Velominati Super Prestige:
Giro D'Italia 2013
Velominati Community Profile Archive

Velominatus: Airless

Order: Level 4 Velominatus

I ride bicycles. And love it. I'm too poor to afford dream machines, but my Giant Defy Composite kicks enough ass. It's the motor that matters, right? i do climb well for my weight. Bicycling is romantic in the truest sense of the word for me. Bring on that Wordsworth, Byron, Shelly, Keats, and Coleridge. Nature, beauty, suffering, all intertwined.

@Airless's activity:

Voices and Echoes

Doubt. It speaks in whispered tones but echoes in our actions and lingers heavy on the mind. It is a thing that weaves itself into the seeds of our dreams and erodes vision into whim. Doubt leads to uncertainty; uncertainty to fear; fear prevents us from reaching as high as we might.Doubt is a clingy thing. Like a snowball dropped down a mountainsi...

@Airless's posts:

  1. Looking impecable truly is one of the key factors in having good legs; heading out with a miss-matched kit is demoralizing from the start.  If it doesn’t match, then it’s a day to sit in the pack, to avoid being seen (and get dropped) by those who wear pr… »

Anatomy of a Photo: V-Bank Line of Credit

Economics, in its most simple form, follows the Conservation of Mass as defined in physics. Basically, everything goes according to plan so long as outflow is less than or equal to inflow. Failing that, the balance is upset and things start getting complicated. Before long, the calculus starts revolving around “imaginary numbers” (like...

@Airless's posts:

  1. @The Grande Fondue That is the quintessence of Rule #6. »

  2. Or, casually undeliberate? »

  3. His face does not show thr emotion of a man about to crash. It almost seems as though he expects to leverage the bicycle back up with his massive guns.  More of an expression that says “alright, now what?”instead of “oh shit! Crash time!” Perhaps another… »

The Bikes

The Bike. It is the central tool in pursuit of our craft. A Velominatus meticulously maintains their bicycles and adorns them with the essential, yet minimal, accoutrement. The Rules specify the principles of good taste in configuration and setup of our machines, but within those principles lies almost infinite room for personal taste.It seems in s...

@Airless's posts:

  1. @Deakus Thank you for this; I will certainly brush up on the Lexicon about the group sets. I have experienced the big chain with big cassette noise and stretch, but I reserve that combination for the steepest sections at the top of a climb; where puttin… »

  2. Out of curiosity, what is the general opinion on the SRAM Apex Gruppo? I’m aware it’s of the lower end, but it’s all I could afford to outfit my bicycle with on my collegiate budget.  Sure, it is a compact, with a chain ring of only 50 teeth, but it’s tra… »

Meditations on the V-Meter

There was no need for Rule #74 until the cyclometer showed up on our handlebars. According to the late Sheldon Brown, the cyclometer has been around since the early 1900s.“Star-wheel cyclometers, such as the Lucas unit, suffered two serious problems. They made an annoying “tink-tink-tink” noise. At high speeds, the star wheel would s...

@Airless's posts:

  1. My biggest enemy on rides in my mind; about 95% of my rides are solo, leaving me to ride against myself.  When with another cyclist, not drafting, I can push myself immensely further and harder, for the same amount of time & suffering as solo. To cou… »