I can picture it now - a Steve Martin movie entitled The Bicycle Jerk. I was born a poor Fred child, then I blossomed, got my legs shaved, bought some spandex and became a Lycra. Now that I’m old, gray and electrified; it’s all about the ride once again. I’m an eFred and loving it! Cut to Steve passing a pack of drafting Lycra’s on his electrified eFred machine with a big grin on his face and a propeller helmet…

I believe the female term for a Fred is a Doris.

Not knowing this definitely makes you a Fred.

some of us have been riding this way since the seventies and watched in disbelief as everything else showed up at LBS, friends' houses, megastores and the internet.

Ah I see...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Snuts
There are times I have been the butt of a joke. And had to have things explained to me.

-Snuts-
Ah I see...
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Originally Posted by Buddha
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Please dont outsmart the censor. That is a very expensive censor and every time one of you guys outsmart it it makes someone at the home office feel bad. We dont wanna do that. So dont cleverly disguise bad words.

Last edited by Siu Blue Wind; 01-05-17 at 06:31 PM.

If your making fun, at my expense. You win, I don't get it.

But I did ride my bike 14,000km last year. I feel good about that.

-Snuts-

I think the "Freddiest" has to be a group of Mennonites on cycles...

I know I'm a fred because I didn't even know what a fred was until now.

so you won't see a bike computer used by a serious bike racer?

[MENTION=98888]bulldog[/MENTION]---your bike is adequate ... but the semi-cool handlebars keep it from reaching the apogee of Fred-hood. You need real Huffy/Murray upright bars---with streamers.

Those bars have too much style for a true Fred.

Also---consider stem shifters, if you must have anything but a 3-speed Sturmey-Archer.

It sure was nice to my cervical vertebrae when I needed it to be. (I'm actually in good enough shape now that I don't need them, but I still love them.)

Do my Map bars count? (no place for streamers, though)
I call this my Italian Huffy.

Interestingly it immediately made me think of something completely different. To a fair number of UK cyclists 'The Fred' is the Fred Whitton Challenge, an annual cycling event where the route goes over every significant pass in the Lake District. If you've done one then you've done 'a Fred', and one of my work colleagues has done three of them.

Slightly off topic, but he agreed to do the Fred last year with a friend, no knowing that a house move would prevent him from doing almost any training. He came to work the following week and said 'It turns out that training is overrated!', having done his fastest time ever on it.

John

I take it he didn't win the million quid.

Fred is what poseurs call anyone who hasn't swallowed the cycling fashionista Kool-Aid.



Fred Birchmore, whom many consider to be the original "Fred", cycled around the world on a gas pipe bike named Bucephalus, which is now in the Smithsonian. He had many other accomplishments and a bike trail was named after him. He died in 2012 at the age of 100 within days of his routine workouts at the local YMCA in Athens, GA.



According to his autobiography, he once killed a python, ate the meat and sold the skin for bicycle parts while on his trip around the globe.

I'm proud when I get called a Fred.

Coaster brake. Around the world. Stud.

They make look Freddy, but some of them will drop you like a hot potato. While doing an organized metric in Berks and Lancaster Counties in PA (Floyd Landis country. Remember him?) I rode for a while with a Mennonite teen. He had on those stiff, back jeans some of them wear and a long sleeve, plaid shirt. But he also wore cycling shoes with clipless pedals. He was very strong. During another even out that way I drafted for a bit behind a Mennonite teen girl wearing a dress and bonnet riding a Raleigh road bike. She had a milk crate on the rear rack, mirrors on both sides and, dig this, a rear Campy disc wheel.

Spot on. There's a couple of Mennonite families round here who routinely spend a day or so a week on our MUP system during the summer. They ride together as families on cruiser bikes and although they are always careful/considerate of other path users, it is quite clear that they are all -- moms, dads, sons, daughters -- very fit and very strong.

Safe to say they could shame our many local poseurs/pathletes were they of a mind to -- using the bikes they have.

To my mind, these folks are true Freds/Dorises: they just ride their bikes, unselfconsciously, very well.

I'm proud to be a Fred. My bike has a pack on the top tube to hold my phone, I have wheel reflectors, never took off the dork disk, and I actually went out and bought a Greenfield stablilizer because I wanted a kickstand. I don't own any lycra, I just ride wearing gym shorts and lightweight, brightly colored, sweat wicking polyester shirts. I just use my tennis shoes, no clipless pedals for me. And my helmet has a red light on the back of it.

Freds of the world, unite!

IMO, only so-called Poseurs obsess or even care about "dropping" or being "dropped" by strangers.

I was thinking of changing my name to Fred! If I weren't a fred, I'd go out of my way to become one! Never had an interest in being one of the cool kids (They're a bunch of conformists, all worshipping a cooler kid).

Heck, I ride with a MIRROR! Even on my fat bike!

So if Chris Froome happens to care about being dropped by strangers he's a Poseur? That would be a new definition of the term.

I work with a guy named Freddie who is an actual Fred. His "gloves" are woolen socks with thumbholes cut into them. He always wears sweatpants, cutoff in the summer, and an Elmer Fudd hat. He rides a hybrid an extra mile to work in ANY weather. He probably won't keep up with my average on my road, also commuter, bike or any serious miles, but, he has my utmost respect for always following rule #9.

Also, Freds tend to be the safest people out there. Better Fred than dead.

So not a poser in other words. Got it

I would assume that anyone dropping Chris, he'd know fairly well, and wouldn't be a stranger, so nope...not a poseur.

Not so. There was one family that came to the Rans rallies, and rode quite well.

there's no reason to assume Fred doesn't ride quite well.