A Velominatus maintains their machine with meticulous care, doting over it daily. A bicycle is a tool, but it is also a work of art, and serves us loyally in pursuit of our craft. We love them as though they were alive; as we grow together, the cracks and lines formed upon both our skins signifies the journey that has passed beneath our wheels.
A clean bicycle with a boastful luster inspires pride; I find myself constantly fighting the urge to carry mine upstairs to sit by the dinner table each time it has been cleaned, the bar tape freshly wrapped, or any old component swapped for a new one. I’m sure a psychiatrist would have a thing or two to say about it; I know the VMH does.
And yet, there are times when it pains me to clean my machine. After our first day on the Cobbles of Roubaix on Keepers Tour 2012, I left my bike dirty for two days because I couldn’t bring myself to rid her frame of the sacred dust that had accumulated after a day’s hard riding over some of the most hallowed roads in the world. A week later, I suffered the same condition the day after riding the route of De Ronde through hail, rain, and wind which left our machines covered in mud, manure, and Merckx knows what else. I think some part of me hoped the Flemish spirit held within all that grit would somehow be absorbed by my bike, that it would somehow help complete her soul.
But this kind of sacred dirt, the kind we don’t want to wash from our steeds, isn’t found only on the holy roads of Northern Europe. I found myself with the same reluctance to clean my Graveur after riding Heck of the North this year; a race held outside a small Northern Minnesota town nearly half a world from Flanders. I also serendipitously found photos Pavé William took of his Rosin after riding the Strade Bianche, documenting the covering of white dust upon its tubes. This condition afflicts us all, it would seem.
Any dirt becomes holy when we’ve suffered through it, when it took something from us in order to find its way onto our bikes and clothing. Sacred Dirt it is created spontaneously after prolonged exposure to The V.
Vive la Vie Velominatus.
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After my final 200K of the season my steed has sat in the living room several days. The water bottles are probably festering, and grits falls gently to the carpet when I brush by...but I can't bring myself to clean her up and acknowledge that the ass end of the season has arrived in N Minnesota. Soon it will be the indoor trainer and cycling work-out DVD's where complete strangers yell fitness slogans at me from the screen of the basement tele. The grit and sticky spots of gel on the top tube are my last connection to a season I don't want to end.
@gregorio
Alas the long stretch of winter is coming and my rollers are ever so slightly peeking from below my bed... they are the monster I fear for the next 4 to 5 months. The boredom already eats at me... the drench that accumulates. The loss of the feeling of speed and freedom we long for will be but a memory. I will luckily get in some rides through out the winter months but they are few and far between.
@wiscot
Here here.
Abandy...what genius thought that up? They deserve a damn apron or a nice house dress or V-smock. Whatever that is.
Late to the party, but great article... I love the look of a bit of road grime, on the bike, on the legs, on the kit.
On KT12 I brought home my shoe covers which were coated in Roubaix/Flanders grime, and kept them in a plastic bag so I could mount them one day in a case or something for prosperity. Then, when we were off to KT13, I cleaned them and packed them so they could get a new coating. Then the fucking airline lost all my luggage, and with it my little piece of history.
@DeKerr
I have it all set up for a VVallpaper, in fact I have about a half dozen laying around all set to go; I just have to upload the fuckers...apparently I'm something like a year and half behind schedule on that particular action item.
@DCR
@DCR doesn't check for the boogeyman under his bad; he checks for his rollers.
@scaler911
Must know immediately, particularly as it is most likely somewhere around here in the Seattle area.
@brett
Let me get this straight: you kept dirty socks in a plastic bag for a year?
That part doesn't surprise me. What surprises me is that you still got girls to sleep with you.
In my young and wayward days of high school and college I ran cross country. While it's a heinous set of violations of rule #42, I have to admit that I still look back on those days fondly. Racing over hills in mud, snow, and melting muck; running a race in shorts and t-shirt at eight degrees C... there's a familiarity there, right?
But one of the rules of my cross country team, passed down from upperclassman to underclassmen, was that clean shoes were a sign that you weren't out training hard enough. Nor could you go out and intentionally get your shoes dirty -- you had to earn the wear and tear, putting in the miles, on the good days and the bad, in the sun and in the shit.
@zeitzmar Knobby tires and caliper brakes. How is this possible?