Racing

The classics are here

EF Education-EasyPost is ready for Belgium’s Opening Weekend

February 25, 2022

It is a ritual in Flanders. Each year, as winter begins to turn to spring, large crowds head to the fields to watch the first of their favourite bike races.

For weeks, the newspapers have been full of speculation, analysing changes to the courses, checking weather forecasts, and scrutinising the riders’ form. Races before Opening Weekend are just preludes. At Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, the cycling season begins for real. Every moment can be decisive.

That is what makes Belgium’s classic one-day races so exciting. There is no mountain in Flanders where the lightest, strongest rider can simply ride away from the pack. Instead, the peloton has to contend with flurries of short, steep climbs, cobblestones, and hundreds of corners on narrow farm roads. The odd forest or red-brick town offers little respite from the wind, which whips in off the North Sea, and can split the peloton at any second. It often rains and sometimes snows in Belgium in February and March.

There are countless ways to win a classic—and even more ways to lose one.

You can ride a perfect race and be the strongest rider left in the peloton, and then go the long way around one roundabout, reach the bottom of a hill a few spots too far back, and watch your chances disappear up a tractor track, as the riders in front of you come to a standstill. Maybe you do make it back, but after 200 kilometres of racing, every mistake you have made earlier will cost you. To have the strength you will need to win in the end, you need to stay in front, and to do that you need to throw caution to the wind from the moment the red flag drops and race into every corner like it’s your last one.

That takes guts, strength, and smarts. No one makes it to the finale of a classic on luck. The best riders are there time and time again. The champions sense what is going on at all times in the race and have the strength and savvy to drop their rivals at the exactly the right moment.

EF Education-EasyPost sports director Andreas Klier was that kind of rider. He won Belgian classics such as Gent-Wevelgem and finished on the podium at the Tour of Flanders.

"I loved when it was finally time to get things started in Belgium."

- Andreas Klier

“I loved when it was finally time to get things started in Belgium,” he says. “Getting to the start line, fighting in the cross winds, seeing the rain rush down on those narrow roads with the knowledge that if I was not in the top five going into a certain corner, the race was over… all gave me an extra kick, so I could go over my limits.”

Jens Keukeleire, Michael Valgren, Owain Doull, Ben Healy, Tom Scully, Julius van den Berg, and Łukasz Wiśniowski love the classics too. Michael won the Omloop in 2018. Łukasz was second that year, just behind him. Jens has won Nokere-Koerse and the Memorial Samyn. Owain finished second at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne in 2019. And we can always count on Tom and Julius to be there to take big pulls during the crucial moments of a race. They are our team for Opening Weekend.

Out in Flanders’ fields, the thwack, thwack, thwack of the TV helicopter’s rotors will signal that they are coming. Thousands of fans will push forward to the side of the road, singing and cheering and waving their yellow Lion of Flanders flags. Spring is on its way. The classics are here!

Go buy a case of your favourite Belgian beer or make a rice tart to enjoy during this weekend’s races. Watch out for our guys in pink.

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