Rule #43
I wonder if Rule #43 should be sublimated on our bibs too. It might be my most favorite Rule. Don’t be a jackass. But if you absolutely must be a jackass, be a funny jackass. Always remember, we’re all brothers and sisters on the road.
As a Keeper on the Velominati site, it irritates me that the Velominati are known mostly for The Rules. While we didn’t invent them nor were we the first to list them, our proselytizing has made us synonymous with The Rules. I would hate for us to be known as the exclusive Cyclists rather than the funny Cyclists.
Frank started this site to write about and discuss the beauty of cycling; The Rules were never part of the plan. If someone wants to start something Rules-wise with me, they better hand me the list because I don’t know them. I might possibly have been a more religious person if it all weren’t so deadly serious. And yes, my inability to take things seriously has been brought up too often, usually at annual performance reviews. But I grew up with the daily option of nuclear annihilation hanging over my head. Us kids all started to talk like French philosophers, at eight years old, smoking cigarettes and asking, mon dieu, what iz ze point of life, eh? Our local cub scout pack just fell apart after a few months… really, earning patches to sew on our uniforms? It made no sense to us young nihilists. Zere is no patch for digging an impromptu bomb shelter? Ahh, fuck it, let’s go out into the woods and smoke more cigarettes.
While I occasionally worry about The Rules smothering all other things Velominati, that worry is always quickly buried by the funny back and forth on the site. While some cycling sites are heavily moderated or troll filled, Velominati seems to thrive on the uncensored winding up. We realize arguing about riding one’s bike could make us all seem like jackasses, but at least we are funny jackasses. Long live Rule #43.
And to prove my point, if I had one… this.
@Ron
Easy laddie. Serena an HGH borg? My Serena? She likes the gym, FFS!
@Neil
heheheee. +1 badge right there!
@Teocalli
OK, you get a badge too.
Am I going to hell for laughing so much at this?
@Gianni
No, not exactly. It is a reference to the character Walter, played by John Goodman in The Big Lebowski, from which the whole Dudeism thing originates.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGiZVqrNnsg
@Gianni
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z0Pm7tccvc
Oh Gianni, and here I actually used to have a bit of respect for you. Time for another (or perhaps your first???) viewing of a movie every bit as awesome as Dr Strangelove.
@Stephen
Ha! Within seconds of each other!
@Gianni
“My Serena?” My Sharona! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78hagv86L3c
@Stephen
@Stephen
“You brought the fuckin’ Pomeranian bowling?”
@frank
Having had my wrists slapped for calling you a lanky poof, I would only use that in the context of smoking. (The American dictionary would seem to be a bit light on the various uses of the word. Also see below)
Perhaps I should have phrased it as “requiring us to all head off into the woods for a sly smoko” as that should cover most peoples tastes.
@Teocalli
Having been to a British boarding school, I’d like to categorically state that I have never bummed a fag.
@Sebastian Bustos
Calvinball inspired us to evolve the game by playing it on bikes. The local LBS loved the trade that resulted from it.
If you ride with a group of V cultured mates, then Rule #43 is always applied. We consider jackassery a display of our fondness for each other. If you ride with us and someone does not break your balls, then you are likely relegated as too fragile of a man or you deserve chivalry because you are a woman. If you are a man and have close friends, Rule #43 is part of your genetic being. Every man knows that right? If you do not agree there is a high probability you have no true friends.
@Ron
Brown shirts only at the grocery store? Run for office @Ron, you’ve got a winning platform there. Or standards, or shit, or something…
@Buck Rogers
Purity of Essence.
Seems like a fitting concept in discussing The Rules.
@Apex Nadir
Haha! I was thinking along the same Godwin’s lines…
@chris
Ditto. Even in English English that one is ambiguous – and both counts were against the rules. Though I was guilty on the “cadge a cig” count but obeyed my Rule #1 and did not get caught.
@chris
So were you fagged in school or did you have someone younger fag for you? Did you encounter any particularly harsh fagging?
@Neil
In my case it had been abolished where I went by the time I went through the system. Given @chris is a wee bit younger then if he did experience it he clearly went to one of the very posh ones that still practiced it!
@Neil, @Teocalli
Formally the system had been abolished but that didn’t mean it had stopped. It was a good school but it wasn’t particularly posh. Scottish farmers and expat kids rather than royalty, the political elite and middle eastern princes.
In third form I was a fag and then when I was a prefect I had a fag.
I didn’t get any particularly harsh treatment as a fag although that may have been down to the fact that I was large for my age and good enough at sport that I was already beginning to enjoy a certain level of protection the school’s sporting elite (sporting prowess trumped all else). I’d had harsher treatment during my first two years in the junior house from kids my own age or the year above.
By the time I’d become a prefect, the system was was dying out and apart from ritually buggering my fag with a poker if my toast wasn’t just so, I don’t think I was anymore of a shit to him than I was to anyone else in the prep room.
There used to be a shop on Glasgow’s Dumbarton Road called “Fags and Mags.” Newsagents apparently.
@wiscot
Glasgow! I have been trying to call there the last few days working on getting a wheelset built by Big Al! Bloody cell phone is giving me fits. Anyways, I spoke with Big Al yesterday and he is AWESOME. By far the best phone conversation I have had in ages. Very excited to have him put a set of wheels together for me. (As for why have them built in Scotland???–I will not have enough money to get them built until this late fall and I am moving to Europe this July so I went with a UK builder. I am planning on visiting @the engine in Glasgow this fall anyways so it will all go together like peas and carrots–although I fuckin hate carrots!)
@Buck Rogers
Hey, I’m likely taking a trip to Scotland this July/August. I think we should get together in Glasgow for some pre-ride recovery ales. I know a few good places and no doubt the Engine does too. Let’s keep in touch.
@wiscot
Sounds good but we’ll not be there until OCT/NOV timeframe! We do not even land in Germany until late July!
@Apex Nadir
Uhhh, not sure what you are talking, I simply prefer to not see someone’s ass hanging out of their Sponge Bob pajama bottoms at the grocery.
My political platform is simple: I’d ban cell phones while driving at the Federal level & I’d enforce traffic laws like speed limits, lights on when raining, and using indicators when leaving parking spots, turning, and changing lanes.
@Buck Rogers
….. in Glasgow this fall anyways so it will all go together like peas and carrots–although I fuckin hate carrots!)
Up there more likely like Chips and Gravy if not Mars Bar and a Deep Fat Fryer.
Jackasses, funny or not, tend to shape the rules as they see fit and serve as a good example for the rest of us not to take our “cycling” lives, including rules, too seriously.
VLV
@Stephen
This is an awesome clip. Does anyone care about the rules? I do, to a point. I won’t obey a rule that I deem silly.
Rules I, V, and X are important, perhaps, but in the big picture isn’t it more important to simply enjoy riding your bike?
@Owen
Beautiful. Proof that it is the way to greatness:
But I thought there would be statistics to go with the Rules?
Elitist Jerks
Or is it the wrong game?
@Teocalli
As a corollary, from the cut throat competition found in officer’s candidate school; “Admit nothing, deny everything, make counter accusations.” Words to live by.
@wiscot
Serena and Venus? Really. Oh yeah.
As I proposed to a co-worker (Big fan of Amurican football) the other day, in defense of doping controls in cycling, “Do you really think those guys get that big (or cut) by working out in the gym every day, eating steak for breakfast, and drinking a sports shake?”
@Haldy
enjoying reading this. doublegod