Categories: Musings from the V-BunkerThe Rules

Rule #43

The boys discussing #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.

Gianni

Gianni has left the building.

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View Comments

chris says:

Mar 10 2016 at 3:39 pm

@Sebastian Bustos

Calvinball inspired us to evolve the game by playing it on bikes. The local LBS loved the trade that resulted from it.
Sparty says:

Mar 10 2016 at 6:38 pm

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.
Apex Nadir says:

Mar 10 2016 at 8:30 pm

@Ron

Anyway, I like the Rules and I have a whole set of rules I follow on my own, because I have standards and give a shit. From using phones at inappropriate times to wearing your pajamas to the grocery store, most Americans need MORE rules.

Brown shirts only at the grocery store? Run for office @Ron, you've got a winning platform there. Or standards, or shit, or something...
Rab says:

Mar 10 2016 at 8:45 pm

@Buck Rogers

Purity of Essence.

Seems like a fitting concept in discussing The Rules.
Oli says:

Mar 10 2016 at 10:53 pm

@Apex Nadir

Haha! I was thinking along the same Godwin's lines...
Teocalli says:

Mar 11 2016 at 1:24 am

@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.
Neil says:

Mar 11 2016 at 2:12 am

@chris

@Teocalli

@Neil

@frank

@chris

@gianni perhaps we should have a rule requiring us to all head off to the woods for a sneaky fag when it all gets too serious…

That doesn’t sound right when read in American English.

‘Smokin’ a fag’ even less so. Two nations divided by a common language…

and of course there is bumming a fag………

Having been to a British boarding school, I’d like to categorically state that I have never bummed a fag.

So were you fagged in school or did you have someone younger fag for you? Did you encounter any particularly harsh fagging?
Teocalli says:

Mar 11 2016 at 2:35 am

@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!
chris says:

Mar 11 2016 at 4:44 am

@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.
wiscot says:

Mar 11 2016 at 5:52 am

There used to be a shop on Glasgow's Dumbarton Road called "Fags and Mags." Newsagents apparently.