Tour of Flanders

With the turn of the seasons from Winter to Spring also come the "classics" in bicycle racing, the epic one-day professional road races all run in Western Europe and each with unique histories and legends.  These events have been fixtures on the professional cycling calendar for many years with the oldest dating back to the 19th century.

The first of the Spring classics and one of the five "monuments" in professional cycling is upon us this weekend: the Tour of Flanders or Ronde of Flanders (Dutch: Ronde van Vlaanderen).  This year, the 259-km route will start in Brugge and finish in Oudenaarde, in the Flemish Ardennes region of Belgium and will include many of the cobbled climbs which set this race apart.  Famous among these is the Koppenberg (literally "Heads Mountain"). At 253 ft., not high by Windbreaker country standards, but nevertheless difficult due to its steepness (22% on the trickiest segments), and cobbled sections, which often are wet due to poor weather.

Eddy Merckx leads eventual winner Roger  de Vlaminck
and Freddy Maertens in the 1977 edition of the Ronde