marks.
@strathlubnaig
You like as much a twat super-gluing a giant metal dildo as you do riding a bike. Just as an FYI.
@hyppy
Me too. For cereal. Red Kite, Rule #5, and pray for daylight!
@GogglesPizano
I forget which Tumblr it is, but I follow one focussed on women’s cycling which dishes out equal measure of women laying down massive loads of The V and them looking V notches beyond gorgeous. To be fair, they don’t even need to unzip that shit to Look Fantastic. A fit woman in their cycling kit, not doping, and riding a bike for the love of it is more than enough to convince me that if there is a future in Cycling, its in the women’s side of things.
@frank
I agree
Doesn’t count as an entry (I didn’t take it, I don’t have permission and not everyday life) but when a an image has been waiting for a topic….
This my friends is an “Uber V”. An upgraded version of C’dales Super V.
Our guidestar, the planet V-ness:
@JohnB
Heheh… Well played.
They are very comfortable, in fact: soft uppers, and the blue mesh-like material ventilates well. The soles are reasonably firm, if a bit ‘flexy’. Perfect for two hours of Casually Deliberate riding, but for day-long rides they cannot hold a candle to the Specialized Elite’s I use on #1, to be honest. With the Vittorias, you actually begin to ‘feel the steel’ of the pedal through the shoe sole after a few hours.
@frank
Is it not this?
http://womenscycling.tumblr.com/
@Chris it has its moments I guess.
@frank well thanks for that input, Frank. Been called worse things by better people.
@grumbledook – Checked out your pics on flickr – awesome, beautiful country – looks like a nice ride. Defintiely dishin’ the V on that one.
@JohnB
If you look carefully you can see me in the background – oh er no you can’t I must have been having a “rest”
This is me this summer, after 265km ride named Diekirch-Valkenswaard. I think there is a nice V around my neck, and a painful but satisfied grin on my face :)
@GeeTee
That’s because 1 + 1 + 3 = 5
I bet it’s true of 14 too.
david
@teepee
No, its not. But now I’m following that one, too!