Categories: CogalsKeepers Tour

Beer, Frites and Mayonnaise

photo: Sherry Ott

Riding the stones of Paris-Roubaix, in the Spring, in crap weather (it’s possible) and finishing the ride in the velodrome in Roubaix* should be enough enticement for any right thinking cyclists to jump on to this event. It gets better, watching the race in a scrum of drunken-loud-mad-fans, everyone covered in a sheen of beer, frites and mayonnaise. It’s an experience of a lifetime. Do you still need more? Perhaps riding the last fourteen bergs of the Ronde van Vlaanderen, being your very own Boss of the Bosberg and then spectating this race, again the loud-drunk-fans, the sheen, the madness. Fabian Cancellara shall pass by so close he may wink at you as he drops the hammer on Boonen, again. How about a personal ride with the Lion of Flanders, Johan Museeuw? It does not get better than this, I’m sorry but it can’t.

It can’t yet it does, a tour of the Merckx bike factory and the Ronde van Vlaanderen Museum at Oudenarde. That is correct, we are going to museums, all right, a museum and it’s a museum about bike racing. There is much more fun crammed into this nine day holiday than should be allowed, please regard the original post for all the information.

This is the fantasy camp of a lifetime for cyclists. If not for yourself, dear reader, then bestow the holiday gift to end all gifts on your mate. The Velominati are united in a love and appreciation of cycling and the Spring Classics are a distillation of all things Hardman and beautiful.

Not to belabor the awesome factor, here are just a few more items:

  • Our guides, Pave Cycling Classics, are partnered up with a brewery.
  • We may not be invited back.
  • If you are ever going to break your clavicle crashing on your bike, breaking it on the stones of Paris-Roubaix would get you bragging rights for a lifetime.
  • There is the potential for shaking the hands Johan Museeuw, Eddy Merckx and Freddy Maertens on this trip.
  • Possibly the only chance to meet Frank and Brett at the same time, over Belgian beer, to argue the finer points of all things Velominati. Worlds are colliding and there are still open slots for this Tour. Spread the word to your fanatic friends.

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*disclaimer from our legal department: unconfirmed but in the works.

Gianni

Gianni has left the building.

View Comments

  • @jimmy
    I had heard it was an effort to get more power out of the pedal stroke, putting the hips further back would make for better leg muscle efficiency. Other riders were joking that it looked like he was on a Harley. Who knows.

  • @Gianni
    Could be.
    What I know for certain is that the old lady next door has an Electra with a slack seat tube and she thinks it's the bomb.

  • @jimmy

    @Gianni

    From memory, I think it was a bit of both - partiall to stabilise his dodgy lower back, while theoretically also helping him put out more power than a conventional machine.

  • Talking of cobbles, I flatted twice in two days on my Cx bike on the way to work - front and back - there are short cobble sections on the riverside path, to facilitate falling on your ass in the cold weather, so maybe that was the cause

    Anyroad, I went to get some new heavier innertubes from my LBS, and when I said I was surprised to flat twice on my Cx bike, having had no flats all year on my Roubaix, the LBS dude said "we'll you have been riding on rougher terrain on the Cx bike - you wouldn't be riding that stuff on your Roubaix"

    I left without discussing what I would be doing with my Roubaix on 31st April 2012.....

  • @frank

    So, is anyone thinking of making a super laid-back bike for Keepers Tour?

    Man, I miss the 90"²s and the crazy bike design they were doing...

    When Sean Kelly speaks of hardmen, he always mentions the two he road against - the Badger and Bauer.

    Thanks Frank!

  • @roadslave
    Funny, your VMH and mine must be related... She said almost the exact same thing as I drooled all over my iPad looking at those wheels!

  • I hope this crash doesn't occur on the Keepers Tour!

    I was going to upload the English commentary, but the commentary in that clip communicates (Tour of Flanders 2008).

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