Avelgem is The mecca for cycling tourists. So is ‘Flanders Velo cycling centre’. The complex in Kerkhove – the largest in Europe – opened last weekend, the doors, just before the ronde. “Of cycling routes and massages afterwards, here you can find everything.”

a Few months ago it was still a supermarket of Spar. When were in the bike racks alongside the building in the Brugstraat in Kerkhove – at the foot of the Flemish Ardennes – up some bikes from customers parked. Now, there are more than 600. Racing bikes, to rent out to foreign cyclists who join us, the cobblestones and the slopes of the Flemish wielervoorjaar want to feel. And there is set for 200 others. ‘Flanders Velo cycling centre’ is great. “Since our concept nowhere else exists, we may ourselves, in fact, the largest wielercomplex of Europe, or even of the world call,” laughs general manager Gerry Helders, a Norwegian Hollander that his stripes earned with bike hire in the Spanish training Calpe.