All Aboard The Keepers Tour: Latest Update
It’s so close I can almost taste it. The mud. The dust. The heavy Spring air, turning to rain, blown across the fields of Flanders, where many a battle has been fought, in trenches and on wheels. Battles fought against other men, battles fought within each man. My own mind is in battle; am I worthy? Will I be prepared for the beating my body will take, and will my mind deal with it? Well, I’m not going to my own grave without doing this. I will survive on V.
The Keepers Tour just gets better and better. The team at Pavé Cycling Tours should be known as the Mailmen of Flanders, because they just keep on delivering. It seems almost every day there’s an email informing us of an addition to the tour, and our responses are more and more ‘screaming teenager’ than composed adult. To say we’re excited about this trip could be the understatement of the year. We’re excited.
The latest gems from Alex and William include;
- Meeting the legendary Freddy Maertens at the Flanders Museum in Oudenaarde.
- Meeting Vincent Lavenau and the Ag2R team and mechanics at their motel on the Friday before Roubaix.
- A private opening of the Casa Grinta restaurant, with what is described as one of the most ‘insane’ collections of cycling jerseys in the world, plus ‘Belgian Fusion’ food.
- Riding into the Roubaix velodrome after our day in Hell, and cleansing in the iconic showers. (TBC)
- A musette from Pavé’s partner Ravito, stuffed with cycling badges and a cap. (In addition to the special V Musette from us containing a V-Pint and special V-Shirt, not available for sale elsewhere.)
- A possible showdown with Cycling Tips blog’s own Tour, with some cool prizes up for grabs, along with a ton of laughs.
- A Cogal to be held in conjunction with our ride of the Ronde parcours on the Saturday before Roubaix.
Of course, this is all in addition to the already confirmed awesomeness of riding with The Lion of Flanders Johan Museeuw, touring the Eddy Merckx factory, riding on the Gent velodrome, touring the Brunehaut brewery (where our organic Malteni beer is produced) and another cycling museum visit in Beveren. There’s a heap of other activities confirmed too, so email us for the full presentation.
And the best part? All of this is included in the super low price! Everything. All meals, all accommodation, all drinks (yes, beer!) and hanging out with a cool bunch of like-minded bike nuts.
Sell your first-born if you have to, but don’t miss out on a week, or weekend of pure Classics bliss. There are still a few seats available, so book yours now.
@Dr C
I would love to see the prescriptions that you write for your malingerers, you could happily hide a placebo or two amongst words like that. It must take a while for the dispensing chemist to work out what the fuck you’re talking about though!
I always find it easier to transport the cholesterol in solid cube form, combined with those fine squares or triangles of mashed root vegetable it make for a wonderfully slow energy release system that also does a good job of soaking up all the mechanically recovered meat flavours.
@Chris
I’m generally more succinct at work – I guess I was trying to describe a Classic Full English, but got carried away with the truth
Your recipe sounds tasty though, we’ll run with that
@Chris
You are going to transport Soylent Green?
@itburns
I was thinking cheap sausages and potato scones cooked in lard, it was @Dr C who was caught trying to improve the flavour of one of his children.
@Dr C
A more direct line of attack?
Take up thy bed and fuck off out of my sight…
@Chris
To my patients? Or my children? Or myself?
@Dr C
Patients!Was paraphrasing some other healer bloke.
Did you freeze your brain on your ride this morning?
@Chris
Arm warmers, two thermal longsleeved base layers, summer long sleeve jersey, winter jacket (top end), two pairs of leggings, long wool army issue hiking socks, full neoprene bootees, fleece snood, spesh thermal beanie, helmet, and neoprene/chamois winter sailing gloves – yes, my feet were like blocks of ice – gave up after 45K!!
That said, my jacket is new, Softshell Pro 180 Pearl Izumi Thermal Jacket, 40% off in sales – looks cool as, matches all my other kit, so as a result I ripped it up my regular climbs, with PBs on the two bigger ones – bizarre – clearly more about how you look, than how you feel!
@Dr C
That’s not good, club run this weekend will be 138km including riding to and from the start. It’s not forecast to be any warmer than it is at the moment, colder probably.
I think I’ll go with merino wool and Nike synthetic base layers and V-kit LS on the top with a waterproof in reserve and bib tights, merino socks and neoprene shoe covers on the bottom half. Wonder if I can get merino longjohns under bib tights? and/or is it bad form to wear leg warmers over tights if it’s really cold? Especially, if they’re red? Must find my snood thing.
Oh, yes, and lashings of embrocation.
@Chris
That’ll keep you warm until you leave the house – I’d stick the entire contents of your wardrobe, including the doors, on if I were you – also bring some matches and a Zipp firelighter, so you can light a fire on your handlebars to keep your hands from falling off
Actually, a second pair of gloves is a good idea, as mine got sweaty and then froze – if I had had a second pair of dry gloves, I reckon I could have sold them to any one of the group I was riding with, and recouped the price of my new jacket – damn retrospective business opportunities!!
@Dr C
I was beginning to winder how to get enough stuff on and still move. And how much chamois cream would be required to avoid all the layers grinding my softer bits away.
The embrocation usually feels like setting fire to ones guns with lighter fluid but only when your’re back in the safety of your own shower.
I might just chuck the bike in the back of the car and drive round instead. I’ve got some chains I can put on the tyres for extra grip. Cav fell off and broke his bike today.
@Chris
if you are going to do it in the car, watch your speed, as anything more than 30kph will arouse suspicion on Strava
Careless of Cav – I wonder if they will lend him another one
@Dr C
Don’t worry it’s a Discovery so it won’t go at much over 60kph, I’ll label it “Motor Paced Session” people will think I’m terribly pro.