To earn a PHD you must demonstrate adeptitude in persuading other participants on a group ride to transport items for you that won't fit into your bike bags.

You get bonus points for riding so slowly that they have to wait for you at the finish just so they can return your crap to you.

"Cycling Clothes on the Cheap" This is a field trip to Walmart followed by a lab. Students go to Walmart and peruse the women's under ware department looking for extra large items that can be reconfigured into cycling shorts including the coveted "bib shorts". Students return to a lab setting where they cut and sow the items into practical cycling clothes.

"Pie Plate Cassettes" This course combines culinary delight with gearing. Students learn how wide range cassettes are used to spin slowly up hills. As a bonus, they taste various samplings of pie adding to their body weight confirming their need for lower gearing. Required reading before the course here.

Fashionable Riding Accessories at Wal-Mart and Other Department Stores.

Although I must admit, Target has some really nice cool-dry tees for doing short, summer rides.

This thread is just too funny.

Don't make me post a picture of my hairy legs!

Seriously - I have had the fun of trying to peal scabs that were partially attached by leg hairs. Oh Joy!

For folks who go handlebar to handlebar on all sorts of roads including cobblestones, it probably makes sense. Other than that it is probably one of the hallmarks of the poseur.

Back in the 80's I had a crash that left me with HUGE road rash on my leg. It took them at least an extra hour to pick each hair out of my leg and thigh with tweezers before they could clean and treat it. That didn't feel too good.
I for one "have road rash where the shaving of the legs really makes a difference" and will continue shaving like I have since then!

Oh, my child you have a lot to learn.

The ins and outs of Waving hello to other roadies, and why its so hard to get a wave back.

As I got older the hair disappeared from both my head and my legs.

Mudflaps from Javex jugs, and other eco-friendly projects to accesorize your bike.

A newly chartered Fred University will be welcoming the first class in the fall, 2012. Students at FU will be able to choose from five different majors, as shown below, with some of the classes they'll be taking in pursuit of their bachelor's degree. All of these classes were suggested in the preceding posts. Not all of the suggested classes (above) have made the cut; I was getting sleepy and decided to bring the project to conclusion.

Here, then, are the five tracks for a degree at FU:

Mechanics: How Your Bike Works

• 10 places you never thought about mounting a winky blinkie
• Can you ever have too many spokes?
• Clipless Pedals I, II, III, IV and V.
• Cross-chaining for dummies
• Gearing - how slow can you go and not fall over?
• Maximizing handlebar height
• Mirrors Demystified
• Synchronizing your blinkies
• The Purpose of Reflectors and Dork Discs

Fashion for Freds: What to Wear When You Ride Your Bike

• A comparison of pants protectors
• Club Cut - make your own oversize cycling jerseys
• Cutting the fingers off of gardening gloves
• Fashionable riding accessories at Wal-Mart and other department stores.
• Gel padded bike shorts
• Helmet fundamentals: Visors on or off?
• HighVis clothing and accessories
• Pants guards - chromed or not.
• Shorts or Bibs 101: straps under or over the jerseys?
• Spray paint your helmet new
• The aerobelly, myth or mythological
• Too Sexy for My Shorts - high socks, black socks, red shorts - the influence of the Fred on contemporary cycling fashion

Riding Etiquette: The Do’s and Don’ts on the Open Road

• Changing gears - It's a fallacy that gears help. Learn the lies behind gears, global warming and evolution
• Cross training - When and how to walk up a hill and make it look cool.
• Free riding - A guide to stealth riding close behind others on a MUP
• Road repair - How to tell if a stranger might have a flat repair kit and how to get them to fix your flat for free
• The ins and outs of waving hello to other roadies, and why its so hard to get a wave back.
• Unflipped and lifted, a Fred guide to upright riding on drop bars-the definitive guide to not bending over while seated

Equipment: Getting the Most From Your Bike

• 10 tools you never thought about carrying in your saddle bag
• Bags, bentos and gizmos: A guide to carrying everything you need on the bike
• Correct mounting of the egg crate basket
• Handlebar position 101: Drops, we don't need no drops!
• How to choose big fat overstuffed saddles and
• Knowing bike bells by sound
• The 10 best platform pedals
• Top-tube mounts for full-size floor pumps

Advanced Fredosity

• Coast to coast on a Huffy
• Grease subcultures - an analysis of chainring pattern leg illustrations, with workshop
• Make your own fenders with from old filing folders and zip ties
• Making your own 100 lb trailer for touring
• Not cool - An explanation of why all those stupid expensive bikes are a waste of money for everyone and how to express your outrage.
• Permanently magnetize your bike frame to make traffic lights change for you
• Starbucks 101

I can hear the FU cheerleaders now - "gimme a F......gimme a U......"...

The Board of Trustees had to veto a suggestion to name the institution the Fred University of Cycling Knowledge.

Someone asked me once if I shaved my legs. I replied that I don't. I just have very little hair and on my legs naturally--very little(to almost none) on my thighs and what I do have anywhere is sparse and thin.

Corrected.

I teach classes on this all the time.

You forgot Duct Tape 101.

Dang old stodgy, tweedy trustees...ruining our education again.

I know, right?

You owe me a free screen cleaning where I sprayed coke all over my laptop's screen. But then I got my engineering degree from the Scenic Hills Institute of Technology. You can figure that one out can't you? Sure you can.

Bill

1. Adding 'Cervelo' decals to your Walmart bike 101 (includes removal & application lab
2. Mismatch your pedals just for fun 101
3. Waving to Really Fast Riders 301 (included is the art of distracting them so they don't see the pothole they're about to hit)
4. Showing up late for a ride 301 (course includes competition amongst students to see who can make the group wait the longest)
5. Placing fake rust on your Aluminum bike
6. Adding a hidden Motor to your Bike 401, (advanced course for those who wish to drop the fastest riders in their club) (prerequisite, Adding Cervelo decals to your Walmart bike)
Disertation: Passing horses while Group riding on a gravel Mup at full speed.

Fail. Freds are nothing if not polite.

Prof. Red Green's class**********?

This reminds me of an experience in a previous lifetime when working at the US Military Academy. We were developing a new system to track cadet leadership development. They wanted to call it the "Cadet Leadership Accessment Program".

"If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy."

A short course on using spoke wheel reflectors or lights as bike wheel balance weights might be nice.