The Ronde Van Vlaaderen (tour of Flanders spotif)
Discussion
I have just returned from my first 'classics' sportif. I must admit to not doing the full 245Km ride but settled for the 127km effort. I looked at the full ride , but the first 100Km was just the run into the main part, the cobbles and the 'bergs.
5 of us left Blighty on Friday for the blast over to ouudenarde. We stayed in a very nice hotel along with Katusia and tinkoff saxo. a few (too many) beers Friday night, meant Saturdays early start was difficult. We were greeted with typical Flanders weather, 2 degrees, grey and drizzle, it was going to be a long day!
As you can imagine, with 18500 starters , it was busy, but the organisation was absolutely fantastic. lots of well marshalled parking, so No queing and loads of toilets, so no peeing against the walls!! The high quality marshalling included the course marshalling and signage.
So I set off and quickly got into a good steady pace, you had to keep a good effort up to stay warm, after 9KM our first cobbled section arrived!! Whoa!! that was tough, flat sections, big gear banging your way along and having to concentrate to pick a good line and avoid the people bumbling along, the down hill sections were hard! trying to brake, steer and not have your hands bounced off the bars was a trick you learned quickly, or as I witnessed, you ended up on your face! But after a few I got the hang of it. then we get to the 'bergs, steep little buggers but fortunately not too long, so a big push saw me over the top. Then they started to throw the cobbled 'bergs in, they were a bit more fun, you couldn't stand as it was wet and muddy, so traction was hard to find and at 20% in places it was hard to keep going, But keep going I did and I made every climb of the day, Koppenberg, Patterberg the lot, so I was a happy, but battered camper.
My finishing time was 4 hours 40 mins and I had a normalised power of 278W for the ride.
All in all it was a great event, I'm really happy I did it and the 5 of us agreed , that doing it in the grey drizzle, actually made it more fun. I watch the pro's doing it in the rain and wind, I now know what they are going through!!
5 of us left Blighty on Friday for the blast over to ouudenarde. We stayed in a very nice hotel along with Katusia and tinkoff saxo. a few (too many) beers Friday night, meant Saturdays early start was difficult. We were greeted with typical Flanders weather, 2 degrees, grey and drizzle, it was going to be a long day!
As you can imagine, with 18500 starters , it was busy, but the organisation was absolutely fantastic. lots of well marshalled parking, so No queing and loads of toilets, so no peeing against the walls!! The high quality marshalling included the course marshalling and signage.
So I set off and quickly got into a good steady pace, you had to keep a good effort up to stay warm, after 9KM our first cobbled section arrived!! Whoa!! that was tough, flat sections, big gear banging your way along and having to concentrate to pick a good line and avoid the people bumbling along, the down hill sections were hard! trying to brake, steer and not have your hands bounced off the bars was a trick you learned quickly, or as I witnessed, you ended up on your face! But after a few I got the hang of it. then we get to the 'bergs, steep little buggers but fortunately not too long, so a big push saw me over the top. Then they started to throw the cobbled 'bergs in, they were a bit more fun, you couldn't stand as it was wet and muddy, so traction was hard to find and at 20% in places it was hard to keep going, But keep going I did and I made every climb of the day, Koppenberg, Patterberg the lot, so I was a happy, but battered camper.
My finishing time was 4 hours 40 mins and I had a normalised power of 278W for the ride.
All in all it was a great event, I'm really happy I did it and the 5 of us agreed , that doing it in the grey drizzle, actually made it more fun. I watch the pro's doing it in the rain and wind, I now know what they are going through!!
Edited by RGambo on Tuesday 7th April 10:56
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