PMarkey
Guru
- Location
- Queensbury,West Yorkshire
The weirdest and most obscure cycling subcultures
- Thread starter david.rolls
- Start date
Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.
Andy in Germany
Guru
- Location
- Freiburg im Breisgau
If we're going for the oldest subculture, I think it's probably this:
I suspect riders of these would talk to riders of "ordinary" bicycles rather like people who've just bought a Mac talk to anyone still using a PC.
StuAff
Silencing his legs regularly
- Location
- Portsmouth
He and the lovely Susie are in Felixstowe, apparently…
Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
By the way, I've found an archive version of the old website here.
https://web.archive.org/web/2011081...pot.com/p/its-most-definitely-about-bike.html
https://web.archive.org/web/2011081...pot.com/p/its-most-definitely-about-bike.html
Drago
Legendary Member
- Location
- Suburban Poshshire
How about the amateur roadies. They're the cyvling equivalent of Morris Men, every spring can be seen doing their ritual dance wobbling all over the road. If they waved a hanky about you wouldn't be able to tell them apart.
Ian H
Ancient randonneur
The wannabees perhaps, but most clubs have decent amateur roadies who actually race. We put on two road races each year, time trials, a series of circuit races, and a CX race. A couple of members have moved on to become professional, more have had racing seasons in France.
My club features in this video.
View: https://youtu.be/o9pmw2ckQSU
Alex321
Veteran
- Location
- South Wales
Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
Wheel-builders
It hasn't happened for a while but we used to get some very long angry threads in which wheel-builders got together to argue about things to do with wheel-building that no one outside the Secret Fraternity of Wheel-Builders* could make head nor tail of.
* Their secret handshake is incredibly complicated. "You cross that finger over there, then under then ..."
It hasn't happened for a while but we used to get some very long angry threads in which wheel-builders got together to argue about things to do with wheel-building that no one outside the Secret Fraternity of Wheel-Builders* could make head nor tail of.
* Their secret handshake is incredibly complicated. "You cross that finger over there, then under then ..."
Last edited:
Drago
Legendary Member
- Location
- Suburban Poshshire
There seems to be little correlation between the ability of higher level racing competitors and their roadcraft. The two are not mutual, and competence in one does not begat automatic competence in the other - their roadcraft can be equally Dreadful. They often wobble about the carriageway with equal aplomb just a bit faster.
Some good evidence of poor roadcraft from the demonstration team in the video too - brownie points if you can spot it.
PS, good luck with your own competitive endeavours. Always fancied it but have the aerodynamics of an office block.
Last edited:
By Christ you speak the truth!
I’m not sure if they’re still around but I remember reading through a couple of wheel-builders’ websites a decade or so ago.
Each site would usually just consist of a screed poring invective on factory-built wheels, wheels with less than 36 spokes, wheels built by other wheel-builders, hubs with too-deep or too-shallow flanges, lacing-pattern sins and the necessary trials you needed to complete to be worthy of requesting that the Master consider you for his waiting list, which seemingly extended into the 23rd century.
The website would have been created by saving a word doc as HTML.
Anyone who works at the pointy end of software development will know exactly what I mean when I say that wheel-builders are the DBAs of cycling.
Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
When I bought my bike from Spa I committed the sin of asking if I could provide my own wheels, as I had some new wheels that a local guy had built for me for a project that I had abandoned (having chosen to buy from Spa). It seemed sensible to use the new wheels.
I arrived at the Spa shop, with my new wheels in hand. The shop fell silent. The guy took them and had a long look at them, sucking his teeth. He pinged the spokes and listened to the sound. He ran his fingers up and down the spokes. Finally shook his head sadly and gave me a look of part pity, part contempt.
(By the way I once worked with a DBA who was the spitting image of the verger out of Dad's Army. "You can't use that tablespace. That's reserved for the Vicar!")
I arrived at the Spa shop, with my new wheels in hand. The shop fell silent. The guy took them and had a long look at them, sucking his teeth. He pinged the spokes and listened to the sound. He ran his fingers up and down the spokes. Finally shook his head sadly and gave me a look of part pity, part contempt.
(By the way I once worked with a DBA who was the spitting image of the verger out of Dad's Army. "You can't use that tablespace. That's reserved for the Vicar!")
Last edited:
Ian H
Ancient randonneur
If you mean apparently jumping a red light, that's just a slightly bad edit - they aren't actually on a public road.
Drago
Legendary Member
- Location
- Suburban Poshshire
No, although I hadn't actually spotted that!
wiggydiggy
Guru
Database Analyst?
Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
Administrator
