Velominati Community Profile Archive

Velominatus: Ken Ho

Order: Level 2 Velominatus

Location: Pikey, based on the Southern Gold Coast, Australia

48 yr male, Gold Coast Australia, Bianchi Mono-Q, hates helmet laws with a bloody passion, riding a bike makes me feel like a kid, likes to skateboard too and lots of other stuff, mainly that they didn't teach in school. Currently sporting a recently installed titanium plate on my left collarbone.

@Ken Ho's activity:

Exposure to religion in my youth was by way of a brief dose of sunday school at the local Unitarian church. The point there, evidently, was to learn about other religions and turtles. If a point was being made, I missed it. When Catholic friends of mine came over for the weekend I would accompany them to the closest Catholic church and we would end...

@Ken Ho's posts:

  1. Nice article and pics. As a devoted Ducatisti and Campophile, I appreciate this. As a younger man, I had a more utilitarian nature, but discovering the possibility of beauty existing in the same breath was a revelation that I have never since ignored. »

If you’ve been paying attention, you may have noticed that ‘useful’ things like practicality and functionality can often take a back seat to more basic pursuit of aesthetics and taste. If you haven’t, then your name might just be Paul.You may have also become aware that there is occasional flagrant flouting of certain guidel...

@Ken Ho's posts:

  1. @James I fitted a set of Vittoria Rubino Pro slicks to new Shamal 2 way fits, and they were a bugger.  I pre-fitted them sans tubes, then used lots of soapy water and needed levers.   They are very tight, as designed to run tubeless.   So far, no flats,… »

  2. Colour matching tyres to my bike is a breeze, as it’s a stylish Bianchi in matt carbon with red and white decals, red black tyres with red sidewalks look smIck.  Gum walls would just not look good on that bike. Matching colours to era is essential. »

The days of the proper head badge, I’m afraid, are numbered. It seems it used to be that any road bike with a pedigree that was really worth riding was festooned with an artful adornment on the head tube. By that I mean something made with a bit of heft, stamped or cast of alloy and riveted front and center. More and more though we’re s...

@Ken Ho's posts:

  1. My Bianchi has a badge.  I quite like it.  The Oltre I covet has a big-ass badge. »

The Ride. It is the cathedral of our sport, where we worship at the altar of the Man with the Hammer. It is the end to our means. Indeed, The Bike may be the central tool to our sport, but to turn the pedals is to experience the sensation of freedom, of flight. It is all for The Ride.The world is overflowing with small, twisty roads that capture ou...

@Ken Ho's posts:

  1. BTW, can someone embed that properly for me, please ? I’m a Luddite. »

  2. @Mikael Liddy No, I used a Flymount, mounted directly to the bars.  I used a chest mount for the NIghtcap Range one I have up, but it points down too much.  Chest mount is definitely more stable, but hard to get a good angle while on a bike.  Really good… »

  3. Here’s a wee youtube of a ride I did yesterday.  It’s the first part of a longer ride I like to think of as “My Personal Koppenberg”.  I had planned on doing the whole ride, but frankly, I was knackered, and my wife called and said lets go to teh beach, s… »

Clouds hang heavy in the sky, plump with a rain which contemplates the opportunity to hurl itself towards the Earth below. I get the sense that we wait for each other, the Rain and I; the rain relishes the opportunity to soak my clothes and skin, seeking to corrode my resolve while I cherish the opportunity to prove to myself that it will not be s...

@Ken Ho's posts:

  1. Frank, it looks like your bike has thrown a con rod through the block, and puked it’s guts all out over the road. Your roads are filthy.  Even when I get a Flemish tan, it’s brown, not black.  City folk have to tolerate all sorts of weird crap. »

During the birth of The Rules, just like the Big Bang, there was a flurry of new activity, too much expanding and not enough contracting; certainly not enough thinking. It’s hard to keep the throttle back when divining the Word of Merckx in real time. The interweb tubes whistled with new Rules shuttling back and forth, beers consumed, genius...

@Ken Ho's posts:

  1. @ErikdR I live i rural Australia, so things might work differently here.  Motorbikes wave at each other a lot, but in western areas, it is still customary for car drivers to wave as they pass too.  I drive to a lot of remote locations for work, and ther… »

We are the Keepers of the Cog.  In so being, we also maintain the sacred text wherein lie the simple truths of cycling etiquette known as The Rules. It is in our trust to maintain and endorse this list.See also The Prophet’s Prayer. Continue reading...

@Ken Ho's posts:

  1. @ChrisO At my first track training session recently, that Rule was made crystal clear.  You are responsible for your front wheel.  Don;t worry about your back.  If everyone follows that rule, everyone is safe. »

During the birth of The Rules, just like the Big Bang, there was a flurry of new activity, too much expanding and not enough contracting; certainly not enough thinking. It’s hard to keep the throttle back when divining the Word of Merckx in real time. The interweb tubes whistled with new Rules shuttling back and forth, beers consumed, genius...

@Ken Ho's posts:

  1. @Marcus No, the photo says you were a self-sufficient hard-man, not stopping for anything, not leaning on a support crew.  It’s all in the interpretation.   100% rule adherent for a 5km ride to a coffee shop to preen and pose is way less cool than 200km… »

  2. @Oli Dude, not sure if you are on the rumbo tonight or what. Rules like “you seat must be in the exact position I prefer” are condescending and snobby, and that’s just one example.  Honestly, when I first read the Rules, I thought the fashionista ones … »

  3. I’m with Marcus on the wheel-sucker thing.  If I’m riding solo, and someone wants to suck my wheel, it does not hurt me.  I don’t feel a need to change speed. I’m more bothered by people riding past in the opposite direction who don’t return my nod.  Som… »

  4. Oh dear, more rules for me to break.  Keeping the rubber side down when on the move, is of course, the Prime Directive. ‘Oweverrrr, I’m a Velominatus Flippitatus when changing wheels or cleaning my bike.  I’m buggered if I can get a rear wheel in and out… »

The recent headlines being made in the cycling world have honestly not garnered a whole lot of attention at V-HQ, at least where a certain COTHO is concerned. Yes, The Keepers have added to the usual discussions on the topic here, read the news, and given it some thought. But we really don’t feel the need to take any sort of official position...

@Ken Ho's posts:

  1. @brett My apologies to marko.  I carelessly did not note the author.  Indeed, it is a finely written piece, and inspires us all to be better men. »

  2. Chapeau Frank !! It takes class to offer a humble and heart-felt apology. »

As we gingerly assembled outside the gite, the Belgian sun shining for the first time in the three days we’d been in the spiritual home of cycling, the conversation was muted; what do you say to a legend of the sport, an apostle in his parish about to hold a sermon on two wheels? I can’t recall who it was who said it, but I remember the...

@Ken Ho's posts:

  1. Uh ha !! ( Think that obnoxious kid from The Simpsons) Tihs is the dumbest rule.  Jersey pockets are for banananananananananananananas, not tools and crap. »

As described in Bar-o-Phelia, my bar obsession festered and grew over a period of a few years, and then was spurred into action by a combination of me straight-lining it right past the zone psychologists refer to as “self-control”, and not having any adult supervisors present who would normally have sounded the “voice of reason&...

@Ken Ho's posts:

  1. Frank, may I offer my services for proof-reading.  Your “spell-check” approach has flaws in it. On topic, I’m in the “shallow drop” camp.  I find it the curve more pleasing to the eye and I can raech both “breaks” and go-buttons easily. »

With the writing of our first book supposedly well underway (but in reality being discussed ad-nauseum in the Boardroom rather than actually committed to text), The Rules have at least been getting some form of attention from The Keepers. When deciding which Rules each of us were to curate, no-one really had much idea what exactly was in there; ask...

@Ken Ho's posts:

  1. Yes, I mostly do drink instant Moccona Rich, but I do get out and sit in cafes to eat and socialise and a bloody great steaming hissing monstrosity is a bit hard to miss.  I’ll occasionally buy a coffee too, but buggered if I’m coughing up $4 every time I… »

  2. Dunno what part of Oz you blokes come form, but even the franchise bakeries use a proper machine to grind and make their own coffee.  I don’t think I’ve seen a cafe that serves anything but fresh coffee out of a proper machine in at least 10 years.  Most … »

  3. @Chris Classic.  I love it when Sydney-siders combine astronomy and religion. Now children, today we are going to learn that God put a little celestial pin through Sydney, and spun the rest of the Universe around it.  That’s how we know it’s in the ce… »

  4. You may consider me educated on the correct spelling of espresso.  I had never really paid attention. Philistine I may be, but that is no excuse for ignorance. My little thermal bidon keeps it warm enough for me. There be no coffee shops on really any … »

  5. OK, don’t blow a gasket.  I’m a coffee Philistine, I know it.  Would it help if I told you that I only drink instant coffee and therefore can be forgiven for not knowing these things ?  Will that help ?  Will it ? »

  6. Of course, balance is important, which is why rule-makers need rule -breakers. So, you must have broken some rules then, if you chose which ones to follow ? I don’t disdain rules, I use them all the time.  I just don’t let them make me stupid or discour… »

  7. OK, so it’s not expresso.  It’s coffee the way I like it.  But, you should try it before you knock it. Rulz, schmulz………..every time I hear someone say “there should be a rule about that”, I think bad things. I was hated by my teachers at school, c… »