Merckxy Christmas and a Coppi New Year
As 20VVV comes to a close, we’d like to once again thank each and every one of you for your readership and participation in this amazing community. Each of you are what makes Velominati the most exciting (if divisive) community in the Cycling world, and none of it would mean a thing if not for your contributions. From the bottom of our hearts: thank you.
At this time of year, I reflect on the amazing opportunity that you have given me and the other Keepers to take our hobby, passion, talents, and lifestyle and to share in this incredibly diverse group of people, opinions, and views. Over the years since our founding in 2009, you have become something of an extended family, complete with the squabbles, tears, and laughter. But mostly laughter. To those of you whom I have met in person, we have become personal friends. To the rest of you with whom I await the opportunity to meet: I look forward to that day with great eagerness.
Thank you for helping make Velominati what it is today.
We wish you and your families a Merckxy Christmas, and a Coppi New Year.
@frank– A very Merckxy Christmas to you as well!
To You as well.
@Haldy
And the same to you and your’s my friend ;)
Merry Christmas to you and the Keepers, Frank! Thanks for the entertainment.
Merry Christmas to all, and may the recovery ales flow freely. Thanks for making this a fun place to hang out.
Nollaig shona daoibh
Frank, Gianni and Co… thanks for making this my favorite website, and putting some order into the cycling world. Merry Christmas!
Have a good Christmas everyone and don’t F-up your training plan with that silly strava 500 thing that’s going on.
Oh, and as the saying goes ‘ Life’s too short to drink bad beer ‘ pick a *Blue Ribbon Winner*:
Thanks to the founders, especially Frank for giving my middle-aged obsession the degree of justification it deserves. Thanks to all of you for the inspirational quotes, posts and comments. May your guns be strong whenever called upon in 2016. Merry Christmas /Happy Holidays to you all.
Its snowing where i live on Christmas Eve, but not sticking to the pave. I’m going cycling tomorrow!
Zalig Kerstfeest all! So glad to have discovered fellow chasers of rule V. I suspect Kerstman is also one of us – always looks sharp, rides everyone off his runners, doesn’t give a damn about how cold/wet it is…..yep, definitely Velominatus.
@Chipomarc
Is this a trap?
Are you seventeen years old? That is some woeful piss right there.
And Merry Merckxmas too…
Keep up the grea t work one n all. A merry Merckxmas to all and an Oppy new year.
Merry Christmas to each and every one.
Merry Christmas everyone! Our dog, Cooper, was very excited about opening presents this morning.
Sharing the PEZ crew’s “Best of 2015” list. Three of us picked the Worlds/Sagan. My category was a nod to the V.
http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/features/pez-awards-best-of-2015/#.Vn19PDZki_U
Merry Christmas everyone – and best wishes for a happy, healthy, high-mileage New Year.
@veni, vidi et cecidi birota: Welcome.
Skip the beer. Go straight to making Negronis.
Merry Christmas to one and all
Cheers all! btw @chuckp I’m with ya on Sagan/Worlds. And this afternoon I watched a good slug of Gent-Wevelgen for good fun. And I think most understated performance of year was Sagan’s climb of Mt Baldy.
@chuckp
I finally had my first negroni this year. Mighty fine drink.
All the best to Frank, the Keepers and my fellow Velominati.
It’s uncharacteristically warm up here in Canadaland. Got a Christmas joy ride in this aft.
@Gianni
Welcome to the club!
Late in the day for many, but I sincerely hope all the Velominati had a great and safe Christmas! Looking forward to more fun, miles and smiles in 2016. Best wishes tout le monde!
Merry Xmas you Barstards, and our esteemed Velominati, may the sun shine and the wind be at your backs, keep the rubber on the road. Cheers G.
@piwakawaka
That’s a great looking bike, obviously super well balanced. What saddle is that?
Merxxy Xmas to you all, I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of money to buy a bunch of Tuatara beer here in Aus…because it’s christmas.
A-Merckx to this!
I’ve really put a lot of thought in to this, my early season 2016 training plan:
1) Only ride on weekends as regret it’s too dark to ride on weekdays safely after work and safety comes first. 2) Every Fri and Sat night before riding the next day have a really big dinner with family and friends along with much beer and wine because… well, just because. 3) Be about 4 to 7 kg’s heavier than is best. It’s winter after all. 4) Hopefully it’s really cold and wet too.
My thinking is that come March/April when getting to ride all week long, and provided a sensible diet and shall we say, not dehydrated, and weather is perfect, and weight is about right… well then I oughta just feel like I’m flying.
I think I can make this happen with a lot of commitment and effort. I love it when a plan comes together.
Cheers all for upcoming New Year
@chuckp
Try a rosato vermouth in there. Drier, some cloves and cinnamon, awesome. Also great in a Manhattan.
@minion
San Marco, Concor Racing Team. If you can get it try Panhead, learned his trade at Tuatara, good stuff.
@piwakawaka
Mmmm, Supercharger…
@Oli
Don’t mind I do.
@RobSandy this is how you pace a TT, when you rip the arse out of your bibs, you’re going past enough!
@Dana Wilburn
VVerry VV-mas!
I had a unconventional smash this year. I spent the day hanging out with some coworkers. I showed them what New York can be like when you drive a short way from the city. We had Chinese for dinner and ended the night at a bar in Brooklyn
@piwakawaka
I could make a distasteful comment about christmas curry but I wont. I do however, know who’s arse that is and he’s a fine, fine man.
Merckxy Christmas to all. I received the rotundos I was hoping for (along with the Fizik bar tape; in white obviously), and how have some difficult decisions to make as to whether they are right for me.
Also received the Fotheringham Hinault book and Geraint’s book; I will report back when I’ve read them all.
Merckxy Christmas everyone. The puns fall apart a bit with Kwanzaa. I’m not wishing anyone a Happy Katusha…
@Gianni
Too harsh? Perhaps. Is it wrong and snobby to question another cyclist’s taste in malted recovery beverage? Maybe, especially when he is living up near the Canadian border and maybe facing a choice of PBR and some bad Canadian beverage. My condolences.
But damn it, I do have Rule #47 on my side here. And life is short.
This has been showing up on draft around here and it’s a mofo.
@chuckp
Ours too. How the hell do they know?
Best New Year wishes to the assembled Velominati and a bit of a farewell.
As some of those in the Pacific Northwest may remember, my wife and I have been planning, working, scheming, to get away from ‘conventional’ life, chuck it all, move onto a boat, and see the world.
Well, the house is sold, the boat is purchased, my last day of work is on Thursday, December 31 and the days grow few before this gets real and we cut the lines for good. We’re currently living on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, have been working on the boat since August, and should be ready to cast off some time in early February. While the cycling kilometers have been way down from usual and participation on the Velominati site has been nil since we sold the house and moved 16 months ago, I’m not done cycling quite yet. Road bikes have their own space in the starboard fo’c’s’le (the boat’s a catamaran) and we plan to see as much of the world as we can on two wheels and two hulls. We’ll stay in touch. Don’t be surprised if I drop in on a Cogal in the Caribbean, Australia, India, South Africa, Europe, or where ever else you lurk.
If you want to follow along, visit http://gratefuleyesoftheworld.tumblr.com/
Frank, Chrissy, G’rilla, Eightzero, Peakin, and the rest – Thank you all for pushing me to be a mediocre cyclist rather than the truly awful one I would otherwise be!
Best to you all. Here’s hoping for more miles on the road, more hours on the gravel, and meeting more inmates of this particular little asylum.
Thanks to the astounding graciousness of my parents who have let me store a bike at their house for 20+ years, and insanely warm weather in the northeast this season, I was able to get out for a ride Christmas day. Even with a warn-out saddle, downtube friction shifting, brakes that are mostly a suggestion, and two or three kilos of extra mass compared to the #1, it was still a good ride!
(Apologies for being in the little ring. It is the off-season, after all.)
@Jamie
Chapeau et Bon Voyage.
Travel well, @Jamie
@cognition
That’s a very cool stash bike!
@Jamie
Bon Voyage, mon frère – all the best to you!
It is with Great Shame that I close out 2015 with a mere 1000miles. But to hit that, I went out on one of the coldest, nastiest days in Seattle today. My Rule #9 threshold is modest indeed. Perhaps a few more miles in 2016, maybe see you all on a local Cogal.
To all the Keepers and Velominati, a prosperous and happy 2016!
@Jamie
Good luck, great adventures and safe travels to you both. Give us an update every once in a while, will you?
@chuckp
I like this man!
Happiness is going into a pizzeria in Rapallo and asking for a Negroni to possibly the only soul in Italy who doesn’t know how to make one.
When I reply it’s equal parts gin, red vermouth and Campari he smiles, says ‘ah, that’s easy to make’, and goes away. He brings back a beer glass filled to the rim. I had several.
My wife didn’t speak to me for a few days after that.
Anyway, Merry Christmas one an all!
Anyway
Thanks for the good wishes oli, wiscot, Teocalli, eightzero and the rest of y’all.
I’ll leave you with a photo of Grateful (ex Papalani) taken before we took delivery in St Martin in July. She is now a US vessel, has radar at the first spreaders, and is about to have a tower for a proper cruiser’s solar array installed at her stern, but otherwise, this is our baby, a 2007 Fountain Pajot Lavezzi 40.
s/v Grateful
@Jamie
Damn, that’s a good looking boat! Good to see some V-Orange on there too!