Categories: Keepers TourLa Vie VelominatusLook ProNostalgiaRantings from the V-Bunker

The Past and the Future

Respect is a cornerstone of La Vie Velominatus.

I’m struggling with how to open this conversation without sounding like what I’m assuming my grandparents did when I was growing up. Maybe it’s because I’m just now clawing my way into some of the wisdom they had, or maybe I’m just less of an idiot than I was when they were moving their lips and I wasn’t listening. (Spoiler alert: everyone is less of an idiot then I was when I was a kid. No need to wait for the memoir.)

Kids these days have no respect.

There. I said it. Let me add some stage directions to this, for clarity.

Stage left, everyone under the age of 25: [heads down, tapping at their phones] Text me. I don’t do “speaking”. [All look up, sigh in chorus, and look back at their phones. Some of the cast members roll their eyes.]

Center stage, anyone between 25 and 37: Yeah, but they’ll learn. Give them a chance to express their ideas on this world and we’ll be happy for their challenging perspective. I embrace their view as it will help us grow both as individuals and a society. Also, Mom and Dad, please text me.

Stage right, everyone else: Bugger off, you disrespectful cretins.

The past informs the future; wisdom is learned through experience and experience is earned through the errors of our actions. That sounds a lot like a rationalization for screwing up all the time and maybe that’s true, but that doesn’t mean the premise is flawed; we must look behind us to understand where we are going. By respecting our past, we may build a better future.

In a world where the young have no respect for the wisdom of age and the old have no appreciation for the genius of youth, La Vie Velominatus cuts through the din and grounds us. Cycling is deeply rooted in the past while fiercely embracing the future. The Cyclist lives happily on both sides of the coin; cherishing our steel frames and hand-made tubular tires while embracing 10 and 11 speed drive-trains and featherweight carbon frames and deep-section wheels.

Keepers Tour 2012 was the first time I’d been to the cobbles of Northern Europe. When we arrived at the mouth of the Arenberg Forest, we were compelled to climb off and pay our respects to this, the most sacred of roads in our sport. By modern measure, this is the worst road imaginable: mossy cobbles roughly strewn across a narrow lane; uneven and sometimes as far as two or three centimeters apart. This is a road so rough it is difficult to walk down. To a Cyclist, it represents the most beautiful road on Earth. This is a road that lets us touch history.

A puzzle is meant to be solved; a mystery is not. The past is a puzzle and the future a mystery. Beauty is found in the space where the past and future live as one. Cycling is beauty.

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.

Next Guest Article: Fondo Reaches Middle Kingdom »

Previous « The Shaving

View Comments

PeakInTwoYears says:

Jan 15 2015 at 4:18 pm

@Teocalli

I have my grandparents Parker Pens, I dated them a while back circa 1930 I think it was might even have been earlier.

How awesome is that? Any time I get dragged through an antiques or curio shop (rarely), I head straight for a display counter where there might be a good old pen that can be made to work. Yet to make a lucky strike.
pistard says:

Jan 15 2015 at 4:21 pm

There are scientific studies that suggest writing cursive has significant benefits on learning and cognitive development. Something about fine motor skills and activating specific parts of the brain. Even the ability to read cursive is being lost. I've heard of young post grad scholars being completely flummoxed when confronted with hand-written manuscripts of works they are otherwise intimately familiar with.
PeakInTwoYears says:

Jan 15 2015 at 4:47 pm

@pistard

There are scientific studies that suggest writing cursive has significant benefits on learning and cognitive development. Something about fine motor skills and activating specific parts of the brain. Even the ability to read cursive is being lost. I've heard of young post grad scholars being completely flummoxed when confronted with hand-written manuscripts of works they are otherwise intimately familiar with.

Intentionally writing a readable cursive is enjoyable and meditative. There must be reasons that calligraphy is a zen thing.
Teocalli says:

Jan 15 2015 at 4:48 pm

@pistard

There are scientific studies that suggest writing cursive has significant benefits on learning and cognitive development. Something about fine motor skills and activating specific parts of the brain. Even the ability to read cursive is being lost. I've heard of young post grad scholars being completely flummoxed when confronted with hand-written manuscripts of works they are otherwise intimately familiar with.

No kidding! No insult to anyone here but I find when I see the writing of graduates we employ that their writing looks like kid's writing not adults.
frank says:

Jan 15 2015 at 5:26 pm

@ChrissyOne

And when there was no crawdad, we ate sand.

You're from Mississippi?
frank says:

Jan 15 2015 at 5:32 pm

@PeakInTwoYears

@ErikdR

Charcoal and goose quills, ya youngsters! * shuffles back to stone slab and chisel*

I have cut my own quill pens. Quill pens suck. Certain types of objects found the apogee of their design in the early 20th century. Pens and shaving equipment fall into this category.

I was given a safety razor (with beautiful stand, soap cup if that's what its called, and brush) for Christmas. I find it very similar to gluing tubulars; its harder and takes more time, but it forces you to spend a little bit of time focusing on the simple task at hand. In the case of tubs, its gluing it on nice and straight; in the case of shaving it's getting yourself ready to look your best.

I have to say, after the fear of slitting my own throat subsided, I am a massive fan.

Its fun to need a tub of glue to set a tire, and its fun to need a sharps container to shave.

I will not, however, use the safety razor on The Guns. If I miss a patch on my face, that's just my coworkers who have to suffer. If I miss a patch on my legs, I'm bound to notice just as my head frops as The V is escaping my body.

Unlike bikes, pens and razors have simple jobs to do, and so it's possible to authoritatively identify the period in history when style and function really fucked each other's brains out.

This, on the other hand, is pure gold.
frank says:

Jan 15 2015 at 5:34 pm

@Chris

@frank

@PeakInTwoYears

Is that a fountain pen? If so, you have my respect.

To this day I do all my note taking in a moleskine notebook and (ballpoint) pen or mechanical pencil. I'd love to get a nice fountain pen; it is a civilized weapon from a more civilized age.

I do love a Moleskine, I buy a new one for each project I start. As for propelling pencils, I can still remember having one of these in primary school.

Endless happy wasted taking it apart and putting it back together...

I have several of those drafting pencils, and that is also the brand of my preferred (ornamental) eraser. I love that style of pencil for the weight in the hand, but the maintenance required to keep it sharp keeps it out of my "productive work" assembly line - which is also why I use a mechanical pencil in favor of the wood pencils I posted earlier.
Ccos says:

Jan 15 2015 at 5:42 pm

@frank

@ChrissyOne

And when there was no crawdad, we ate sand.

You're from Mississippi?

Nope, their school system may suck, but someone from Mississippi knows one eats a crawfish not a crawdad (though they be the same thing).

"I'll be taking these Huggies and whatever cash you got in the box..."
wilburrox says:

Jan 15 2015 at 5:55 pm

The future's gonna bring a cure for cancer and cold fusion. You'll think your thoughts in to digitized recording. And it'll all be thanks to these kiddos that grew up staring in to their phones. As a result of gaming on line together they'll be communicating and collabrating across time zones and borders w/o any sense of wow. Going to university? Bahhh... Can't come soon enough.

You know what though? We'll still get a kick outa riding our old steel frames but something tells me that there's not gonna be a lotta sentimental yeehah jumping on a 30 yr old carbon Tarmac. That line about style and function having it at each other is pretty good. Early 60's Strat comes to mind. Cheers all...
Barracuda says:

Jan 15 2015 at 6:09 pm

@brett

I hate the future.

Yep, it scares the shit outta me. My kids are 7 and 3 and Im already worried !