It’s hard to maintain an image when the only witness to your passing are grazing cows and sheep. I’ve spent years riding 15,000 to 20,000km a year almost entirely solo given the reluctance of the local cycling crowd to climb in the hills where I live. So I’ve had the luxury of wearing whatever I liked, riding in a style that suits me and being way outside all the complexities of cycling social norms. When the whim takes hold, I’d throw on a full team kit from Caisse d’Epargne or clash Francaise des Jeux with Team Discovery – on a road bike, a cyclocross bike or even MTB cross country. Who cares? Not me. It never occurred to me that I might be committing cultural crimes until I heard about the great war of the Freds as an ongoing theme on the Two Johns Podcast*. You see, this predilection to ride oblivious to the seriousness of the cultural crimes I may or may not be committing, may or may not make me a Fred. But I can’t be oblivious to all this now that I am livious to the fact that that there are potential cultural crimes being committed! So thanks, Two Johns, I have a new worry to worry like the intrusions of a creaking crank…

Apparently, if I was not a Fred, I’d be in a permanent state of awareness and concern over the intricate laws, conventions and unwritten mores of cycling culture to the degree that concern over such things would dictate all the cycling-related choices I make and all that I do and think when out on a ride. Sounds too much like taking on the load of a weighty mental handicap to keep my riding in check. It also sounds like being a Fed is vastly more fun… I sure am glad the local cows care even less than me about things such as this. But I do love a juicy social construct to deconstruct as a theme to ponder out on the road.

A Fred**, apparently, is a cyclist who dresses and rides mainly for the image he (or very rarely, she) is intent to convey. But a Fred is not a poseur as he is too clueless about the delicate mores of cycling that his bumblings so affront. He does not know that wearing team kit is an assault. He does not know that wearing a yellow jersey, or, much worse, a jersey adorned with the rainbow bands of a world champion is a crime of murder to the delicate sensibilities of the cycling cognoscenti. He’s just having fun while the cognoscenti cringe and seethe.

A Fred, it seems, is archetypically a late 30’s-40’s dentist type. He’s a professional with lots of spare cash seeking to proclaim delusional freedom from the age-related downside of his Autumnal years. Freds, it seems, are the folk who buy top end bikes. They always dress in full team kit and sometimes, even, wear the straps of their bib shorts over their jerseys. Indiscretions such as these are the consequence of another key feature of Freds; they are not real cyclists at all. Any fighting fit real cyclist would drop any and all Freds on even the slightest climb. Because it’s on the climbs that Freds and the real-deal folk are soon sorted.

The hills are where things get really complex. Apparently, there are exceptions to the rules about what one should and should not wear and ride to earn one’s status as a real cyclist. You can wear full team kit, ride a top end bike and still be real if, and only if, you can drop the Freds in the hills. If you can drop everyone on the slopes, you can wear and ride whatever you like. Then, you are simply cool; real & cool (if not a touch eccentric if you choose to wear team kit after knowing all that you know about Freds). This test of the hills, though, is a loop hole that allows many Freds to disguise their status within a perpetual aura of ambiguity. You see, if a Fred lives on the flats, where there are no hills, how can a Fred be certified as a Fred if the test of the hills can’t be applied? So, Freds, it seems, can play a perpetual bluffing game (a game they probably don’t know they are playing given that Freds are ignorant of things such as this). The cards can only be revealed in the hills and until then, they are kept very close indeed.

So, Fred or not, one can wear what one wants after all! The team kit folk wear an aura of mystery as they ride; riding a perpetual knife edge ridge to separate ignorance and prowess.

But there are some giveaways to avoid. Age is one. Old guys on sporty bikes wearing team kit are to be regarded with cautious suspicion (like a snake crossing the road – he might bite through turning out not to be a Fed at all; perhaps he’s a real veteran Pro out for a solo training ride – beware!). Old guys on sporty bikes wearing team kit but carrying some extra girth around the middle wear a sign to proclaim their status as uncontested Freds. Unless they happen to be long-retired cycling pros; and then beware as before. He could turn out to be Eddy Merckx or Miguel Indurain out for a ride! Old guys on sporty bikes wearing team kit riding with their seats too low are Freds; low seats are a siren call giveaway. Apparently.

All this cultural complexity has given birth to that one great demonstration of the true faith: the race face. If you, as a real cyclist know that the guy you are about to pass is a Fred, the race face rule decrees that you ride on by without a glance or a wave; or you might give him the famous Lance Armstrong LOOK (a studied execution of a quick, withering glance right into the eyes of he-who-dared-to-assume-that-he-could-possibly-match-you-in-the-hills). Race facing on passing is the thing to do to prove your unassailable superiority to those you regard as Freds. This orchestrated move is a statement that you are simply way too cool to exist in the same place as the Fred to whom you are righteously demonstrating your contempt.

It’s the way-too graduated spectrum of nuance that attaches to this Fred/anti-Fred scene that, apparently, gave birth to the ‘Fixie revolution’. Wherein the new uber cool school of above-and-beyond the call of fashion types can proclaim their hyper coolness by eschewing absolutely everything that could connect them with any riding camp; except, of course, their own. Theirs is the anti-culture culture of cycling; but it’s a front. The fixie set are, it seems, as much a victim of determined, purposeful and intentional choice as the Freds and real roadies they so despise. There’s rules to follow to demonstrate compliance with the hors culture set. Jeans with ragged edges, just so. Beards, messenger bags of cultured anonymity, careful non-choices of shoes, banged up bikes conforming to unwritten rules of studied design anarchy…

You know, having worked all this out, I think I now aspire to be a Fred. But because I know what Freds are, I can’t join that club as Freds don’t know they are Freds. So I suppose I’ll just have to ride in a cultural void. Oh well, the cows won’t care…I am going to become a real anti-Fred, Fred. So now I can keep my overindulgent bikes and all my Team kit. I might even go out for a ride with my bib straps over my Caisse D’Epargne jersey, wearing a Camel Back for good measure! And I will wave to every cyclist I see, so there.

*A free weekly audio ‘entertainment’ available to anyone with an internet connection, a tiny bit of computer literacy and two hours a week to spare – go to the web site, click on subscribe, and download to your iPod

**Fred

From Wikipedia

“Fred” is a derisive term used by cyclists to describe other cyclists, usually male, that appear amateurish and oblivious to cycling culture.

The exact qualities that define one as a “Fred” vary widely among regions and cyclists, but recently, particularly in the US, a Fred is somebody with higher quality and more expensive gear than his or her talent would warrant. For example: A person watches the highlights of a few Tour de France stages, goes to a bike store and buys a Trek carbon fiber Madone in Team Discovery colors, along with Team Discovery shorts and jersey, and then rides it on a cycling path at 15 mph (25 km/h).

Such a person would be a prototypical Fred, especially if the jersey is yellow, which is typically worn by the leader in a multi-stage race.

In the UK the earlier usage is more common—used by ’serious’ roadies to refer to (often) bearded, sandal wearing, touring cyclists[citation needed]. The rare female Fred is a Doris.

This usage still survives in the US – David Bernstein, presenter of The FredCast says the term is “used by ’serious’ roadies to disparage utility cyclists and touring riders, especially after these totally unfashionable ‘freds’ drop the ’serious’ roadies on hills because the ’serious’ guys were really posers.” Mostly, though, a Fred dreams of being able to drop a real cyclist because their equipment is nicer.

In the US the term is also used to describe the many bicycle riders who enter fun “tours” or “rallies” but tell everyone that they were in a “race” with actual knowledge that what they were in was not a true race. Bicycle racing is governed in the United States by USA Cycling.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 at 5:29 pm and is filed under Bicyclism!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.