Cycling Guidelines, or How Not To Be a Fred - Part I

Introduction

I want to start off this post by stating something important:  I think novice cyclists are great.  These are people making the transition from non-cyclist to cyclist, which is a difficult transition all of us cyclists have had to make.  I earnestly wish to make cycling as friendly as possible to all newcomers, which is why I chafe at the (albeit sometimes jocular) elitism of the so-called Velominati, and why I criticized “The Rules” in these pages.

That said, I suspect that many newcomers (to cycling or, really, to anything) would prefer not to wear their novice status on their sleeves.  Nobody wants to be a Fred; that is, nobody wants to be this guy:

To the extent that cycling is a social sport, people will naturally want to fit in—but that’s not the same thing as being told what to do, especially by a self-appointed expert.  A set of widely accepted guidelines, which the novice cyclist may choose to heed or ignore at his or her whim, strikes me as a useful thing.

To sidestep the matter of whether my authority counts for anything, I created a survey and sent it to my cycling buds.  This is an accomplished group of no-nonsense road cyclists, most of whom have been riding for at least twenty years.  I based my survey questions on several sources:  behaviors I myself find questionable; behaviors cited in various Internet “are you a Fred?” articles; and pre-survey ideas from my cycling buds.  The overall gist was, “How would you react to this behavior if displayed during our club ride?”  I had respondents rank each behavior according to these descriptors:  “Totally Normal/Acceptable”; “Borderline/ I Wouldn’t Do It”; and “Laughably Fredtastic.”  The results of that survey, along with copious commentary and caveats, are presented herein.

But first

To reiterate, I’m not trying to tell anybody what to do.  Rebelliousness has been a part of this sport for generations, and I’m all for it.  What I think most people would like to avoid is being an accidental iconoclast—i.e., a dork.  It’s useful to know what the norms are, whether you intend to adhere to them or flout them openly.  So take each of these guidelines with a grain of salt, and jettison them as you see fit.

I hasten also to point out that I use “Fred” as a kind of shorthand.  I don’t actually get any smug pleasure from labeling this or that rider a Fred.  Codifying behaviors is as much about helping people rest easy as it is warning anybody about potentially sneer-inducing behaviors.  So if, for example, you’ve been feeling self-conscious about buying house-brand bike clothing (i.e., Nashbar) instead of springing for mainstream brands like Pearl Izumi, you can relax:  49% of the seasoned veterans surveyed find the low-cost choice perfectly acceptable and normal, while only 14% think it’s Fredtastic.

One respondent suggested that “the main reason we care about these behaviors is that they act as a signaling system for safety—a sign that the rider is a newbie and may need a bit more space.  It’s not just that we’re dicks (although that’s part of it too—good social skills are not a requirement for participating in a quasi-individual sport).”  I think he’s onto something.

A final bit of perspective:  I was riding recently with a cycling newbie—my 13-year-old daughter Alexa—and she asked, “Dad, were you ever a Fred?”  I said, “Sure.  I had big tube socks that were usually stained with chain grease, and I tipped over a lot when I first got toe-clips, and I had a particularly ugly helmet with a visor.”  She asked, “Did you know you were a Fred?”  I replied, “No, I didn’t.  Freds never do.  But after my best friend complained about my visor, I did snap it off.”  After a pause, Alexa asked, “Dad, will I ever be a Fred?”  (She likely perceives that, for now, she’s too young to be judged, which may well be true.)  I replied, “No, you’ll never be a Fred, because I won’t let you.”

But then I caught myself.  What if she doesn’t actually care?  Who am I to stand in the way of her individual expression?  So I asked, “Is that okay?  Are you even looking for my opinion?”  She rolled her eyes and said, “Dad, I’m a teenager.  I’m self-conscious.  Thank you for giving me advice.” 

If that’s where you’re coming from, this blog post is for you.  On the flip side, if you’re looking for ways to get under the skin of overly uptight bike fascists, this post is also for you!

Survey results:  part one

My survey comprised 41 questions.  About half of the behaviors surveyed didn’t produce a sizable negative response; for example, “Wearing mountain bike shoes instead of road shoes” was tagged “Laughably Fredtastic” by only 2 out of the 37 respondents (i.e., about 5%), and 35% of respondents found this behavior “Totally Acceptable/Normal.” 

The variety of responses across many of these surveyed behaviors suggests something I’ve long suspected:  that, as a group, cyclists’ perspectives actually aren’t that homogenous.  One respondent commented, “Many of the ‘borderline’ (and even some of the ‘Fred-tastic’) I have committed and/or seen committed on EBVC rides.  Conclusion:  hypocrisy is ‘completely normal/acceptable’ among ‘serious’ cyclists.”

I quite agree.  Consider the mountain bike shoe question:  my friend Peter, a former pro road racer, wore mountain bike shoes on the road for like two years even though he actually owned a brand-new pair of road shoes.  He was just too lazy to set up the cleats.  On the flip side, a current teammate of mine was so bothered by Alexa’s mountain bike shoes, he offered to take up a collection for me to buy her some proper road shoes.

Here’s a summary of what appear to be the least frowned-upon behaviors surveyed.  Click on these to zoom in:

Survey results:  part two

Next I’ll go through 10 of the top 20 offending behaviors.  (I’d do all 20, but so many people complain that my blog posts are too long.  The top 10 will be covered in my next post.)

 20th Most Fredtastic:  Abruptly Rising

Asked for their opinion on “Abruptly rising from the saddle so your rear wheel is thrust backward,” 53% of respondents cited this as borderline behavior, and 47% deemed it laughably Fredtastic.

This behavior clearly identifies a newbie, because it’s a somewhat dangerous move that, because it comes naturally, must be unlearned.  Whenever you stand on the pedals, the bike automatically goes back (actually, it probably just slows down for a beat), which requires evasive maneuvers on the part of anybody drafting you.  I wonder how many newbies don’t realize this, and are puzzled by how often guys in the group start cussing for no apparent reason.

19th Most Fredtastic:  QR on Right

Queried about “Wheel quick-release lever on starboard (i.e., wrong) side,” 47% of respondents found this borderline, and 50% Fredtastic.  One respondent found this normal/acceptable.

Why should this matter?  Well, many road tires are directional, though I couldn’t say whether mounting them correctly actually makes a difference. If you’re old-school and have a magnet on one of your spokes for your bike computer, this would be a problem.  Most of all, the backwards skewer shows a lack of attention to detail.

I don’t see this mistake very often, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.  I was riding with a pal who noticed, before I had a chance to, that his front wheel was on backwards.  He actually took me to task for failing to call him out on this, but we both agreed it was an understandable error simply because my friend was a new father and wasn’t getting enough sleep to function properly.

18th Most Fredtastic:  Too much watt-related commentary

When asked their opinion on “Commenting too frequently about power output,” 51% found this Fredtastic, 37% said borderline, and 11% said normal/acceptable. 

This behavior suggests an interesting dichotomy:  expertise vs. experience.  It tends to be the serious rider who lays out the cash for a power meter and understands the readings well enough to talk about them.  On the other hand, the true veteran probably tired of all this performance-related (and, more generally, cycling-related) conversation long ago, and has little appetite for it.

17th Most Fredtastic:  No socks

Riding without socks was tagged as Fredtastic by 53% of respondents, with 36% finding it questionable and 11% normal/acceptable.  The fact that four respondents approved of going sockless surprises me, because I cannot remember the last time I rode with someone who didn’t have socks.

In road racing, socks are mandatory.  Way back in 1985, when my feet were at their adolescent stinkiest, a friend of mine showed up to race having forgotten his socks.  He had to borrow mine—after I’d raced in them.  He was an even stinkier dude than I was, and I said, “Just keep ‘em.”

16th Most Fredtastic:  Pie plate

Responses broke down as follows:  57% found pie plates Fredtastic; 34% questionable; 9% acceptable.

What?  You don’t know what “pie plate” means in a bike context?  Well, you’ve come to the right place!  Check out this post for a full explanation of why spoke protectors are such a grind.  (Short answer:  “We didn’t call them spoke protectors though,/ As ‘pie plate’ better mocked how big they were./ They caused the largest cog to seem to grow—/ A mean illusion, awful to endure./ A bigger cog meant lower gearing, see;/ The stuff of weaker boys, embarrassing./ We longed for smaller clusters, finally free/ Of pie plates. Lack of metal was our bling.”)

15th Most Fredtastic:  Sleeveless jersey

For “Sleeveless jersey when it’s not that hot,” 54% came back with Fredtastic; 41% borderline; 5% acceptable.

To me, nothing says “newbie” like a person who is woefully ill-prepared for the weather conditions.  I clearly remember the first time I wore a sleeveless jersey on a not-so-warm day.  In my defense, I’d just moved to San Luis Obispo (where the weather is often cooler than it looks) from Boulder (where sunshine almost always means glorious warmth), and I’d listened to too much “Beach Boys” music and got the wrong idea about California.  Sleeves, even short ones, make a huge difference, and I froze my ass off that day.  I never made that mistake again.  So when it’s 60 degrees and cloudy here, and feels like 50 degrees, and I’m rocking two jerseys and a pair of arm warmers, and I see some biker in a sleeveless jersey, I think, “Either this is your very first ride, or you never learn.”

14th Most Fredtastic:  Half-wheeling

Half-wheeling is Fredtastic to 56% of my panel; borderline in the eyes of 33%; and normal/acceptable to 11%.  I think that 11% is more along the lines of “normal,” as in “an inescapable evil we’ll never be rid of.” 

This behavior—whereby the offender is riding next to a pal, and keeps pulling slightly ahead, so his bike is half a wheel ahead—is surely based on the competitive impulse.  Resisting this impulse demonstrates the triumph of discipline over instinct.  Probably because I ride so much by myself, I have to struggle against this one constantly.  It’s not that rare for a pal to grab my shoulder and pull me back so our wheels are lined up again, and whenever this happens I’m completely mortified.  Let me take this opportunity to apologize in advance for the next time I do this to you.

13th Most Fredtastic:  Bento Box

If you don’t know what a Bento Box is, in the context of bike gear, congratulations.  You must enjoy a more rarified biking environment than I do.  A Bento Box is this little bag that mounts behind your stem.  I’ve circled it in this photo:

One of the Fredtastic things about the Bento Box is the company it keeps:  the bike above has a pie plate, aero bars, and saddle-mounted water bottle cages (all of them flagged in my survey).  No, I don’t know what the junk is on the top tube of that bike, nor what the white thing is mounted to the aero bars.  Maybe it’s a diaper-wipe dispenser or a blood bag.  Man, I just looked too closely at the far-forward position of the saddle on that bike, and I almost barfed into my mouth.  If my daughter ever tricks her road bike out like this, I’m sending her to boarding school.

No, not all Bento Box users are triathletes.  But every time I see one of these things, it’s on a way over-accessorized bike that generally looks way too expensive for the speed it’s being pedaled at.  Not that an over-expensive bike is a sign of Fred-dom, exactly; only 17% of the panel found “Quality of equipment clearly surpasses rider’s ability” to be Fredtastic, and 39% found it normal/acceptable.  One respondent commented, “Riding equipment above the ability of the rider should be acceptable if, and only if, the rider aspires to higher quality [defined as fitness, skill and élan] AND the combination and configuration of that equipment is otherwise PROfull.”  Bikes overly loaded with accessories are never PROfull, and particularly egregious examples like the Bento Box suggest that a silver-tongued bike shop salesman had a field day with the bike owner.

My main issue with the Bento Box is that it’s utterly needless.  I’ve done unsupported rides of over 200 miles and I never needed more room than my jersey pockets provide.  (And I don’t even use a seat bag.) 

Survey response:  56% of respondents tagged the Bento Box as Fredtastic; 31% found it borderline; and 14% of these softies said it was acceptable.  I wonder how many of that 14% thought I was talking about Japanese food as a glycogen-window snack.

12th Most Fredtastic:  Jersey riding up

“Jersey that rides up over non-bib shorts, exposing skin.”  There’s no easy phrase to describe this, and there’s no easy way to tolerate being stuck behind it when you’re in a paceline.  Back in the ‘80s my brother did a really long ride while afflicted with this sartorial malady, and he got this terrible crescent-shaped sunburn on his lower back.  Like many teens of that era, he liked to go around shirtless (when off the bike), and his low-riding non-biker shorts showcased that sunburn and the golden brown tan that followed it.  It was kind of creepy, like the Cheshire Cat’s grin that remained long after the cat himself was gone.

Perhaps it’s mostly novices who don’t grasp why bib shorts are worth paying more for.  Myself, I haven’t worn non-bibs since I was junior, when it was popular to ride up behind a guy, grab the waistband of his shorts, pull it down, and hook it under the back of the saddle—and then attack.  This was as effective as it was humiliating to the victim, and I wouldn’t rule out a nefarious plot concocted by the Sportswear Industrial Complex.

Not a single respondent found this scenario acceptable.  It was deemed Fredtastic by 57% of the group, and borderline by the other 43%.

11th Most Fredtastic:  Clip-on mirror

Not surprisingly, 58% of respondents found it Fredtastic to use a little mirror that clips to the helmet or the glasses.  Another 39% deemed it borderline. Oddly, one respondent thought it was acceptable.  Must be a really nice person.

My issues with this accessory are threefold.  First, if you crash, you’ve got broken glass right near your eye.  (Yes, I also favor plastic lenses for sunglasses.)  Second, if a motorist is behind you, it’s better to make eye contact with him (by turning your head) than to assume he’ll notice your mirror.  (He won’t; you’re lucky if he notices you.)  Finally, it could be that the guy who buys this mirror lacks the skill to look over his shoulder while riding—in which case you may not want him in your group.

Okay, you caught me.  I was inventing rational reasons to support my predilections, which I confess are largely aesthetic and stylistic.  Go right on ahead using your clip-on mirror, your Bento Box, and your pie plate.  I promise I won’t say anything, especially if you ride me off your wheel.

Stay tuned...

Watch these pages, because next week I’ll unveil the top-ten most widely denounced signs of newbie knowledge gap.  Here’s a little teaser:  behavior #1 was rated “Laughably Fredtastic” by 92% of the panel!

Update

Click here for Part II of this article ... the top-ten Fredtastic behaviors!

37 Velominati Rules You Can Ignore

Introduction

This is my second of two posts on The Rules, a set of cycling-related standards put forth by Velominati.com.  I bother to write about The Rules in part because I feel that bicycle road racing has a recruitment problem.  In the mid-‘80s when I was a junior in Colorado, turnout was great—routinely we’d get like sixty kids in a race.  Now, in many cases, there are scarcely enough juniors to have a race, even at major events like the Nevada City Bicycle Classic.  Also, the three teams I rode for during my college years had trouble recruiting women even back then.  So when popular websites like Velominati’s suggest that the roadie realm is a bunch of (adult, male) elitists, I feel like somebody ought to step up and assure the newcomer that a lot of us are actually pretty laid back.

Several Velominati fans have commented, below my first post on this topic, that I’m missing the point and that I have no sense of humor.  Well, I doubt that the point of Velominati’s site is that these Rules are entirely facetious and the entire thing is a great big spoof.  If that were the case, a seasoned cyclist like me would disagree with all of The Rules, not just 37 of them.  Moreover, if humor were the only goal of The Rules, we wouldn’t have such straightforward, clearly non-tongue-in-cheek items as Rule #18, “No baggy shorts and jerseys while riding the road bike.”

I suspect that the point of The Rules is twofold:  to inform and to entertain.  It’s evidently meant to be fun to read, while imparting a body of knowledge about the culture of road cycling.  The fact that I don’t find much of it funny doesn’t mean I have no sense of humor.  After all, I laughed out loud at the Ronnie Johns “Harden the Fuck Up” video that Rule #5 links to.  I also chuckled at Rule #34, “Mountain bike shoes and pedals have their place:  on a mountain bike.”  Beyond velominati.com, I can even enjoy a comic declaration I totally disagree with, provided it’s sufficiently funny, as in the case of George Carlan’s diatribe against guys named Todd.

The Rules list strongly resembles a similar list from many years ago, “The Official Euro Cyclist Code of Conduct,” by Dom Guiver and Mike Flavell, except that those guys seemed to be making fun of themselves, and their directives were, in many cases, obviously facetious (e.g.,  “[long] hair shall be neatly slicked back in maximum euro-styling, and helmet SHALL NOT be worn” and “a gold pendant on a very long, thin chain bearing some sort of religious icon is STRONGLY recommended for mountain races”).  In contrast, the overall effect of the Velominati rules is that of actual advice from unapologetically elitist self-declared authorities.

When I asserted this in my previous post, a few Velominati fans told me to lighten up.  Their suggestion seems to be that because The Rules are all in good fun, nobody should object to anything.  The problem is, it’s really hard to tell when a rule is meant as a joke vs. an actual directive.  If something is not obviously funny, it’s not obviously a joke, and we are entitled to think it’s meant seriously.  (It’s a bit like one of my kids insulting the other, and then, when I chastise her for it, saying, “C’mon, I was just joking.”)

This post (like my other one) is for cyclists who have read The Rules and don’t like them, and/or are feeling intimidated by a sport that, as Velominati portrays it, holds its participants to exacting standards.  This post is for cyclists who disagree with some of The Rules and might like being let off the hook.  And finally, it’s for my friend Mark, who originally sent around the link with the comment, “We need to annotate this list … Dana?”

37 Velominati Rules you can ignore

Here is the list of Velominati rules I knowingly break—not due to a rebellious streak, but because I simply think they’re wrong.  Please don’t construe my list as an endorsement of the idea that cyclists need to meet a uniform standard … as far as I’m concerned, other cyclists can do as they please (outside of obvious misbehavior like running over pedestrians as they pursue downhill Strava  records).

Rule #1, Obey the Rules.  This is needless; the idea of obedience is built-in to the notion of rule.  I think it would be an improvement to change this one to, “Take the following Rules with a grain of salt.”

Rule #3, Guide the uninitiated.  Per my previous post, other riders’ behavior is their own business and I don’t want the job of telling strangers they’re doing it all wrong.

Rule #5, Harden The Fuck Up.  This was funny in Ronnie Johns’ video.  It’s less funny when aimed at a reader whom the Velominati folks have never met, and who a) may already be plenty hard, or b) may not care to make the sport a personal pissing contest.  I went further into this in my previous post.

Rule #6, Free your mind and your legs will follow.  This is just blather.  Any good cyclist knows that this sport requires brains.  And “Do all your thinking before you start riding”?  The idea of Velominati acolytes thoughtlessly drifting along, lost in reverie (“wrapped in the sensations of the ride”), is somewhat  frightening.  Yes, much of cycling becomes instinctive and automatic, but decisions still need to be made.

Rule #7, Tan lines should be cultivated and kept razor sharp.  In my book, any behavior associated with suntans—with the notable exception of protecting your skin—is narcissistic.  And yes, narcissism is a bad thing.

Rule #9, Riding in bad weather means you’re a badass, period.  Not everybody who rides in bad weather is a badass (some do it just to show off), and conversely, not all badass cyclists are eager or even willing to ride in bad weather.

Rule #11, Family does not come first, the bike does.  I suspect this is facetious, but it’s not very funny, and certainly isn’t right.  If an amateur cyclist, such as one in the Masters, wishes to bail on his family every weekend to go race, that’s his or her business, but to mandate it is ridiculous.

Rule #12, The correct number of bikes to own is n+1.  No, that’s not always the case.  For me, five is plenty since I don’t ride track or cyclocross.  Also, what about people who can only afford one or two bikes?  Are they not allowed into this sport?

Rule #13, If you draw race number 13, turn it upside down.  As Daniel Coyle describes in his excellent book Lance Armstrong’s War, superstitions can vary from rider to rider.  I have no problem with the number 13 and would want to wear it right-side-up, to make sure the officials can read it (as opposed to giving me a DNF).  Declaring that something should be done a certain way, just because some cool athlete does it, is getting into slippery territory.  Should the Velominati guys, in accordance with Rules #2 and #3, go tell Rohan Dennis—winner of the Mount Diablo stage of the Tour of California—that he pinned his numbers on wrong?

Rule #14, Shorts should be black.  This is silly because the majority of pro teams have non-black shorts today.  Meanwhile, my club’s jerseys are orange, which I love, but which wouldn’t look good with black shorts (i.e., would be too much like Halloween).  We wear navy blue shorts.

Rule #17, Team kit is for members of the team.  In general, I don’t try to impersonate someone on another team.  But I received a sweet long-sleeve Rabobank jersey for Christmas years ago and reserve the right to wear it, with my non-Rabobank shorts. 

Rule #18, Know what to wear, don’t suffer kit confusion – No baggy shorts and jerseys while riding the road bike, no lycra when riding the  mountain bike.  Pure malarkey.  I’m not going to put on my cycling clothes just to return a video.  And mountain bikers have been wearing Lycra for at least a couple decades.

Rule #19, Introduce yourself … it is customary and courteous to announce your presence.  I have never required this of any random Joe joining our club ride, and have never been so formal in joining a random rider or group on the road.  I’ve also never witnessed such formalities, in over thirty years of club rides.  Sure, I’ve had a paceline disrupted by an unskilled interloper, but the best way to deal with that is just to ramp up the pace until he falls off.  And if he doesn’t?  Well, good on him!

Rule #23, Tuck only after reaching Escape Velocity.  Since I reserve the right to recover during descents (see my comment on Rule #93), I’ll tuck when I please.  And by the way, the velominati.com photo of the “LeMond tuck”?  That’s not even a tuck.  Look at Taylor Phinney soloing in that Tour of California stage … that’s a tuck.  There are plenty of great photos of LeMond tucking; why didn’t the Velominati guys find one?

Rule #24, Speeds and distances shall be referred to and measured in kilometers.  Look, the Americans I ride with mostly use miles, and so do I.  That doesn’t make us “Neanderthalic,” as the Velominati suggest.  (Meanwhile, “Neanderthalic” isn’t even a word.)

Rule #25, The bikes on top of your car should be worth more than the car.  This is only true for juniors in really crappy cars.  And the Velomati guys’ “relatively more expensive” caveat is slippery:  where do you draw the line?  How many bikes are we talking about?  Is a $40,000 car okay with a $3,000 bike?  Their “put your Huffy on a Rolls” example is neither funny nor helpful.  I could agree with a more definitive guideline:  “If you drive a 2010 Nissan Elantra with upgraded rims, but your bike is a 1995 Novara Trionfo, perhaps you should reassess your priorities.”

Rule #30, No frame-mounted pumps.  This is just plain stupid.  I don’t like seeing pumps poking out of pockets because I’m afraid they’ll fall out, and I don’t use CO2 canisters because they’re not eco-friendly.  Prohibiting Zéfal pumps and insisting on Silca is like requiring VHS over Betamax.  And the Velominati-sanctioned method of mounting a pump in the rear frame triangle is wrong.  You don’t prop it on the quick-release skewer, because that’s not secure enough.  You take a big file and put a notch in the pump handle that slots right over the dropout.  But of course you can’t do this on most modern frames anyway (or are we all supposed to be riding ‘80s-era steel frames too?).  One more thing:  the authors spelled “canister” wrong.

Rule #33, Shave your guns.  As a mandate, this doesn’t have much backing among the cyclists I know.  I did a blog post awhile back on leg shaving by cyclists, for which I did a survey of around 50 of my male cycling pals.  Of these, 93% either used to race or still do, and ten are (or were) Category 1 and/or professional riders.  Only 14% of these surveyed riders shave their legs year-round, and 45% never do.  (Meanwhile, 52% indicated they couldn’t care less if other cyclists shaved their own legs.)  My other issue with this rule:  calling your legs “guns” is like kissing your flexed biceps non-ironically.  Pretty sad.

Rule #39, Never ride without your eyewear.  I sometimes do a short ride at dawn.  I don’t need the UV protection, and I don’t suppose the few riders I see at that hour are scandalized from a sartorial perspective.  So who exactly is affected when I break this rule?

Rule #41, Quick-release levers are to be carefully positioned.  As I said in my previous post, I point my levers straight back because I think it looks cool.  As for how others orient theirs, I couldn’t care less and neither should you.

Rule #45, Slam your stem.  Maybe if I did yoga I could change my position to meet the maximum stack height prescribed by this rule.  A marginally cooler-looking bike isn’t worth back pain, at least for those of us who ride our bikes instead of parking them at cafés in the mistaken belief that passersby will admire them.  Meanwhile, a low-rise stem with more than 2 cm of stack height looks way cooler than a high-rise stem positioned directly on the top race of the headset, though this latter configuration would be technically permissible according to The Rules.

Rule #49, Keep the rubber side down.  Are you going to tell me a junior cyclist who can’t afford a bike stand or wheel truing stand isn’t allowed to flip his bike over to true the wheels?  Should this sport be restricted to those who can afford their own truing stands (or can afford to pay a shop to maintain their bikes for them)?

Rule #50, Facial hair is to be carefully regulated.  This rule should explicitly exclude women and juniors; because it doesn’t, I’m led to believe the Velominati folks forgot all about them.  Meanwhile, not shaving on the morning of a race doesn’t have anything to do with virility, as suggested by the Velominati writers.  As a junior I was plenty virile despite being too young to shave.  The reason you don’t shave the morning of the race, as everybody knows, is that you want to avoid the sting of sweat in razor burn (a pointless addition to the suffering you’re already doing).  As far as the prohibition of beards and moustaches, I really don’t think this has anything to do with cycling.  If I desire to grow some facial hair, even for the express purpose of looking like an idiot, that’s my business (see my previous post about the compatibility of iconoclasm with cycling).  In this photo I’m also visibly breaking Rule #14, Rule #33, Rule #45, and Rule #74.

Rule #56, Espresso or macchiato only.  This kind of epicurean fussiness has nothing to do with cycling, as I detailed in my previous post.  Prior to reading The Rules I’d never even heard of a macchiato.  I prefer NoDoz to coffee anyway.

Rule #58, Support your local bike shop—never buy bikes, parts, or accessories online.  Never?  Really?  I do support my local bike shop, by sending them business and by buying basic stuff there, but it’s ridiculous to expect a serious cyclist to do none of his or her shopping online.  Look, if you know exactly what you want, you know how to install and adjust it yourself and have the tools you need, and you don’t have a trust fund, you’d be crazy to buy all your stuff at a bike shop.  Excepting the ten years during which I worked in bike shops, I’ve bought major bike parts mail-order since about 1982 and I sleep well at night.

Rule #63, Point in the direction you’re turning.  What a pointless bit of advice.  If a car is well behind me, yeah, I’ll signal by extending my right arm.  But if a driver is creeping right up on me, he or she won’t see a right-arm turn signal (because my body will eclipse it).  So then I use the left arm bent-elbow signal.  Do these Velominati guys actually think about any of these directives before issuing them, or do they just write down whatever random idea pops into their heads?

Rule #68, Rides are to be measured by quality, not quantity … declaring “We rode 4km” would assert that 4000m were climbed during the ride with the distance being irrelevant.  I’ve never heard a ride described this way.  Why would the Velominati guys require a behavior that absolutely nobody, outside of their own weird little clique, actually does?

Rule #70, The purpose of competing is to win.  I think this was true in the case of Eddy Merckx, but most other racers use some races for training, and know they aren’t always in contention.  I think it’s perfectly fine—admirable, even—to enter a race that you know you can’t win.  How else are you going to improve?  Is the Velominati strategy to carefully select only the smallest of ponds?  This rule is just macho posturing.

Rule #73, Gear and brake cables should be cut to optimum length.  Well, isn’t this a pointless tautology?  Shouldn’t all things be done in the optimum way, by definition?  But actually my main issue is with the text of the rule, which includes “Right shifter cable should go to the left cable stop and vice versa” and the associated directive that cables should “cross under the downtube.”  Yeah, I’ve come across this before.  You occasionally see a complete moron setting up a bike that way.  It’s pointless.  As a bike shop mechanic I never encountered a colleague who did that.

Rule #74, V Meters or small computers only.  Not having heard of a V Meter, I took the bait and clicked the hyperlink.  A V Meter is a bike computer with a Velominati sticker obscuring the display.  This violates Rule #57, No stickers, and Rule #78, Remove unnecessary gear.  It’s also so precious I think I’m going to hurl.  Meanwhile, large computers (e.g., Garmins and power meters) are very common on pro racers’ bikes.

Rule #78, Remove unnecessary gear – When racing in a criterium of 60 minutes or less the second (unused) water bottle cage must be removed.  Once again, no actual cyclist would ever do this, not even a pro cyclist with a full-time mechanic.  On the other hand, at least this rule used the term “water bottle cage” instead of calling the bottle a “bidon” as the Velomati Rules website does in a dozen other places.  “Bidon” is shameless affectation of Euro-cool.  I believe it is a very small minority of English-speaking cyclists who ever say “bidon.”  (I thought this might be a British thing, but the British announcers, on Eurosport and also in the recent Tour of California coverage, all say “bottle,” as does the Brit on my bike club.)

Rule #85, Descend like a pro – all descents shall be undertaken at speeds commonly regarded as “ludicrous” or “insane” by those less talented.  This advice is irresponsible.  Descending at speed isn’t a talent—it’s a skill and should be developed gradually with no pressure from bloviating bloggers.  And the bit about “the inner leg canted” for balance and aesthetics?  I think they wanted the word “bent,” and anyway hanging your inside knee is the mark of a novice.  Once you know what you’re doing, you keep that knee in for better aerodynamics.  (I learned this from Dale Stetina, not some website.)

Rule #89, Pronounce it correctly.  Pronouncing “Tour de France” correctly is no problem.  But I think it’s best if my fellow Americans and I say “Tour of Flanders” instead of “Ronde van Vlaanderen.”  Why?  First, I dislike such showiness, and second, there’s nobody around to correct our mispronunciation.

Rule #90, Never get out of the big ring.  Okay, clearly this one is meant as a joke.  I guess I can’t fault the Velominati fans for getting a big laugh out of this, any more than I could fault a young child for laughing at “Garfield.”

Rule #91, No food on training rides under four hours.  I’m so glad I don’t have to ride with these guys and help them get home after their blood sugar crashes.  This advice is empirically bad, no matter what Johan Museeuw said.  (Besides, he was talking to an individual … perhaps that person had more fat to burn than a typical cyclist.)  It’s also curious that an exception is made for hard rides over two hours.  Well, if you’re not riding hard, aren’t you in violation of Rule #3?

Rule #92, No sprinting from the hoods.  Watch any mountaintop finish in a pro race and you’ve got a pretty good chance of seeing a guy sprinting while on the hoods.  The Rules authors could have so easily made an exception for uphill finishes, but they didn’t.  Why not?  Sheer laziness?  I think it’s also odd how they make a special exception for Saronni in the ’82 world championships.  How come when one rider, like Fabian Cancellara with Rule #13, does something that the Velominati guys like, that behavior becomes a rule, whereas when another rider does something forbidden by The Rules, like Saronni here or Pantani in Rule #50, he’s merely an exception?

Rule #93, Descents are not for recovery.  If you don’t need to recover on a descent, perhaps you didn’t go hard enough on the climb.  Moreover, this seems like irresponsible advice for these Velominati guys to give to readers of varying skill level.  A rider in my area died trying to set a downhill KOM on Strava.  “But we’re just joking, get a sense of humor!” the Rules fans might say.  I reiterate:  this excuse might work better if the rule were actually funny….
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Velominati's “The Rules” - Brilliance or BS?

NOTE:  This post is rated R for mild strong language.

Introduction

My bike club has a group e-mail list and we often get into long chains of messages on bike-related topics.  After all, most of us have been riding and/or racing for decades and have strong opinions.  Recently my friend Mark e-mailed around a link to “The Rules” on a bike-geek website called velominati.com.  There was no message text, but the subject line read, “We need to annotate this list … Dana?”  I glanced through the list of rules and knew right away there would be much to say on this topic.  Maybe too much.

Well, too much for the e-mail list, anyway.  Some guys love the endless message cycles, at least some of the time, but others hate them at least half the time, due to Inbox bloat.  Besides, as I discovered when I delved deeper into The Rules, they need to be thoroughly rebutted, and this rebuttal should be as widely accessible as the list itself.  This isn’t a matter of a few rules needing some tweaks, but a fundamental problem of the authors’ approach, as I shall describe.

(In this post I won’t go through and annotate The Rules one-by-one, even though that’s what my teammate originally proposed.  Rather, I’ll save that for a future post.)

A quick aside about the name Velominati:  in this post I will refer to the authors of The Rules as “the Velominati guys.”  I reckon I’m supposed to just call them “the Velominati,” as I would with “illuminati,” but I refuse.

The rules at first glance

At first blush, The Rules look like fun.  There are clear-cut mandates in this list about a variety of topics that get debated on my club, such as sock color, whether cycling shorts need to be black, and whether or not the little knurled lock-ring on your inner tube valve should be discarded.  The Rules list covers aesthetic matters that deserve to be covered, like the orientation of quick-release levers and the need to keep your bars level.  There’s a decent amount of wit involved, like Rule #51, “Livestrong wristbands are cockrings for your arms.”

So I figured, okay, this is kind of like a style guide in “GQ” magazine, a compilation of little sartorial pointers.  Not the kind of thing I normally pore over, but if somebody is seeking to fit in better with the elite cycling crowd, I don’t have a problem with that.  But when I left off skimming the list randomly and started reading from the beginning, right away I had a bit of a problem with Rule #3, “Guide the uninitiated.”  Who am I to tell some novice that he or she is doing something wrong?  I don’t want that job, and probably a lot of novice riders couldn’t care less about tan lines being razor sharp or the right way to position their sunglasses.

But it wasn’t until I got to Rule #5, “Harden The Fuck Up,” that I started to get a bit riled.  Now I see that this isn’t just a list of aesthetic do’s and don’ts, but a document that’s going to cast aspersions on how hard people should ride.  Since the writers can’t know much about their potential audience, I guess they figure everybody needs to harden the fuck up.  So they’re on the brink of calling readers like me poseurs, which is a pretty bold move  when they’re giving advice about how, when hanging around a café after your ride, “having your cap skull-side tipped jauntily at a rakish angle is, one might say, de rigueur.”

Then, right after “harden the fuck up,” they get into psychobabble territory with Rule #6, “Free your mind and your legs will follow,” and how you should “wrap yourself in the sensations of the ride – the smell of the air, the sound of the tires, the feeling of flight as the bicycle rolls over the road.”  These guys need to make up their minds:  are they trying to be George Carlin, Tony Robbins, or William Wordsworth?

My friend Trevor, whose cycling credentials are impeccable (he not only won three collegiate national championships, but two in one day), responded to the Rules list by saying, “I took a lot of crap in high school for having shaved legs and being seen on my bike in ‘spandex’ pants (always black), but I was never embarrassed.  That list is an embarrassment.”

He’s onto something, and I’m going to help explain exactly what.

The poseur paradox

Consider the photo below.

That’s me with my friend Dan.  He’s got a visor on his helmet, in blatant violation of Rule #35, “No visors on the road.”  Is he ignorant, in need of the Velominati link?  No, of course he already knows most roadies would frown on the visor.  But he doesn’t care.  Look at what else he’s wearing:  a national champion jersey.  Yes, in keeping with Rule #16, “Respect the jersey,” he did win that.  Now, should any reader of The Rules, in keeping with Rule #3, feel obligated to point out the visor faux pas to Dan?  Not at all.  First of all, it’s none of any reader’s business, and two, Dan would probably rip the guys legs off, or at least could.  (Perhaps that’s why he had the visor in the first place … as a taunt.) 

What about me?  As a friend, could (should) I tell Dan to ditch the visor?  Yes, but only because a) that’s what friends are for, b) I have a matching national champion jersey (we won them together in the Team Time Trial), and c) if Dan tries to rip my legs off, at least I can give him a run for his money.  Authority is earned on the road, not through bluster and fancy prose.  (There:  I’ll make that my Rule #1.)

Not that being an accomplished cyclist gives me the ride to give pointers to just anybody.  On my bike, the quick-release levers point straight back (in violation of Rule #41, which says this is only okay for time trial bikes—never mind I’ve been doing this since before time trial bikes existed).  If anybody gazing upon my bike decides my skewer orientation looks cool and wants to copy me, great—but the fact that nobody does bothers me not at all.  Why I should I mind if my bike looks cooler than everybody else’s?  And why should I mind if some ignorant person thinks my bike looks silly, especially when, chances are, that guy is having trouble holding my wheel?  It’s kind of a “speak softly and carry a big stick” approach.

In contrast, the philosophy of the Velominati folks seems to be, “speak brashly and swing your big dick.”  They seem to think that by striking an air of authority and machismo, and employing great emphasis, they can achieve instant credibility.  Consider Rule #9:  “If you are out riding in bad weather, it means you are a badass.  Period.”  That’s completely untrue.  When I lived in Boulder (where they have real winters), it was a running joke that a certain breed of poseur only rode in bad weather, to show off.  You’d see guys on rainy or snowy days, in their fancy cold-weather gear, whom you’d somehow never see out riding when the weather was nice. 

I’ve certainly done my share of riding in miserable conditions (and have described recently in this blog what a pointless activity that is), but I’ve never had the experience described in The Rules:  “Those who ride in foul weather – be it cold, wet, or inordinately hot – are members of a special club of riders who, on the morning of a big ride, pull back the curtain to check the weather and, upon seeing rain falling from the skies, allow a wry smile to spread across their face.  This is a rider who loves the work.”

My goodness, what pretty prose!  And what a bullshit notion.  Yes, there are riders who love the work, but they’d love it more in good weather.  The rider that Velominati.com describes here loves the idea of braving the elements, and conflates the idea with the reality.  It’s self-deception born of narcissism.  Sure, any solid professional will ride in bad weather if he has to, but I’m sure he grumbles about it and he’s right to do so.  And if, say, he does better in the rain than his rival, he might be happy about that. 

Lance Armstrong wrote, of the first Tour de France mountain stage in 1999, “When I woke up that morning in Dax, was raining yet again, which I considered perfect attacking weather, mainly because I knew the others didn’t like it… ‘It’s a good day for me,’ I thought.”  This, to me, seems far more credible than what the Velominati guys have to say.  And when Lance fricking Armstrong has more credibility than you, you know you’ve got a serious problem.

What would the Velominati guys say to me about my refusal to ride in the rain?  “Harden the fuck up,” of course.  But they’d be off-base.  When it’s raining I ride the trainer because it’s a better workout, and I can suffer due to effort alone, which gives me more benefit than needlessly enduring painfully cold fingers and toes.  I’ve done trainer rides long enough that, mid-ride, I had to change not only my sweat-soaked shorts but my shoes.  For complicated reasons involving stress release, I’ve had trainer rides so hard I couldn’t stand up in the shower afterward.  So I don’t need anyone telling me to harden up.

Ironically, just about anybody could make modifications to his equipment and his behavior such that he’s in compliance with all of The Rules (especially since “Harden The Fuck Up” is pretty hard to police).  And the mix of ideological and sartorial rules would suggest that adherence to The Rules would make him not just a more stylish cyclist, but a more “real” cyclist.  But in my experience, the “real” cyclists—such as the ones who actually achieve great things—aren’t so focused on any of this trivial stuff. 

I have a friend whom I see on the road from time to time, who has great form, and rides a great bike, but who wears an off-brand helmet from the ‘90s that was a piece of crap when it was new.  I’ve actually fantasized about doing an intervention, such as asking to see his helmet for a second and smashing it on the ground (like John Belushi did with that dude’s guitar), but only because helmets have a functional lifespan and his old helmet might not provide good head protection.  If my friend doesn’t care how he looks, I shouldn’t either.  And yet—and this is the crucial point—this guy is one of the most successful cyclists I’ve known.  He rode for the 7-Eleven pro team back in the day.

I am in violation of thirty-seven of The Rules.  And yet, I know in my heart I’m plenty legit as a cyclist.  Thus, I find it absurd that this band of foppish writers, and whatever acolytes they’ve acquired, would judge me and find me lacking.  But that’s not even what bugs me.  What bugs me is that the Velominati have this idea that cyclists have to toe the line, to adhere to any code of conduct at all.  To Trevor’s point, I came up in this sport embracing the role of the rebel.  Not a cool, admired rebel like James Dean, either—cycling made me a social outcast.  In the early ‘80s, I had black shorts, a wool jersey, a single bottle cage, used a Silca pump with a Campagnolo head, and had even snapped the visor off my helmet—in short, I was obeying The Rules.  What did I get for my troubles?  A self-satisfied Velominati feeling?  Hell no.  I was mocked by my peers, who routinely cast aspersions on my masculinity due to my shaved legs, my tight shorts, and my helmet. 

I tolerated the abuse because that was just part of what it meant to be a cyclist.  (I think that experience was universal among cyclists; after all, Dave’s iconoclasm is what made “Breaking Away” such a charming movie.)  And yet now I’m supposed to let these fancy-talking Velominati guys bully me because I like my navy blue shorts, prefer expressing distance in miles to kilometers, and can’t be bothered to shave my legs?  Yeah, right.  To do as I please, without obsessing over my image, is entirely consistent with my approach to the sport for more than three decades.  (By the way, Bernard Hinault himself broke at least one rule—I’m thinking of Rule #36, regarding cycling-specific eyewear—and looked very good doing it.)

But wait, there’s more

Remarkably, the assertion of poseur-ish codes of conduct isn’t even the worst thing about The Rules.  The biggest problem is that there’s a Neanderthal sensibility lurking beneath this list.  I’m talking about the unwritten rule, both implicit in The Rules and directly suggested, that cycling is for men only.

Skeptical?  Consider this.  Within the (incorrect, pointless) rule about how to signal turns, Velominati acknowledges that the audience for The Rules is international:  “This one is, presumably, mostly for Americans.”  That is, since this rule doesn’t apply to the entire group, they go ahead and say so.  But check out Rule #50:  “Facial hair is to be carefully regulated.”  No mention is made of the women to whom this rule obviously doesn’t apply.

Of course that’s not enough to make my case on, so consider also Rule #11, “Family does not come first.  The bike does.”  Is there room to construe this as meaning a wife could put her bike before her family?  Not likely, since this rule is based on an interview in which cycling legend Sean Kelly rags on his wife for leaning on his car, and—when challenged—doesn’t deny that his bike (and his car) come before his wife.

There are other examples.  Rule #29, “No European Posterior Man-Satchels,” doesn’t mention non-man-satchels.  Rule #33, “Shave your guns,” makes no mention of the fact that most women do this anyway.  Rule #61, “Like your guns, saddles should be smooth and hard” doesn’t make any allowance for the reality that in most cases women legitimately need a bit more padding.  It really does seem as though it never occurred to the creators of The Rules that women ride bikes too.  For a group that purports to have all the answers, this omission seems remarkably unenlightened.

This isn’t just a problem for female cyclists, though.  Readers of velominati.com shouldn’t let The Rules be a bad influence.  Although male cyclists aren’t generally babe magnets, a great many of us have wives or girlfriends, and these women—who, after all, have to put up with our stick-thin bodies, our constant blathering about bike gear and race lore, and the sheer amount of time we spend out on the road—deserve our respect.  Not grudging respect, either—I mean that they’re the main people we should be worried about impressing … not our fellow cyclists.

Here’s a little story to illustrate what I’m saying.  Two of my teammates, a married couple, were doing a mountain bike tandem race together.  Mike (a very good rider who has punched my ticket almost as many times as we’ve ridden together) cramped up terribly and had to climb off the bike.  Sprawling on the ground, he apologized in advance to his wife Alyshia for losing the race.  Alyshia, though she stands about five-foot-nothing, has the kind of Command Presence I’ve always admired—she’s the kind of person you hope will take charge if there’s ever an earthquake or something.  As Mike recounted in his e-mail report to the group, “Alyshia had a very diplomatic response:  ‘The race isn’t over yet.  Please, harden the fuck up.’”  Inspired, perhaps, as much by her fighting spirit as the prospect of his wife no longer finding him studly and awesome, Mike remounted, resolved to push past the pain, and they went on to pass everybody back up and win the race!

So how does Alyshia’s exhortation match up with Rule #5?  Far, far more impressively.  When a website says to harden the fuck up, that’s just more disconnected Internet blather.  When a spouse says it, suddenly it has some teeth.  Similarly, when another of my teammates (also a darn good cyclist, one of our best) told his wife he was thinking of shaving his legs, she replied, “Please don’t.  The hair on your legs is almost the only masculine thing about you!”  (What makes this comment great is that, far from being ill-spirited, she’s actually paying him a tacit compliment:  “I know you’re secure enough to laugh at yourself.”)

Of course society is rife with retrograde macho bullshit, but cycling is supposed to be progressive.  Its image is of a modern, forward-thinking mentality.  To succeed at this sport requires a much more enlightened approach than, say, the shot-put or the hammer throw (which is why rules like Rule #93, “Descents are not for recovery,” are so annoying—if you don’t need to recover on a descent, maybe you didn’t go hard enough on the climb, and need to harden the fuck up!).  So why do these Velominati guys seem to want to embrace an Andrew Dice Clay ethos, and suggest that male chauvinism is part of the sport?

“Lighten up,” they might say.  “We were just joking!”  To which I’d say, sure, masculinity and femininity can be joked about, and sometimes walking a fine line can enhance the humor.  But you better get it right, and it better be funny, or else you’re suggesting there’s something intrinsically funny about a hierarchy that puts men at the top.

Rhetorically, the Velominati guys are like a bad group of hackey-sackers:  you see them start up, and you head over to watch, maybe you’ve even got your hopes up, but they can’t keep the damn thing up for more than a few kicks.  You keep hoping they’ll hit their stride, but they don’t, and it’s pathetic.  The Velomanti guys’ declamatory haplessness is harmless enough where stem height or tan lines are  concerned, but begins to chafe when they try to delve into the intersection of cycling and machismo.

Wait, I’m not quite done

Since I’m on the subject, I’d like to bring up a fundamental disconnect between the archetypes of the ideal cyclist and those aspiring to match them, at least in form.  It’s clear that the Velominati guys base much of their ethos on the example set by old school bike racing heroes (Merckx, Kelly, Sean Yates, and Marco Pantani are named).  These were all working-class guys who happened to get fairly rich and famous by being really, really fast.  I doubt they spent much time worrying about their image.  To the extent they achieved studliness, they did so effortlessly, not by carefully mimicking others or poring over lists of rules.

You think Merckx was caught up in macho posturing when he allowed this photo to be snapped? 

The rules about hardening up and riding in bad weather strike me as tacked on, to offset the reality that the Velominati guys are ensnared in a hipster, yuppie ethos.  They can afford n+1 bikes (Rule #12), all of which cost more than their car (Rule #25), and they actually care what angle they wear their cap at (Rule #22), use highfalutin terms like “bidon” when a simple word like “bottle” will do, and have a rule (#56) about only drinking espresso and macchiato.  They remind me of the Roger Moore James Bond, with his bow ties, his silly witticisms, and his epicurean tastes.  (The latest Bond movie reboot was wise to break with all this.  My favorite line in “Casino Royale” comes when Daniel Craig’s Bond, rattled after losing $10 million at cards, asks for a vodka martini.  “Shaken or stirred?” asks the bartender.  Bond snaps back, “Do I look like I give a damn?”)

My overall impression of The Rules is it’s all a bit too self-aware and twee, far closer to “Portlandia” than to, say, the dairy farm that Sean Kelly rose from.  The cycling giants of old wouldn’t have hung out in coffee shops drinking this:

They’d have made their own coffee, probably instant, and if anybody told them they therefore weren’t real cyclists they’d have laughed.  Drive, talent, luck, and tenacity made them great athletes, not a bunch of silly rules about what to ride, what to wear, and how to behave.

And one more thing?  Merckx, Kelly, et al wouldn’t have called their legs “guns.”  Trevor is right.  That list is an embarrassment.

Update

My second (and final) post on this topic, “37 Velominati Rules You Can Ignore,” is here.

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