Mr Strack, Mr Merckx and The Rules
How did we get to here? Here is Frank, the founder of Velominati, standing next to Eddy Merckx. Eddy is looking at The Rules, in Rouleur’s book-zine format. Frank is in his best button down sweater, trying to keep his shit together. And it is not easy for him to do this as Rouleur has invited him to London and now he is showing The Rules to Eddy Merckx.
The first time I met Frank he was wearing a Rouleur cycling cap (in a pre-Rules world, so no foul). The Velominati website is directly inspired by Rouleur magazine. Rouleur is a big, dense tome (or book-zine) of the best cycling writing and photography one can buy. It’s not cheap but why should excellence come cheap?
That Frank (or Velominati-The Rules, his billing on the invite) was invited to London to partake in this festivus is due to his persistence and unfiltered love of all things Cycling. A less persistent person would have told all of us to sod off and stopped paying the site’s hosting bills years ago. That Velominati is still here is because there are enough cycling fanatics out there who participate on the site and are not put off by everyone else’s dickish comments. We are amused by each other’s dickish comments. Personally I live for them. The Rules might be what gets the site notoriety but for those that enjoy the site frequently, it’s the daily surprises and humor that keep us coming back.
We should all take pride and pleasure that Frank is over there, representing all of us, having a laugh with Cipo, Fabian, David Millar and especially Eddy. Viva La Vie Velominatus.
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@Ccos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXeTsWGPT0w
@Ccos
Merckx is such a chill dude, it's super easy. He flipped to his photo of Puy du Dome and said, "Ah, not my favorite day."
One of my favorite non-cycling related prophet stories comes from a cardiology conference in Europe. A physician showed a slide of a chest X-ray showing someone with hyper-inflated lungs and a massively enlarged heart and asked for a diagnosis.
"Pulmonary hypertension," "myocarditis," "dilated cardiomyopathy" were some of the shouted out answers.
"It's Eddy Merckx" was his response which was followed by a prolonged period of silence (and awe I'm sure).
@frank
Superb! When meeting the Prophet, one must always dress appropriately keen. Nice tie knot, I'm sure the offering was accepted. Must be the highlight of the year so far. To have been deemed worthy....nice.
@frank
Perfect.
Very, Very, Nice!! What a dream to meet the prophet!
@Frank
Looking sharp Frank. Having the Prophet read you a bed time story is a nice touch.
It seems like the expression on Eddy's face is the one that spy masters in the movies have right before they murder the rival spy. Which may or may not be relevant here.
Sometime the stars do align.
Way to go @frank! There's not many of us with such continental style. Hope you invited him to the next Cogal.
And thanks for picking up the tab in Langley!...you were gone before I could thank you. Next time!
@Ccos
I'm just thrilled not to have the expression on my face demonstrated kindly by the BIC ride behind us!
I did shake his hand a few too many times because I kept blacking out and couldn't remember whether I'd done it or not. My short-term memory was basically reduced to about 3 seconds.