Ronde van Vlaaderen / Tour of Flanders Sportive

i went across with a friend and mates of his. the group of us rented a great old house about 30 km from oudenarde. i drove with my mate from london thursday eve after work. allowing for 1 hour time change ahead we reached house some time after midnight and joined in with some beers. drive over on the tunnel was so easy - drive from calais was very easy to navigate. on fri the 6 of us there went out for a ride, taking in the eikenberg and the valkenberg and then 20km or so along the pro's highway next to the schelde back to near the house - it was really nice to get a chilled ride in before the next day's madness. riding there is not hard - climbs are short and less testing than many around surrey / kent. that fri afternoon we drove back to oudenarde to sign on for the next day. signage and parking was well organised and straightforward - others from our group had already signed on for all of us - most of us had gone for the 250 km originally but by the time we were there 135 seemed more suitable. moving down was ok, apparently moving up in distance could have caused problems. an extra 100km chain gang riding down a straight road before you even get to the cobbles and climbs didn't seem too appetising.
next day and early rise and decent breakfast and we got to the start around 8ish - traffic was a bit slow on outskirts of oudenarde but moving and we were quickly directed to a car park in a field a few mins ride from the start point. setting off in a busy but fluid constant stream of riders. it pretty quickly thinned out though and i always found enough space to ride except on the koppenberg when walking riders blocked the road.
the first stretch of cobbles was an immediate oh fucking hell this is rough moment - like a barely controllable jackhammer going off in your hands. riding up them is ok - riding them on the flat or downhill is an experience...you want to cling on tight to stop the bars flying out of your hands but the firmer you hold on the more the vibrations pummel you -riding fast and hard in the drops and just letting the bike find its own way over them with some blind faith you won't crash seemed the best way to ride them. riding without gloves stands you out as double hard - but then you have to cope with the palm blisters and bruises that the cobbles produce after a while.
within a few minutes one bottle cage had rattled loose - one stop and an allen key later, the other bottle cage had snapped....(£40 a pop titanium cages....).
in terms of support the feed and service stations were awesome...really well organised and stocked...water and energy drink in agricultural vats, waffles and bananas and orange segments and energy bars to help yourself to at will.
the whole route was perfectly signed with marshals and police stopping traffic -in 135 km i only stopped once being caught by chance at a busy road junction at a time the police had stopped cyclists to allow cars to cross. some of the descents were fast - pushing 60km easily - most cyclists seemed pretty skilled and i didn't see too many stupid moves. for the first 50 km of so there seemed to be quite a few groups of elephants thundering past you on the flats and then grinding to a halt on the climbs, and then thundering past you on the next flat section - they seemed to disappear after a while. dont know what happened to them - maybe they were still there but had lost their early zoom factor so were less noticeable. it seemed like the rule was if you were coming up fast behind someone you would shout loudly in dutch / flemish what i took to be "get out of the way" or similar and expect a path would open in front. it wasn't gentlemanly perhaps but it seemed a workable way of sharing the sometimes narrow farm roads and i never felt intimidated or pushed around by people.
the hellingen were brilliant - they look and feel just like they do on the tv - riding up some of them makes you feel very pro - however slowly you are going.

as you'll know from the race, the last few kms are flat and you can really get the last juice from the legs and fire it up to the pro's finish line - before i knew it i saw a 350 m sign and then that was it. a short gentle drift into oudenarde for beers on the square before back to the car and easy drive home. supper, bed. and up the next day before nice gentle ride up the schelde and back before drive back to london (couldn't stay to watch the race).

cycling in belgium has to be experienced - it made me realise how shitty uk roads drivers are. the actual flanders sportive was like in a bubble, but the other days i never once felt intimidated or scared or any such thing. cycles lanes are everywhere and can actually be ridden. when there aren't drivers give you room.

it was an easy and cheap and really fun trip and i'm going next year.