Cobbles, Bergs, Beer, and Legends. Putting the V Back in Vlaanderen.

We'll be flying the Velominati Keepers Tour Banner at the RVV and P-R Roadside.

It has been a busy couple of weeks in the Velominati Boardroom as we’ve been scrambling to finalize a few partnerships and get all the products for the Keepers Tour customers designed and produced. Suffice to say, fists and beers were slammed in tandem as we feverishly worked out the final designs.

Producing V-Pints, V-Shirts, and V-Musettes seems a simple enough task; and we also needed a flag and banner to fly at the roadside of the various races we are due to watch from the roadside, including de Ronde van Vlaanderen and Paris-Roubaix. There was also a the small matter of getting our hands on musette bags, which aren’t commonly found on the market, as far as we could tell. Fair heart, never worry; Gianni and his VMH took matters into their own hands and made them up from scratch. If their other business ventures fail, musette-sewing may be a good fallback, they Look Fantastic.

The most significant effort due was for the Keepers Tour Cobbled Classics 2012 design; enter our graphic-design mastermind, KRX-10. We tossed a few emails across the net and settled quickly on the notion of using a variation of the Lion of Flanders. “Now we need a public-domain vector graphic. Race you to it”, was the last word from KRX10 on the matter before the design was finalized. Then it was on to deciding on a tag line, with the result being perhaps the best example of what happens when the Keepers argue long enough on such matters.

With that, we proudly present the official artwork for Keepers Tour: Cobbled Classics 2012:

The last two weeks I’ve felt like a kid waiting for Christmas as orders were placed and we entered into the torturous period of time while we waited to lay our hands on the final products and see the fruits of our labor. And I have to say, this round may have produced our finest products yet; the V-Lion and tagline turned out magnificently, as did all the other items. The flag and banner are actually breathtaking – waving in the wind. We hope you like it as much as we do.

A few items of note: Attendees of Keepers Tour will receive a musette packed with their V-Shirt and V-Pint along with a few lovies from our sponsors, and will also have the honor of commenting for the next year with the V-Lion badge. Also of note is the matter that these products are not available for sale and will never be; the only way to get Keepers Tour products is to attend a Keepers Tour, so bear that in mind next time around. Finally, if you’re looking for a real photo of the V-Pint, you’ll have to wait until we arrive in Belgium, as they were shipped ahead while I was away on business and as such they have not yet been seen by anyone, even me.

Please also get yourself acquainted with our Twitter and Tumblr sites if you’ve not done so already – we’ll be reserving the site for major updates, and will be posting minor updates in those to locations throughout our trip, with Twitter being used for small updates, and Tumblr for the ones that are too much for a tweet and too little for the V.

VLVV.

[dmalbum path=”/velominati.com/content/Photo Galleries/frank@velominati.com/Keepers Tour CC2012/”/]

frank

The founder of Velominati and curator of The Rules, Frank was born in the Dutch colonies of Minnesota. His boundless physical talents are carefully canceled out by his equally boundless enthusiasm for drinking. Coffee, beer, wine, if it’s in a container, he will enjoy it, a lot of it. He currently lives in Seattle. He loves riding in the rain and scheduling visits with the Man with the Hammer just to be reminded of the privilege it is to feel completely depleted. He holds down a technology job the description of which no-one really understands and his interests outside of Cycling and drinking are Cycling and drinking. As devoted aesthete, the only thing more important to him than riding a bike well is looking good doing it. Frank is co-author along with the other Keepers of the Cog of the popular book, The Rules, The Way of the Cycling Disciple and also writes a monthly column for the magazine, Cyclist. He is also currently working on the first follow-up to The Rules, tentatively entitled The Hardmen. Email him directly at rouleur@velominati.com.

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View Comments

gaswepass says:

Mar 30 2012 at 3:49 pm

@itburns
I think the jersey looks great and a great idea. I will be a voice of dissent (or is it ignorance of the significance- I apologize heartily either way!) on the referee stripes on lower half.
mouse says:

Mar 30 2012 at 3:50 pm

Looks like the characters from "The Usual Suspects".
Gentlemen, looks like you're having a fantastic time.
More photos, please.
Rob says:

Mar 30 2012 at 5:48 pm

At last! The cobbled classic first annual tour starts.
Frank, glad the ride made it and Gianni behave yourself laddie we want only good reports!
Have fun all and keep the images flowing.
seemunkee says:

Mar 30 2012 at 6:14 pm

Names(aliases) to go with faces would be nice.
frank says:

Mar 30 2012 at 10:44 pm

We're all gathering our things together in the way that everyone does when they don't really know what they're preparing for.

We all met up at the Gite last night and got bikes ready. Bretto was the only casualty of Airline Handling and lost a back wheel to damage. No worries, we got a spare lined up. Everyone else's bike seems in good order and we're all sitting around waiting for breakfast. Breakfast is an hour. This is Europe.

I love it. As many updates as we can manage will be on their way. Bars have been double-wrapped. Guns have been shaved. Now we wait.
snoov says:

Mar 31 2012 at 1:52 am

Have a ball guys, look forward to reading all about it.
sthilzy says:

Mar 31 2012 at 2:27 am

More enthralled about the Keepers tour than the race!
Awesome! Keep the updates coming!
Ron says:

Mar 31 2012 at 5:38 am

@scaler911

I don't know if anyone around here follows Ted King on Strava but it's worth it just to see what he names his rides. Yesterdays ride;

I swallowed three bugs on the second Daag of de Panne. Which is gross since these are Belgian farm bugs, so surely they were just hanging out on some cow poo.. http://app.strava.com/runs/5846997

I think he'd be a fun guy to hang out with.

I like Ted King. He does seem pretty cool. I'd like to know how he went from being a solid high school athlete (three sports, okay, pretty good talent base) to college intramural athlete...to a darn good PRO! Seems like a huge jump. But, I'm guessing he has a pretty good physio & motor, and I think playing other sports can really teach you the mental aspect of toughness and competing.

I guess every guy in the PRO peloton likely has a different story & a different route to his place in the pack.
Ron says:

Mar 31 2012 at 6:27 am

Glad that most/all of you have arrived! Enjoy lads, really enjoy it!

Just showed the VMH the photos & here are her two comments:
1) "Hey, I've been to Bruges!"
2) "These guys look pretty cool." I know, they're Velominati. We are cool. "No, I mean their clothes and stuff. If you ever go to hang out with these guys we're going to have to get you some cooler stuff."

Alas, I'm pretty understated off the bike, saving the nice threads for my kit!

Have a boss Saturday & Sunday everyone!
frank says:

Mar 31 2012 at 10:41 am

Forgive me a Big Ring Moment, I think we derserve that after riding the last 21 secteurs (of 26) of Roubaix.

FUCK MY TITS THAT WAS BUMPY. I HAD NO IDEA HOW ROUGH THE PAVÃ‰ IS. UNREAL. I LOST ORGANS I STARTED WITH, AND GAIN NEWS ONES I DIDN'T HAVE PREVIOUSLY.

Marko snapped his seatpost on his Number #1. That was a massive bummer and he had to finish the ride on a loaner. Two flats other than that, so not bad.

Bretto and I broke away and rode into Roubaix 'a block. Beautiful.