Cyclist
Big Ride: A one day Classic in Flanders
7:07am. Even when it is cold and dark, there is something magical about riding the streets of London while most of the city sleeps. Every light is green.
The only other traffic is the occasional delivery van and a handful of cabs cruising like sharks in search of scraps. I skirt round the back of King’s Cross and down a deserted side street to find the underground parking at St Pancras station.
In a perfect world I would be taking my bike with me on the Eurostar so I could simply ride off at the other end in Belgium. Sadly, despite the growth in demand for sustainable travel, Eurostar only offers limited options for carrying bikes on journeys to the Continent, so I’m obliged to leave my bike in the car park beneath the station. At least there is a proper lockup and it’s free of charge.
As I wrestle with my padlock, I can’t help musing on the lost opportunity to promote the concept of train-bike holidays in favour of fly-drive (I even wrote to Eurostar about it, but reply came there none). Imagine pedalling to your local station, popping your bike in the guard’s van, catching a series of trains to a European destination and then pedalling the final stretch to your holiday villa.
It sounds great to me, but current infrastructure and transport company intransigence renders it almost impossible. Which is a shame – it would certainly help on our current mission: to ride an 80km loop of Flanders and get back home in the same day.
Welcome on board the Eurosnore
6:16am. The Eurostar train is quiet at this time. Bleary-eyed passengers slide into their seats and quickly fashion coats into makeshift pillows in an attempt to reclaim a couple of hours of lost sleep before the arrival in Brussels.
My ride companion for the day, Will, has arrived fully prepared in bibtights, a commitment to time-saving efficiency that I find impressive. After a flask of tea and pot of muesli, I too join the assembled snoozers as we slip smoothly through the darkness, awakening later to the sight of mist over brown fields somewhere in northern Europe.
9:12am. Arrive in Brussels (Euro time) and stumble to the nearest coffee bar while searching for details of our connecting train. It’s only when we are standing on a suspiciously empty platform with no train in sight that we realise the announcements in Flemish have been warning us of a platform change, resulting in a headlong dash to the other side of the station. For once, I’m happy I don’t have a bike with me.
9:39am. Safely on the train to Oudenaarde. I note that Belgian trains actively encourage the taking of bikes.
10:26am. Arrive at Oudenaarde in the heart of Flanders and make the 15-minute walk to the main square, off which sits the cafe-cum-bike-shop l’Amusette. Patrick, the friendly owner, is ready with our pre-booked hire bikes, a pair of steel Cinellis. Pedals on, seat height adjusted, bike computer fired up, bags dumped. Time check: 11:10am. We’re off.
Out of the blue, into the red
We’re following the 80km ‘Blue’ route, as suggested by the Cycling in Flanders website. It starts in Oudenaarde and meanders around the surrounding roads in a small-scale tribute act to the great race. Such is the dedication to cycling in these parts there are even colour-coded signs at all the main junctions.
The first 10km follows a wide, traffic-free river path that proves to be the perfect warm-up. We need it – the day has started cold and still, with mist hanging over the trees and a slate-grey sky. Just how they like it in Flanders.
A left turn takes us through a housing estate with a strange mix of crumbling Flemish farmsteads and super-modern cubist homes, beyond which lie the bleak, bare fields that are so recognisable to any fan of the spring Classics. The occasional faint outline on the tarmac of a scrawled MVDP or WOUT is a further reminder that these are hallowed roads.
It’s not long before we round a corner to be greeted by a line across the road bearing the legend ‘Strava: Start’. We’re on the Oude Kwaremont, the longest climb of the day, but not the hardest. The gradient averages just over 4% and maxes at 11%, with cobbles that are fairly benign. Over its 2.2km length it goes easy, hard, less hard, really easy, hardish, and finally easy.
Of course, that’s for us. If we were pros at the Tour of Flanders we would have to tackle this climb three times, with the final ascent coming just 16km from the finish, so anyone thinking about a win needs to see the Oude Kwaremont as an opportunity to drop any last rivals. For them, the climb goes hard, harder, insanely hard, bleeding from the eyes.
A quick right-left brings us onto Ronde van Vlaaderenstraat, a flat street where we pass billboards with images of famous past winners such as Eddy Merckx, Johan Museeuw and Fabian Cancellara. On the tarmac, a few metres apart, are painted the names of every Flanders winner – men and women – since the race started in 1913. As we pass, I try to work out how many more years the race will have to go before they run out of road to paint the names. I give it til about 2035.
From there it’s only a short burst through some woodland to a junction where we find a couple of donkeys peering over a fence, next to which is a brown sign with an arrow that reads ‘Paterberg’.
Them and us
The noise is getting closer. We’re at the foot of the Paterberg but something tells us we should wait before venturing onto its slopes. In the distance there’s a revving of engines accompanied by a low rumble like an approaching storm.
As we press ourselves into the verge by the side of the road, a car with bike racks on the roof skids to a halt in front of us, blocking the road to anyone coming the other way and leaving a clear run onto the climb. Then the storm breaks. Around the corner appears the Visma-Lease a Bike Classics squad, resplendent in yellow, hitting the cobbles at full tilt before smashing up the climb in a blur of dust and fury.
Will and I look at each other before following in their wake at a decidedly more pedestrian pace. The Paterberg is only a short climb at 350m, but it packs a punch with its average gradient of 12% and maximum of 21%, which means going into the red for just long enough to leave us gasping for breath at the summit.
Arriving at the top we discover Wout van Aert and friends lounging on their top tubes and chatting, so Will and I do our best to look unflustered by our efforts and ride by with a nonchalant nod. The Visma riders do their best to look entirely uninterested, but I’m pretty sure they’re secretly impressed.
The pro crusher
A 5km leg-freshener through quiet farmscapes brings us to the most fearsome climb of the day and the one that can make or break a rider’s dreams at Flanders: the Koppenberg.
It’s half a kilometre long and rears up to a peak of 20%, but it’s the cobbles that make this climb so challenging. They’re the gnarliest, slipperiest cobbles on the ride, causing your back wheel to slip and slide while your front wheel bounces around like a ping-pong ball. You’ve no option but to keep your legs turning even while they scream for mercy, then cling on and hope to make it to the top still upright.
Plenty of pros don’t. This is the infamous scene of Danish rider Jesper Skibby’s fall in 1987 where he was almost crushed by the following commissaire’s car, leading to the climb being removed from the Tour of Flanders for 15 years on the grounds of being too dangerous. Even in last year’s race, a large proportion of the men’s peloton was forced to dismount and walk up the slope after the Koppenberg proved too demanding even for the world’s best cyclists.
As I slither and curse my way upwards I’m just thankful not to have to attempt this in the hurricane of a racing peloton with fans crushing in from the sides. When the cobbles end and the road becomes smooth tarmac the relief is palpable. As if to mark the occasion, the sun does it’s best to pierce through the haze to offer some congratulatory warmth.
Race against time
Another 7km further on we tackle the comparatively mild Taaienberg, a climb so connected to three-time Flanders winner Tom Boonen – it was his favourite training climb – that a bronze statue of his disembodied legs now waits at the summit.
Time is ticking on and we hurry along quiet roads that weave between muddy fields, descend the Kanarieberg, nod to some more pros on a training ride – QuickStep this time – and risk a quick coffee break in the town of Ronse. This just leaves the Oude Kruisberg – 750m at 7% average – before we’ve ticked off the Flandrien climbs on today’s route.
But we’re still a fair way from finishing. The rest of the ride is mostly flat so we get into two-up time-trial mode and race the setting sun back to Oudenaarde in order to return our bikes to Patrick before he shuts up shop at 5pm. Fortunately he’s waiting for us with spanner in hand. Pedals off, bags retrieved, bibtights off, jeans on. We’re off again.
To catch the 8:55pm Eurostar from Brussels we need to make it to the 6:33pm train from Oudenaarde station, which is a 15-minute walk away. By my calculations, that leaves just enough time for a couple of Leffe Blondes. In hindsight, maybe it was a good thing that we couldn’t bring our own bikes.
How we did it
Travel
Cyclist travelled on the Eurostar from London St Pancras to Brussels, catching the earliest one at 06:16. Journey time was two hours, arriving (with time difference) at 09:12. We caught the 09:39 to Oudenaarde (watch out for last-minute platform changes) and arrived at 10:26. It was then a 15-minute walk to the town centre to the bike hire shop and start of the ride. Afterwards, we caught the 18:33 train back to Brussels to get the 20:55 Eurostar, which got us back to London at 21:57. Our Eurostar tickets were £103 per person, while the Belgian train was £25 return. Visit eurostar.com and raileurope.com for details and tickets.
Bike transport
Eurostar’s policy for bikes is that on trains to Paris bikes can only be taken if they are disassembled and boxed. Eurostar will take assembled bikes on trains to Brussels but only at certain times of day: 09:01, 13:01, 15:04 outbound; 07:56, 08:52, 12:52, 14:52, 17:56 return. Those times wouldn’t work for our one-day challenge so we opted for bike hire in Oudenaarde.
Bike hire
L’Amusette is a cafe and bike shop near the Centrum Ronde van Vlaanderen, which can rent you a steel Cinelli Nemo Tig road or gravel bike for around €50 (£42) a day. You can also rent helmets, bike computers and such like, and owner Patrick will be happy to discuss optimum tyre pressures for getting up the Koppenberg when it has been raining. See lamusette.cafe for details.
Thanks
Many thanks to Patrick at l’Amusette for our bike rentals and advice. Thanks also to Dries Verclyte at Cycling in Flanders for his enthusiastic support in arranging our ride. Cycling in Flanders is a treasure trove of information and routes for anyone visiting Flanders for rides or to watch pro races. Visit cyclinginflanders.cc.
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