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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ErikdR says:

Jan 15 2015 at 10:10 pm

@PeakInTwoYears

@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.

Yes. This. I'm baffled by how, on the one hand, the ability to multitask (Ugh...) is considered a very important quality to possess - while on the other hand, fortunes are being spent on courses in 'Mindfulness'!? (More Ugh...) Concentrate on what you are doing right here, right now. Focus on doing as good a job of it as you can. The rest will follow.
PeakInTwoYears says:

Jan 15 2015 at 10:26 pm

@ErikdR

I'm baffled by how, on the one hand, the ability to multitask (Ugh...) is considered a very important quality to possess - while on the other hand, fortunes are being spent on courses in 'Mindfulness'!? (More Ugh...) Concentrate on what you are doing right here, right now. Focus on doing as good a job of it as you can. The rest will follow.

I'm in complete sympathy, but I want to defend the practice of "mindfulness." There are old and established practices of mindfulness that are, in my experience at least, very beneficial. But they require regular (near-daily) practice instead of buying a seat in a course.
ErikdR says:

Jan 16 2015 at 12:39 am

@PeakInTwoYears

Good point - and perhaps I should have stressed that my second 'Ugh' was aimed more at the phenomenon of (crash) courses in mindfulness, than at the concept of mindfulness as such. I see enormous value in that concept, but I have this nagging feeling that it is in the process of being usurped, for lack of a better word - and (often) heralded as yet another 'quick fix'.

I'll gladly confess, at the risk of being labelled an incurable hippie (too late, I know; who am I kidding?), that I try to integrate a degree of 'mindfulness' into my everyday life and work.

The funny thing is: Quite often, it's as if my bike rides, all by themselves, turn into long sessions of an almost meditative state of 'just being' - a state that I very much associate with mindfulness.
RobSandy says:

Jan 16 2015 at 2:06 am

@wilburrox

@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.

I accidentally called a senior lecturer a cunt directly to his face when I was in my first year of university.

You win.
RobSandy says:

Jan 16 2015 at 2:08 am

@RobSandy

@wilburrox

@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.

I accidentally called a senior lecturer a cunt directly to his face when I was in my first year of university.

You win.

FFS, I get to Level 1 with that comment?!
antihero says:

Jan 16 2015 at 4:44 am

@Teocalli

@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.

Seconded, cheers. Some things don't need improvement, and get better with age when loved. Other things are designed for the dumpster.
antihero says:

Jan 16 2015 at 4:54 am

@ErikdR

@PeakInTwoYears

Good point - and perhaps I should have stressed that my second 'Ugh' was aimed more at the phenomenon of (crash) courses in mindfulness, than at the concept of mindfulness as such. I see enormous value in that concept, but I have this nagging feeling that it is in the process of being usurped, for lack of a better word - and (often) heralded as yet another 'quick fix'.

Concur. I suppose a little bit is better than naught, though. Single-serving mindfulness.

I'll gladly confess, at the risk of being labelled an incurable hippie (too late, I know; who am I kidding?), that I try to integrate a degree of 'mindfulness' into my everyday life and work.

The funny thing is: Quite often, it's as if my bike rides, all by themselves, turn into long sessions of an almost meditative state of 'just being' - a state that I very much associate with mindfulness.

This ++. It's one of the biggest reasons why I ride, and why I so often ride solo. Just being, no agenda, just observing, critical faculties shut down. Then again, I too am an unrepentant longhaired hippie. I have a socialist agenda and some Birkenstocks in the closet, too.
wiscot says:

Jan 16 2015 at 5:11 am

@Ccos

@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..."

Ooohhh . . . is that a nice little Raising Arizona reference you've slipped in there?
SamV says:

Jan 16 2015 at 5:12 am

The juxtaposition of waxing nostalgic here vs. the hipster bashing in the previous thread is amusing to me - especially all the Moleskine love. I'm a center-stager here (28) and I think much of my generation (the core segment of aforementioned hipsters) wrestles with essentially growing up half-digital, as opposed to (damn) kids these days who are digital native and the (old) people who are older than us who have adopted and adapted to digital living.

A big part of 'hipsterism' is nostalgia/minimalism: farm-to-table, vinyl, Moleskines. When I don't have a (well-kept) seasonal beard, I shave using a brush and razor (4-blades. No safety razor for me) because it simply does a better job. Same thing with quality of sound from vinyl. But it's also this kind of shit that people hate hipsters for. With a beard, I well fit in to that Lumbersexual category. I own a lot of plaid (I've always loved it), wear skinny jeans (but with my guns, all jeans are skinny...yeah...) and even have some nice boots that I wear often. I also love the shit out of my iPhone. It makes my life easier. And I haven't written in cursive in years.

As for the younger generation. A lot of that is training/upbringing. I was taught to take my hat off when coming inside (any building. Restaurant, house, mall, whatever). When I have kids, they'll be taught the same thing. Pay attention to the people your with, not those elsewhere. It's just fucking manners and it can still be taught.
SamFromTex says:

Jan 16 2015 at 6:12 am

@PeakInTwoYears

@ErikdR

I'm baffled by how, on the one hand, the ability to multitask (Ugh...) is considered a very important quality to possess - while on the other hand, fortunes are being spent on courses in 'Mindfulness'!? (More Ugh...) Concentrate on what you are doing right here, right now. Focus on doing as good a job of it as you can. The rest will follow.

I'm in complete sympathy, but I want to defend the practice of "mindfulness." There are old and established practices of mindfulness that are, in my experience at least, very beneficial. But they require regular (near-daily) practice instead of buying a seat in a course.

I spent five days in a Buddhist monastary in Thailand at one time, and let me say I've never felt more mindful. They practiced walking meditation so every step you took, you stopped and thought about that step for a little bit, so to speak. It was an amazing experience.