The relentless ring of the Garmin: I cycled the roads of the Tour of Flanders… and nearly lost my mind

Ding-a-ling. Sharp right turn onto a descent.

Ding-a-ling. Hard left onto a steep, 15 per cent climb.

Ding-a-ling. Left, then right onto a lovely plateau, before a narrow, twisting downhill.

Ding-a-ling. Some bone-rattling cobblestones, for good measure.

Ding-a-ling. Ding-a-ling. A mini-roundabout then an almost imperceptible turn onto a gravel-strewn path right outside someone’s front gate.

Ding-a-ling. Oh, piss off.

Ding-a-ling. Another stupidly savage hill.

By the 70^th kilometre and the 5,000^th ding-a-ling reminder from my Garmin GPS, I was starting to hallucinate. Ding-a-ling… everybody sing, I want you to play with my…

At this point, I’m expecting my riding companion, Eros Poli, to re-enact the ferocious response that saw him booted off the 1994 Giro d’Italia. Instead, the giant Italian simply smiles, shakes his head, and politely gestures for me to get back on his wheel.

So, why am I in the surreal position of being tucked in behind Mario Cippolini’s old lead-out man (and the rider who won that stage over Mont Ventoux in 1994) on the roads of Flanders, just days out from the Ronde? Well, that’s because I was kindly invited by my colleague, the award-winning photographer James Startt, to join the guests of luxury bike tour company inGamba for a series of Holy Week rides.

Which means I spent the build-up to cycling’s biggest day – in between shuttling around team buses at Dwars door Vlaanderen, gathering podcast material as mechanics power wash bikes outside hotels, and boarding a train in entirely the wrong direction (the life, eh?) – riding on some of the sport’s most iconic roads with Eros Poli and Adrie effin’ van der Poel. As you do.

And getting the pro treatment to boot – I was handed an absolutely lovely Pinarello Dogma (that I only almost destroyed once), was assisted by WorldTour mechanics and swannies (post-ride massage and much-needed push up the Koppenberg included), and offered the full array of pro-level food, beer, and wine, too.

Not that I was feeling very pro myself, of course. A winter of terrible weather, days spent writing about cycling (and not doing it), nights in front of the television, and an aversion to the turbo trainer has left… well, not quite firing on all cylinders as we reach spring.

Which is why, on the hardest day of the entire week, Poli was back doing what he did best throughout the 1990s – navigating the gruppetto, driving the bus. It’s only passenger? Me.

So, here I am, on the hardest day of the week – an 85km ride featuring over 1,000m of elevation and some of Flanders’ toughest, most sacred climbs – I’m being lead out by one of the 1990s’ best sprint pilots, and trying my best to follow the guy who bombed down the Ventoux into Carpentras 32 years ago.

I’d already ticked off the Oude Kwaremont, Paterberg, and Kwaremont on Wednesday, before nipping off to watch Ganna break Van Aert’s heart at Dwars, but this ride was something else. Our GPS was telling us to tackle 12 climbs – (12! The pros ‘only’ do 18, for goodness sake) – including the Valkenberg, Berendries, and the fabled, mighty Muur van Geraardsbergen.

And I managed to get up them all. When I wasn’t getting lost, of course. Despite the relentless ringing of my chirpy, chiming Garmin, the constant twisting and turning of the route was frying my brain.

Even as I watched Eros make a right turn, for some reason I would shoot straight on, or go left, my brain a whirlwind of ever-changing information and Chuck Berry novelty songs, my legs deadened by the never-ending rollercoaster of up, down, up, and up again, just this time a bit steeper.

As cycling writers, we always talk about the fight for position at Flanders, the ferocious battle to stay at the front on the race’s narrow, winding roads. The kind of explosive, nerve-shredding roads super-fast steady Eddy Remco Evenepoel has been avoiding until this spring, for example.

But Friday’s ride gave me a newfound appreciation of the mental tax exerted on the peloton at the Ronde. The climbs themselves aren’t the toughest bit (though they are brutal), it’s knowing where you’re going.

Which is why, in the first half of the race anyway, the battle is for the bottom of the climb, all elbows and sketchiness. The ride to the top resembles a club run in comparison, before hostilities recommence on the next descent, through the next town, towards the next unexpected tight turn.

Former British champion and commentator Brian Smith charitably told me over breakfast that I was probably going harder over some of the bergs than the pros will on Sunday. Cheers Brian, but not quite.

My jaunt with Eros also underlined why the Flemish Ardennes is the best place for riding your bike in the world. Those constant ding-a-lings produced a stunning variety of views, from rural, serene, open hill-top landscapes, church steeples standing proud in the distance, to urban ramps with idiosyncratic houses, charming villages, and dark, wooded descents.

And the Muur, of course, my favourite place in cycling. Which I nailed by the way, despite suffering a desperate hunger bonk thwarted only slightly by an emergency bar from Eros’s back pocket. I never thought a Van der Poel would be happy to see me at the top of the Muur, but here we are.

To get back in time for lunch, the GPS directed us back via the main road, a not-so-serene ride buffeted by crosswinds made a bit less petrifying by an almost constant cycle lane (thanks northern Europe).

It was strange to hear my Garmin go so quiet, so I broke the monotony by stopping to chat to some Irish juniors spending two weeks racing in Flanders, and then rode down and up the Eikenberg, just for fun.

After all, detours are what riding – and racing in Flanders – is all about. I missed my ding-a-ling.