Back in 2020 we ran into each other again from a distance.

Again? Yes, the first time we met was more than 15 years earlier, at the campus of the VUB, Brussels' university. Legend says that this first encounter took place on..a soccer pitch, and not at all while cycling. That first chapter in our friendship culminated on top of the Mont Ventoux though. On the bike. We were feeling like our hero Frank Vandenbroucke (VDB) for a sunny week in the south of France - except on the steeper slopes between Bedoin and the summit of the Giant of the Provence. Shortly after that legendary trip we went different roads, cities and even countries. We closed a chapter in life and left the peloton to go and conquer different paths on our own.

Though we lost track of each other and life went its course, we found each other again through cycling and arts. A painting, a post, a comment. Resulting in a spark that sent fresh current through an old powercable of friendship that hadn't been used in almost 2 decades.

Though we knew nothing from each other about what we had been doing all that time, we connected immediately with the bicycle as vehicle of conversation. Quickly finding out too that we had ended up in very similar family and life situations on top. Cycling minds evolve alike?

Our project around arts, cycling and life took shape, as we all went through that covid-madness with the whole planet.

Now we needed a name and a plan.

Our love for and roots in Brussels, with its typical Art-Nouveau buildings and the cycling DNA of great champions (Merckx, Evenepoel to name a few), resulted into the name of our project "Art-Nouvélo", a mix of art-nouveau and vélo. Something that also resonates well in Flemish and French, like the great potpourri that the "Brusseleir"* is speaking. Or somebody from Ploegsteert, like VDB, squeezed in between Flanders and northern France. Boundaries are man-made.

The rest is not yet history but the story that we are writing right now with you. We hope that you like what you see and join our international community of bike and art lovers! In return we of course also would like to hear from you. because everyone is a cycling source of inspiration.

*inhabitant of Brussels

Rain in Barcelona

Swear I will not break

Will sleep peacefully