Velominati Super Prestige: Ronde van Vlaanderen 2012

The Keepers and Rigid rolled into a region in France called Flandres which, without doing any further research into the matter, we assume is the coloquial French term for this region of the world. If its anything like the other regions in Europe, these places have roots that extend way past any modern country’s border and situate themselves in a history long past.

They do, however, speak French with all the stubbornness that we have come to love from the French. None of us in the group speak French very well, and no one we’ve found in Lille speaks English very well. Which means we’re all communicating with arms and legs more so than with words. We’re on our way to Kemmel, which means we’ll be able to speak a bit of Flemish again.

With Keepers Tour: Cobbled Classics 2012 about to begin in earnest, we’re busy organizing ourselves and making final preparations, so we’ll have to forgo the usual insightful, hard-hitting, race insight we usually produce for the VSPs. What’s that you say? We’re usually full of shit? Ah, right. You’ll have to forgive us the usual shit, then, and take today’s flavor.

Watch the countdown timer, get your VSP picks in by Sunday morning at 5am Pacific. Winner of this VSP event will earn the right to comment all year with the Leeuw van Vlaanderen commenting badge. We will also forgo the usual Symbol Pack prize awarded to a Monument and award the winner a copy of the local newspaper the day after the race.

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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  • @The Oracle

    Oh, and SHOUT OUT TO THE KEEPERS ON THE OUDE KWAREMONT!!! I was looking for you guys the whole race and saw the banner on the penultimate climb. Velominati represent!

    Awesome!! I hope someone here recorded the race in HD and can get a screen cap and post it here.

    As for myself, I got my ass up at 5:15 am to watch, but none of the English feeds were working on steephill. So I watched the flemish feed and wound up falling asleep for about 40 kms towards the end.

    I am totally underwhelmed by watching cycling on my computer. Between the grainy free feeds, and the non-english commentary I can't follow, it makes watching sort of frustrating.

    Has anyone used Cycling TV? I'd be totally willing to pay to watch races in English, in decent resolution - you know, so I can actually make out faces stuff.

  • @Buck Rogers

    Ugh, I saw that - can't people just stand still when the riders come by? If he didn't try and run across the path they wouldn't have nailed his leg.

  • @mcsqueak
    It's hard I guess to look round, see a rider (or skateboarder) bearing down on you and not have some sort of fight or flight reaction. It's true that standing still is the best policy (the rider doesn't want to hit you and will be planning on going round you) but I think instincts kick in. Just an accident out of anyone's control. It's a pity Langeveld didn't escape without injury though, and Cancellara too. Cav had a crash due to a thrown bidon the other week but he was luckier.

  • @mcsqueak
    I've been watching races on Eurosport, it's £3.99 per month but I'm not sure if you'll be able to subscribe in the US. If you can, do.

  • @mcsqueak
    I've got it on my DVR (with NBC Sports channel), but I have no idea how to get a screen capture. I thought I saw it on the second time up, but wasn't sure, so the last time they went up the Kwaremont I made sure to watch closely (no easy task with three little hoodlums running about vying for my attention!)

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