Review: Every sentence in ‘The Tour of Belgium’ tingles with storytelling pleasure

Flip van Doorn (Zeist, 1967) likes to walk (The first walker2017), likes to write about history (A made-up kingdom2018), has Frisian roots (The Frisians – A History2021) and also likes to cycle a bit (The Tour of Belgium, 2024). In the latter book, ‘a cultural history on two wheels’, he attempts to stun his readers. The Tour of Belgium consists of seven chapters (stages) and an introduction (prologue). Each of these chapters concerns the report of an extensive cycling tour through Belgian regions.

In total, Van Doorn covered 3,762.5 kilometers in those eight stages, including 187 kilometers of cobblestones, 94.9 km of gravel and 223.2 km of unpaved. Fortunately, there was also 1,066.3 km of cycle path. He fell four times and only had one flat tire, once his derailleur broke down and once he had to deal with a broken valve. Van Doorn is a man of details and that comes in handy along the way, because that’s where he notices details that any normal person would cycle past unsuspectingly. He will then investigate this further in the evening, so that he can devote another four paragraphs to it in his book, for the reader’s learning and enjoyment.

Van Doorn plotted routes that took him past countless interesting places, which he then described in detail. (The routes can be downloaded to cycle yourself. On the book’s website, the most important highlights and sights are recapitulated and Van Doorn gives tips for overnight accommodations. The book also has its own playlist, with 77 book-related songs – also here Flip van Doorn is not economical.)

Monster project

Kilometer after kilometer you will learn everything about the history of Belgium and Belgian culture, but you will also develop your knowledge of Belgian cycling. In The Tour of Belgium you go from one surprise to another and it suddenly dawns on you that Van Doorn is simply trying to get every detail from the Belgian history of culture and cycling into his book!

Of course that doesn’t work, but the attempt alone deserves respect. Van Doorn is cycling, he notices something and immediately knows what happened at that location. Either he looks it up later, or he has already looked it up: either way, it’s there. How did Flip van Doorn achieve this? Can he write while cycling? Does he have a photographic memory? Does he maintain contacts with an all-knowing cultural and cycling oracle who accompanied him on his pilgrimage? How many years of his life did Flip van Doorn sacrifice on this monster project? (Answer: the springs and summers of 2022 and 2023. “So absurdly little?” “Yes, he writes and cycles like a man possessed.”)

Van Doorn is not afraid of a trip across the border, so that he can also catch up on the history of Roubaix and of course that of Paris-Roubaix (stage 4, Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, 593.7 kilometers, km 508-519) . Test question: is the story of Hennie Kuiper and Paris-Roubaix 1983 in the book? Answer: of course, and in more than a single sentence, including all the details.

Lots to tell

The Tour of Belgium has 768 pages, and even then Van Doorn has held back. “There turned out to be more to tell than could reasonably fit in a book,” he writes in the afterthought. He must be an immoderate man, cheerfully plaguing his publisher with manuscripts of thousands of pages. Every sentence of writer/cyclist Van Doorn tingles with storytelling pleasure and enthusiasm to let the reader share in his discoveries, experiences and the facts he has discovered.

That is sometimes tiring, but always fun. The Tour of Belgium is a book to keep next to your bed and open regularly to read a few pages and then fall asleep happily. It is an endless reference work.