Categories: EtiquetteFolkloreLa Vie VelominatusTradition

Hunger

This Hunger is insatiable

My favorite feeling is perhaps the empty hollowness of hunger. That statement, in itself, is a declaration of the privileged life I’ve led; it is borderline obscene to boast of such a thing in a world where 842 million people don’t have enough to eat. Nevertheless, being lucky enough to have been raised in America and just competent enough to hold down a job, I find myself in the enviable position of needing to invoke “discipline” in order to experience this sensation.

All that aside, I love feeling hungry, both physically and metaphorically. Physically, being hungry brings something primal out in me; there is an edge that awakens which feels dormant when I’ve eaten. I’m sharper, more alive somehow.

When I eat or drink too much, I feel it in my flesh; I feel the lethargy that comes with food everywhere. I feel it on my back, I feel it in my limbs, I feel it in my eyes – everything is weighed down and blurred. When I am overweight, I find I can go all day without eating and hardly give it a thought. When I’m training and riding well and my weight is down, I can eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner and never feel sated. That is the feeling of hunger to which I refer; not a desire to starve, but a physical condition where sustenance feels impossible to achieve. This is a beautiful state where everything feels alive and there is a sharpness and precision in every motion.

There is also a metaphorical hunger, which I don’t think we can achieve without the physical sort. The metaphorical sort is borne of desire and need. This is what drives us to achieve more than we normally would. Sean Kelly talks of this hunger in his book by the same name; in his opening chapter, he says he would rather fall into the any of the greenhouses below the sweeping hairpins along the descent from the Poggio into Sanremo than face defeat by Moreno Argentin. That is hunger in the metaphorical sense.

I am a better person when I feel hunger; I have drive, I have humility, I have courage. When hunger stirs, we come alive with an urgency we don’t otherwise find. Without it, there is no compulsion to act, to fight, or to endure.

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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frank says:

Mar 5 2014 at 8:19 pm

@V-olcano

Impossible to say, really. You lot don't read the articles, I don't read the posts. It's our contract.

Or, as the VMH used to say, "You jump to your conclusions, I'll jump to mine."
G'phant says:

Mar 5 2014 at 8:47 pm

@frank Full medical assessment (stress ecg and everything - we do it every few years) at the end of next week, to see what basal fitness is like when I am truly unfit, then yes. Just in time for winter. Brilliant.
unversio says:

Mar 6 2014 at 6:10 am

@ChrisO

@unversio

@ChrisO They claim that that prefer not to add anything, especially when it comes to Wheat Germ. I like it as the main reason for ordering Granola, Muesli, etc. from Bob. I'm curious why you would care where my Granola came from anyway.

I don't care a fig where your Granola comes from - you were the one plugging avuncular suppliers of breakfast cereals.

My general point was that anything you buy from anywhere is more likely to have more sugar and fat than anything you make yourself. Whether it's "all natural" or "nothing added" is irrelevant.

Many supposedly healthy or low fat foods are packed with sugar - muesli is one of the worst, as people buy it thinking they are doing the right thing and would actually be better off with something like Cornflakes. When you spend a bit of time in the supermarket picking up and comparing the dietary values of different items it's quite an eye-opener.

I'll essentially stick to Kellogg's Protein Plus -- and stay on my guard in the supermarket.
meursault says:

Mar 6 2014 at 8:53 am

@PeakInTwoYears LOL, I had to google the dance of the seven veils.
Souleur says:

Mar 9 2014 at 5:22 pm

Frank, stellar pull, absolutely spot on. Since reading this a week or so ago, I have been drilling it down and thinking about quite a lot. Drawing on such metaphors and the corollaries do obscure deeper meanings, and there is a beauty in that when intended, ball racking when not intended. My wife has a healthy disgusting disdain for my hunger of my passion, she maybe is like most and doesn't get it as I turn things in 1/8 turns methodically in order, or prep the night before like a disciple, read like its gospel and scream at the TV when fucking Sagan blows the group to smithereens, when I'm vicariously envisioning my next ride...sorta. I'm starving for it.