Hi, My name's Galen and I'm a poser (or poseur if you prefer).
(What follows is a long rant, with plenty of self-indulgent parenthetical excursions, so feel free to ignore or delete).
I didn't start racing until a couple of years after the CR cutoff, and it was on a Performance brand mail-order bike with Suntour Cyclone components; a 12-speed with friction shifters if i recall correctly. I didn't know that you could get team jerseys in those days, so I bought the 'teamy-ist' looking jerseys I could find in the multitude of catalogs I signed up for (I lived in the boonies of upstate New York, where the only bike shop within 50 miles didn't even know what toeclips were).
Dave Stoller and Greg Lemond were my heros, and if I had to push my bike up the last half mile of rutted dirt road to my house because I was scared of destroying the wheels, instead of swooping gracefully up to my porch on smooth pavement, well, so what? (I didn't know about Paris Roubaix yet, and what road bikes could take in the way of abuse) I was still the 'bicyclist' guy (in actuality I was probably the 'bicyclist' kid).
I did end up racing for real, in Europe and the States, and got sponsored and all that. I still race, and when I'm racing I ride bikes that are so far from the cutoff of this list that they may as well be dreams. I would have sold my soul (and anyone else's I could get my mitts on) for integrated shifters, a carbon frame, more gears, anything for an edge.
(I did get offered drugs, and some of my friends and teammates took them, but most of us didn't. We were second and third tier riders, folks for whom being a domestique in the Tour was the ultimate goal, and the fact that I was there was enough for me).
So back to the point: I'm a poser. I still wear some of my jerseys, I ride bikes that are close to what the current best of the best ride, but I will never be a pro, or even regionally ranked, but they are the best tools I can afford for my hobby and I REALLY like riding them.
I also ride a team issue, Shimano-liveried, Nagasawa-built track bike (courtesy of a fellow list-member) decked out in Shimano 10-pitch parts brakeless on the streets of San Francisco.
It's utterly ridiculous, and I know that, but good lord it's fun!
So back to my point: to all you poseurs out there, go for it! Pose your hearts out! And while I may grumble occasionally so what? I'm just having a cranky morning, and why should you care what I think? The fact that you're out there on your bike rather than inside watching TV makes me happy.
As for the rest of you, the ones who have all those years and stories of riding in your musettes, you don't need my encouragement, but you still have it, and my admiration as well.
So pose, race, grumble, drool on bikes, argue about bikes, whatever, as long as we're all riding them I don't care!
Galen "self-indulgent this evening" Pewtherer San Francisco, CA USA
On 6/20/07, Jerome & Elizabeth Moos <jerrymoos@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> Hey, if those jerseys are for real, I'd love to own one. I agree that
> poseurs are annoying, if one defines a poseur as someone who rides to make
> others think he is cool rather than for any other reason. Of course this
> would apply to anyone who does anything for appearances rather than
> substance. Come to think of it doesn't that make "poseur" a synonymn for
> "politician"? It may be hard to judge if someone is truly sincere, but some
> people are pretty glaringly phony.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jerry Moos
> Big Spring, TX
>
>
>
> Donald Gillies <gillies@cs.ubc.ca> wrote:
> Well, judging from my mailbox (filled with hate mail), it appears that
> I accidentally called everyone who owns a team bike, "A Poseur".
>
> SORRY, This was not my intent ~ it was just my intent to share a
> humorour jersey with the CR crowd, and bring up the subject of posers.
> I guess this is a sore subject with many.
>
> - Don Gillies
> San Diego, CA
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-galen