The term "fred" seems to have morphed into a myriad of meanings nowadays (according to a look-up in the Urban Dictionary, anyway), but the way it gets used "locally" implies someone who portrays him/herself as a racer, decked out in the some of the priciest gear from head to toe, rides an expensive professional-class bike, and goes out on the MUP's instead of the street where he probably belongs, to seemingly prove to everyone else out there how great he is. There are lots of riders in this area who depart from an LBS just down the street from me most every evening during the regular riding season in a large pack; but they ride and carry out their training entirely on the streets and roads.
As far as attire is concerned, I wear lycra and have sub-35 tires, too (though not by much), and it's all fine. But the freds seem to like to take things to the extreme even where it's impractical. Most of the MUP's in this area are surfaced with compacted "limestone screenings," the fine and often powdery stuff that's left at the bottom after all the other sizes of crushed limestone rock have been sorted. How anyone can ride on the stuff with something like 25's is beyond me, but you see 'em out there. On Monday, January 2, 2017 at 11:47:25 AM UTC-6, Steve Palincsar wrote: > > > > On 01/02/2017 11:14 AM, George Schick wrote: > > Agreed (and also with Lum Gim's comment). And BTW, those "in lycra with > skinny tires" are usually known by the slang term "freds." > > > Are you sure? When did that happen? When they first started using the > term, it applied to us, not to them. Googling the term, I retrieved this: > > *Fred is a derisive term used by “serious” road cyclists to describe other > cyclists who do not conform to serious road cyclists' norms with regard to > dress and equipment, and appear amateurish to them. The term is generally > reserved for men, while the female Fred is sometimes called a “Doris.”**Apr > 2, 2011* > > Sure sounds like a "roadie's" view of us... > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
