2009 Ronde van Vlaanderen

This week I completed my registration for Ronde van Vlaanderen, otherwise known as the Tour of Flanders, and it only now the reality of what I have entered has started to sink in.  While the professionals will race on Sunday 5th April, amateurs can ride the entire route or the later parts the day before.  I have entered the 140km, 260km is a way beyond me.  However it is not the distance that I am nervous about, it is the short, sharp cobbled hills that have me questioning whether I will be up to it.

Known as hellingen, they are the climbs that make an otherwise flat course such a challenge.  They are also what makes a classic of the Tour of Flanders, and I can't be help but notice their local name is prefixed with "hell".  With 16 of them on route I am sure I will consider them as such come April 4th.

The route includes several of the famous hellingen:

• Molenberg : This weekend's Omloop Het Nieuwsblad (formerly known as Het Volk) includes it.  The rise is 460m long with a maximum gradient of 14 percent and has some pretty bad kasseien, the Flemish word for the cobble stones.
  
• Koppenberg : 600m with a maximum gradient of 22%, Koppenberg is a killer.
  
• Muur - Kapelmuur : Muur means wall in Flemish, and this hill is exactly that.  It is 19.8% near the top.  Ominously the Tour of Flanders road book says that the Muur starts on Oudebergstraat and is 475m long, but in reality this is halfway up.
  

The stats don't quite capture the difficulty of these hills, as many a pro has needed to resort to walking as demonstrated in the photo below from last year's Tour of Flanders on Koppenberg.

Photo ©: Roberto Bettini/www.bettiniphoto.net

Despite this, I am really looking forward to this ride.  I also look forward to seeing the pros suffer on the same route the day after.