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.

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Teocalli says:

Jan 15 2015 at 6:11 pm

@wilburrox

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...

I'll raise a glass to that.
wilburrox says:

Jan 15 2015 at 6:12 pm

@wiscot

Did they take their caps off at least? (If they were wearing them) That's another thing that irks me - going into an eatery and seeing boys/men wearing goddamn caps. And while I'm ranting, it also irks me to see guys going on dates where the lady has made some effort to look attractive (wash hair, apply make-up, wear something clean and nice) while the guy rolls in wearing whatever didn't smell too bad in the laundry basket. And a fucking baseball cap.

I wore a ball cap about EVERY day in undergrad. In grad school I had a prof look at me and say, "take your hat off indoors". I thought, cool. It is probably a top five lesson I learned in grad school and carry with me. I remember it like it was yesterday. Strange the things we learn in the damnedest of places or times that stick with us.
PeakInTwoYears says:

Jan 15 2015 at 6:22 pm

@frank

...it forces you to spend a little bit of time focusing on the simple task at hand.

There is much pleasure to be found in this perspective. And the extra little kicker is that you get better "objective" results in the end.
PT says:

Jan 15 2015 at 6:35 pm

Pencils and quality stationary are one of lifes small and simple pleasures. I too use a Moleskine notebook - along with their over-sized carpenters pencils. Special cap & sharpener included. At work my love of pencils is well known and I have generously been given more quality pencils than I will ever use. Unfortunately my handwriting is shite - definitely an area of self-improvement for 2015.

There is a lot to enjoy in the analogue world.

Well done @PeakinTwoYears.
brett says:

Jan 15 2015 at 6:57 pm

@Barracuda

@brett

I hate the future.

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

It doesn't scare me because I'll be dead in the future, and I purposely didn't bring any kids into the world because, fuck, that would be a bit unfair to them. What we are leaving them is bleak.
Teocalli says:

Jan 15 2015 at 7:07 pm

@brett

@Barracuda

@brett

I hate the future.

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

It doesn't scare me because I'll be dead in the future, and I purposely didn't bring any kids into the world because, fuck, that would be a bit unfair to them. What we are leaving them is bleak.

Logically you should have left the fuck out to achieve that.
ChrissyOne says:

Jan 15 2015 at 7:24 pm

@Ccos

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

RE-PEEEEEAT O-FENDER.
markpa says:

Jan 15 2015 at 8:28 pm

@Julez

Wait, the "youth of today" category is everyone under 25?

But...that includes me!

I'm married, I don't have a~~n iPad~~ generic tablet device, I will make a phone call rather than texting if at all possible, I own vinyl records, I get genuinely excited at the cinema when projecting from celluloid (not digital), and I have recently designed and specced a ground-up bike build from a vintage Bianchi frameset.

Does this make me psychologically older or more mature or something? I don't want to be One Of Those Kids.

(Those Kids scare me...)

Would you please reassure us that you do not have a Ned Kelly beard and skinny jeans.
pistard says:

Jan 15 2015 at 8:57 pm

@PeakInTwoYears

@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.

Exactly. And reading cursive is similarly transcendent: if a letter from my mother in her inimitable, perfect script conveys her timbre and accent, reading an author in their own hand might allow a reader some insight into that writer's world. (Yeah, I know, post-structuralism, primacy, intent, whatever...)
PeakInTwoYears says:

Jan 15 2015 at 9:29 pm

@pistard

Exactly. And reading cursive is similarly transcendent: if a letter from my mother in her inimitable, perfect script conveys her timbre and accent, reading an author in their own hand might allow a reader some insight into that writer's world. (Yeah, I know, post-structuralism, primacy, intent, whatever...)

Lovely.

I don't know what your relationship is to post-structuralist theory, and I've been out of all that for a while, but we can think of handwriting as "tracks," scratches on surfaces, the way any animal lays down tracks. It's not really about authorial intent. We move through the world leaving traces of our existence. That's all.