Ronde van Vlaanderen Preview

54 thoughts on “Ronde van Vlaanderen Preview”

1. It’s on free TV (FR3) in France too from 13h35 with Jalabert and Rousse.

   A surprise would be nice which could involved the remnants of an early breakaway surviving though resisting the combined forces of UAE, Visma, Red Bull and Alpecin appears almost impossible.

2. The spring races in Belgium thus far have all provided excellent drama. But the Ronde is so much longer and soo much harder that it’s difficult to see it coming down to anything other than a gunfight between the big dogs.
   Thank god Evenepoel is starting for Red Bull. They have probably been the most visible team so far, to absolutely no affect whatsoever. At least they have a reason for their hyperactivity now. Evenepoel is a wildcard. I’m sure he can manage the climbs but can he get into the bottom of them?! His best bet is probably to kick everything off extremely early, turn it into an old fashioned 150km four man team time trial and hope to batter the edge off Pogacar and Van der Poel. Everyone wants Van Aert to win but it’s difficult to see how he will. He’d need to be up the road with team mates following some sort of split, like Gilbert was in 2017. But Pogacar and Van der Poel are nowhere near as casual as Sagan and Van Avarmaet, and have teams strong enough get back. The only other thing I can think of as a curve ball would be if F Vermeersch can hang with the big boys into the finale and then slope off between bergs and do a Devolder if everyone behind decides they aren’t pulling him back to get dropped by Pogacar. It should be a good race.

   • The racing has been good, in large part because when a move has happened, it’s been brought back, situations and scenarios have been subject to reversals.

     Not mentioned above for brevity but as you say Florian Vermeersch has a chance although he is a heavy rider. Pogačar has won the Ronde before and may not need to win tomorrow as much as he craves Roubaix. But then again if he can win here and then sets his sights on Roubaix then he could aim for all the monuments in one year.

     • This, to me, is perhaps the event of the year to look forward to. It’d be like pitching two perfect baseball games in a lifetime (never done, AFAIK) perhaps.

       Has anyone other than Pogacar podiumed in all 5 in a year? Google says “no”…

       • It would appear the closest are Merckx in 69 and Kelly in 84. Merckx won 3 was second in 1 and then didn’t contest Lombardia, and Kelly won 2 and was second twice but was then 17th in Lombardia. Hinault never did all 5 in a year, Van Looy didn’t most years and Coppi didn’t contest Flanders or Liege throughout his career. De Vlaeminck came closest in 77 but was 4th in Liege and 15th in Lombardia. I can’t think of anyone else to consider, unless anyone else can?!

         • We should remember that “the monuments” as an idea did not exist before the late 1980s. Merckx, Van Looy and Coppi would have been racing for “the [eight] classics”. But nobody really raced them all (the three most important were Milan-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix and Lombardia). By Kelly’s and Hinault’s time, no-one much cared about Paris-Brussels. The changing status of races always makes it difficult to compare across eras.

           PS. Van Looy is the only rider who won all eight classics: Merckx missed Paris-Tours (and this is why him not winning this race is important, even if now the race is much less important than it was in the Merckx era).

3. I will be watching to see if Brennan can keep up … without knowing why he withdrew from MSR.

   • He was said to be ill, though in what way wasn’t made clear. The distance and climbs of Flanders will surely be too much with P-R possibly more suitable.

   • He’s been dropped relatively early in Wevelgem and Dwars. There’s a lot of climbing this time and he’s had his eye on Roubaix for some time.

4. Interesting point about Bruges and Antwerp and the Hanseatic League, for those who are interested.

   Of course, neither city was a member of the (German) Hanseatic League. Nevertheless Bruges was the Kontor for the League in Flanders (and the main port in Northern Europe) before c..1500. The Kontor moved to Antwerp in 1520 (the river to Bruges became silted), and the English staple moved there after Calais was lost. Being the Kontor meant it was the main trading base of the Hanseatic League in Flanders (with special trading privileges). But the wealth of Bruges was built on weaving, and banking; particularly, importing English wool and exporting cloth to Italy. A slightly surprising way of describing the towns by InnerRing.

   • It’s all the trade and the exchange, it extended to culture and architecture, Antwerp’s “marketplace” has a lot in common with Bruges, but also even Gdansk’s “big market” too etc.

     • Yes, I agree with your comment. The lack of stone building material all around the North Sea and Baltic results in similar brick built urban environments before the modern era. And as you say, the trade links resulted in a common building style (Danzig being a classic example of a Hanseatic town).

       • Come for the cycling, stay for the discussion of historical geography and architecture.

5. I see Sporza’s coverage lasts for nine and three quarter hours, and on top of that there’s a separate standalone programme to cover the women’s race.

6. Interesting little factoid.

   If Pogacar wins the Ronde again this year, he will have as many wins as the combined total wins of all other Tour de France winners since 1903. (This includes Merckx, who win it twice.)

   • Thanks, that is very interesting. Conversely, 13 racers have won both the Tour and Paris-Roubaix, a feat Pogacar is yet to achieve. Notably Hinault was the last, winning at Roubaix 45 years ago.

     What’s also interesting, in a sense at least, is that Pogacar and van der Poel have between them won the last ten monuments, and 15 of the last 17. As much as I see Pogacar as the clear favourite today it’d be great to see a new winner soon…

     • Its an interesting one to consider, who are the next wave? If we think that at some point Pogacar is going to get bored and ride off into the sunset, and that all of MvdP, Van Aert and Pedersen have probably peaked, who is taking over? Vermeersch I suppose. Potentially Brennan. Magnier? De Lie has kind of plateaud but could kick on again. Segaert has appeared a bit this year. Nys is still fairly raw on the road. Del Grosso seems like a kind of lesser Van der Poel clone. It will be like going back to normal and might feel slightly anti-climactic!

       • De Lie’s contract is up and a new team could get the best out of him, he seems to want a place with some freedom but where he’s not the sole leader.

         For new riders, as well as the names above Albert Philipsen at Trek would be the first pick, then keep at eye on Senna Remijn at Alpecin and Aubin Sparfel at Decathlon too, plus Per Strand Hagenes at Visma is visible already.

         • n.b. after years of lowlanders named Dylan we’ve moved on to senna/remijn [?]

7. Take out kwaremont out of ronde, you get msr level race.

   • I’d go further and say the UCI should pass an emergency resolution to remove all hills from the last 60km of bike races. At the point where there was Pogacar, MvdP, WVA, Evenepoel and Pedersen left you think ‘great, game on’ then from that point on every hill ruined the race a bit more. Pogacar has managed to turn Flanders into Lombardy, finishing a one day race with the kind of time gaps you’d associate with a grand tour. 10th was over 4 minutes down.

     • It wouldn’t make any difference; somehow, Pog would still manage to find another minute.

8. Absolutely loving this classics season.

   All the Belgian classics preFlanders were excellent and gave everyone who dislikes Pogacar a good break so that once we’re into the Holy Weekend despite the predictable outcome today we’re not yet tired of the Slovenian – although I still never get tired of watching this guy, I can’t imagine I’ll ever see this kind of rider again so it still remains a joy.

   And next week is the big one…

   First we got hyped in the will he won’t he of Flanders…

   Then we had the epic MSR build up…

   Now for Roubaix… will he do it?

   From there five in the same year seems like a real possibility.

   • What a strange race. It was an exciting run with plenty of suspense, yet—as Mr. Inrng’s preview suggests—also the most predictable. I like Pogačar, but I can see why interest is starting to fade.

     • Not sure where the suspense was. The top four (or five, if you count Mads P) played out exactly as expected, with WVA and Mads fading in a way that felt almost scripted, and Remco’s inability to catch Pog and MVDP was pretty much a given.

       • I agree to some extent if you only consider the results. However, I don’t think Pogacar’s win was certain until he finally broke vdP, and I also don’t believe Evenepoel was that far from catching the duo. I still found plenty of thrilling moments. As I mentioned, I understand that the predictability—especially when it comes to final results—might not be ideal for cycling as a spectator sport, but there’s at least a core group of us who enjoy following the GOAT.

         Pogacar won’t be around forever. Seixas proved again today that he’s increasingly becoming the next shining star, and with Vingegaard’s much-improved form this spring, I’m really hoping for a competitive Tour. That’s exactly what cycling needs.

   • I’m not sure I’ve come across anything this year that’s lessened my dislike of Pog or team UAE. On the contrary…

9. With a rider that strong supported by a team that well stocke, it was practically a foregone conclusion that Pog was going to win.

10. Enjoyed the race especially with the live feed on Youtube, thank you very much. Chewing over a few If buts and maybe’s the outcome would have been the same in my post race analysis. I guess sun tan lotion will be required for PR next week! even the weather has gone soft.

11. Inrng’s predictions for positions #1 to #4 were spot on, and three of his other top nine picks finished at #5, #7, and #9. Credit to him for the accuracy, but it really says a lot about the sad state of pro cycling.

    • Or… great sport where the strongest wins and relative positions mirror exactly ability and strength?

      Of course, cycling is not track and field or swimming, and my love for it depends exactly on that difference, which is why I totally get your point, but cycling isn’t a moot lottery, either, which is why enjoying it can’t rest only on a lack of predictability (this latter flawed theory made GT courses, especially the Giro’s, worse than ever *for years*).

      Unlike recent Lombardias or LBL (races which I generally love, less so due to Pogi), the Ronde is offering great editions. Maybe catching subtleties could prove harder when a deep dislike for the winner is a (legitimate) part of the experience, just as my specific great appreciation for ahem the first five on the line probably helped me liking the race 😛
      …yet, this was great cycling – and the predictable result shouldn’t turn the focus away from Pogi being much more worn out than last year at the end, the tactical dilemmas MvdP probably didn’t play through at his very best, Remco’s absurdly good first time performance, Wout looking part of the game again (much more at PR), Mads looking more and more recovered (much more at PR) and so on.

      By the way, did I already say PR? Historically these two races, different as they are, are tied in a unifying perspective, expressed by the idea of the Holy Week of the Cobbles. Living them adding anticipation, conjectures etc. adds up to the meaning of this Ronde.

      • I feel like we’ve had this discussion several times—almost ad nauseam ;)—and I apologize for that beforehand. 😉

        I – still – understand your points and value the different perspectives. My concern isn’t so much that the best will (and should) usually win, but rather the increasingly machine-like efficiency behind it. I – still – have no evidence of any wrongdoing behind Pog’s (or Team UAE’s) dominance, but I – still and increasingly – feel like the human element is missing. Every rider has their ups and downs—except Pog. He’s just as strong in March as he is in July or October. Maybe it’s just that genetic fluke, even when he wins by 2-3-4 minutes, the effort hardly touches him, so he avoids any post-race fatigue. Combine that with the limitless resources of his team, and it’s a powerful, unbeatable – and boring – formula.

        It’s not magic skills either. He seems to be just as crash-prone as Rog. I just can’t watch a race hoping the top rider crashes out, and even when it happens it just seem to turn on another jetpack. As we saw in MSR.

        The bottom line for me is that, yes, it’s impressive and I mostly want the best to win, but the machine-like performances are a bit of a turn-off. I can’t shake the suspicion that Team UAE, along with a few other teams with seemingly limitless budgets, will have the edge when it comes to this kind of super-optimization. Even without using a single illicit method. IIn that case, pro cycling might start to mirror the dreariness of Formula 1.

        • In the period 1945-1990, it was normal for performances not to fluctuate too dramatically over the season. It fluctuated a small amount, but the best riders competed throughout the season. Coppi could win Milan-San Remo, Giro, Tour, and Lombardia in the same season. Merckx won all season. Hinault could win Liege, Tour and Lombardia in the same season.

          Many people here will have started watching cycling in the c.1991-c.2007 period, when cyclists mostly had a short, single peak during the season. I wonder what was different about that period.

          • John

            Hinault never won Liege, Tour and Lombardia in the same season.

            He won the Tour and Lombardia in 1979 and came second in Liege same year.

            In same year some other wins, but also 11 in PR, 8 in Gent Wevelgem, 7 in MSR, 6 in Paris-Tours, 8 i GPW, 18 in Tour de L’Aude, 23 in WC, …

            He was human after all….

          • Sorry, my mistake: Hinault won Fleche, Tour and Lombardia. This was an era before the monuments were a thing and Fleche was as important as Liege.

            The point was about winning throughout the year without huge variations in performance. My view was that this actually happened a lot before c.1991. Of course, Merckx and Pogacar were/are completely dominating.

          • John

            I get your point, but it’s difficult to compare across such a gulf of time. The sheer number of races Merckx competed in sets him apart.

            However, take a look at Pog’s ’24 and ’25 seasons. It’s hard to find anything comparable to that, aside from maybe Merckx’ best years. Even Hinault, in his Tour–Flèche–Lombardia year, lost Paris–Roubaix by over 2 minutes to Moser, Paris–Nice by 3+ minutes to Zoetemelk, and was more than 4 minutes behind Raas in the World Championships.

          • @Ryan

            I understand where you’re going, but I think you’re missing a piece of the puzzle.

            Sure, Pogacar’s 2024-25 might seem questionable given the quality, but check the race days. He raced 50 times in 2025 (and 58 in 2024), while Hinault managed a whopping 75 in 1979 alone. If Pogacar had tacked on another 25 race days in 2025, he probably would have skipped a few results.

            I can’t say for sure, but that, along with the fact that Pogacar can pick and choose, supported by the immense resources of UAE, is the likely explanation for the discrepancies.

          • Anton,

            Just to be clear, I’m not saying that Pog’s results are “questionable.” I have no reason to believe they are illegitimate in any way. I agree that the most reasonable explanation is a mix of his inherited genetic anomaly and Team UAE’s resources. My main point is that this specific combination makes much of cycling feel like a dull, predictable show.

            I would have loved to see Pog as a star on a small team with limited resources. That would likely have made cycling much more exciting.

        • Again, I partly agree but I think it’s better avoiding generalisation. We might conjecture (as some did) about Pogi acting, but frankly he didn’t look at all “immune to effort” either in Sanremo or the Ronde this year.
          Same for “not having fluctuations”, a debate we already had, indeed, when I pointed out that both in 2024 and in 2025 we actually had some clear downs to notice, albeit few and spaced.
          Several other answers given above are also quite interesting, I’d say.

          However, as I insisted elsewhere, I’d also prefer UAE, well, to be sponsored differently to start with, but let’s say being back to 2020-2023 ways, Pogi still being Pogi of course.
          Maybe just maybe we might see something like that this season, the rest of the team doesn’t look as brilliant as they did the last couple of years (from now) and what they did in the two Monuments was useful, indeed, yet not something no other weaker team might have achieved had been Pogi their leader.

          I’d also like Pogi to race more days in future seasons, once he won’t have any totem race he must focus so crazily on.

12. As RAI didn’t show the Ronde, normally getting a 600-800 K audience, I went and had a look at TV figures yesterday at that same hour. The public channel now normally showing cycling, Rai2, barely got some 250K. The main public national channel got 1.7M and the main private national channel got 1.5M, both with traditionally successful “Sunday family shows”. The third best channel was Rai3, which once had cycling, and which got some ~600K with nature docs. None of the rest, none at all, could hit the half a million mark, mostly sitting well below 300K.

    The above might help to put into context Sanremo getting 1.2M or 1.5M, or the potential granted even by a “specialist” one-day race like the Ronde with no Italian hope, by the way.

    The Giro averages 1.8M for 21 days, the TDF some 1.5-1.7M.

    Just compare figures and you’ll see why cycling can’t be deemed (for now) a niche sport. It’s going to become such soon, of course, if things don’t change current directions.

    Of course, other sports can hit in a single occasion greatest numbers, but it’s far from common, quite rare I’d even say, and, even more important, don’t *regularly* grant that kind of viewing figures in a “complicated” part of the daily hour table.

    • What are the viewing figures for 6-Nations rugby? It might help to place the cycling figures in context.

      • The last matches with England or Ireland in March got some 400K on TV8 (free access) plus 150K on Sky (pay).
        All cycling which is on RAI is also on Eurosport, which means that we might also add some 150-200K to the above reported cycling figures.
        But as I said the Ronde this year was just… 0 (RAI) + 200K (Eurosport).
        When the 6 nations was on Rai2, it usually got some 600K.

        Footnote: apparently, Rai had offered FLCL an amount increased by 50% when compared with 2024, but… nope. And, indeed, Discovery paid for an exclusive deal then decided *not* to sub-licence as they had done in some previous occasions.

        • Thanks Gabriele. All very interesting. I feel very fortunate to live in Switzerland where we typically have the races covered in three languages. RSI played live Flanders coverage on TV and streamed even more of the race online with really great commentary. These “free” stations are paid for by a TV tax. This being Switzerland, it’s a not-insignificant 335 CHF a year per household. In early March there was actually a referendum that tried to lower it to 200 CHF, but thankfully that was defeated. People realized the value that tax provides with news, sports, entertainment, documentaries, free to consume in all three main languages, not to mention the state-provided free news sites in a variety of non-official Swiss languages (English, Spanish, Japanese, Russian, Portuguese, etc.). (Not to mention all the other cultural events and programs that tax underwrites, like film festivals, art exhibits, etc.). As a cycling fan, it’s amazing to have all the options these stations offer. Not certain where to access viewing numbers, so I have no idea how popular the races are. But it’s nice to think that something can be done because it is considered more of a public service than an economic imperative.

          • I know quite well how that works because a close relative is now Swiss-based (and now finally waiting for a Swiss passport after many years there). He often shares excellent articles written by experts, often scholars, on many different subjects from the RSI webpage. Being public they don’t feel ashamed by giving an ethical take on themes.
            An old friend of mine is a free-lance journalist and often contributes to RSI although not living there.
            Perhaps due to these links, but also being myself a person with a past of media studies, I’d support your view, even if of course other perspectives can be legit.

13. What happened to the curse of the rainbow jersey?
    Has this jersey ever won more than 1 monument in a season?
    Sorry, too lazy to look it up but it appears that the curse has evaporated.

14. Seixas looks the only rider around with the potential to thwart Pogacar’s cruise to endless classic and GT wins. His comfortable TT victory today over a good WT field highlights that. Pogacar might thus stall at five TdF wins as did Anquetil, Merckx, Hinault and Indurain. Only Armstrong went beyond, in multiple ways.

    • Seixas is a ferocious talent, and I’m really keeping my fingers crossed for him. Cycling needs him—not just French cycling, of course.

      Still, he’s only 19. And while he comes across as mature and well-rounded, that’s a lot to ask of a teenager. Remco Evenepoel is probably the only genuinely comparable prodigy—neither Pogacar nor Vingegaard had made much of an impression at Seixas’ age of 19,5 years.

    • The race in the Basque Country certainly seems to have more interest than the dull predictable procession we saw yesterday in Belgium. Paul Seixas seems to be already on a level above the rest though as Inrng pointed out previously he is still growing which could impact on his abilities, certainly on the biggest climbs.

      • Ahem…

15. Pogacar isn’t even really the issue. Take him away and MvdP would have coasted to 6 Rondes and Evenepoel would be buried underneath his Liege’s and Lombardia’s. And both would have won them all solo, or near enough. I think part of the issue with Pogacar is he is so strong and ‘likes a hard race’ so much that his team set such a tempo they batter everyone else into submission so that you have the whole field on its knees finishing in dribs and dribs, minutes down, in order of strength. Bjerg was basically doing a sprint lead out up a hill with about 90km left at one point. The whole top 5 was easily predicted. Rather than being anything like what happened between 1991-2019, its probably more akin to classics in Coppi or even Binda’s time. Just everyone finishing by themselves with enormous gaps. So forgive me if I’m not overly enthusiastic about the idea of Seixas coming along and doing the same thing.
    All the Rondes of the relatively recent past are on YouTube, they are worth looking at for a bit of context to what we are seeing now.

    • +1

    • I’m not overly enthusiastic by the idea of somehow going back to supposed tactical masterpieces like Devolder’s double Ronde, Nuyens’ victory, Terpstra’ solo or Bettiol’s once-in-a-lifetime rocket launch.

      • There has literally been a book written about Nuyens’ win!

        • Yeah and I appreciated that Terpstra felt that Nibali had picked the right moment for a decisive attack, hence going along then brutally dropping him, but all those races – for very different reasons among them – wasn’t (to me) especially good from a technical POV, not “top cycling” so to say, albeit good authentic cycling all the same of course, and as such enjoyable someway (when happening from time to time within an appropriate mix of editions),

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