Milan-Sanremo kicked the series of spring classics off and now the centre of the cycling world moves to the cobbles in Northern Europe. For the next two weeks, Belgium and Northern France will be the scene of some of the most exciting racing of the entire season as a series of one-day races make up a very unique part of the cycling calendar. On Wednesday, it all kicks off with the Dwars door Vlaanderen which is a small appetizer of what is to come and allows the riders to reacquaint themselves with the roads and hellingen that will determine the fate of their classics season.

 

The time of preparation for the cobbles specialists are finally over. No excuses are valid anymore. All their hard work has to pay off during the coming three weeks where a number of opportunities present themselves.

 

With Milan-Sanremo done and dusted, the classics circus moves to the north for three weeks of intense racing on the Belgian and French cobbles. The first battle in this series of highly prestigious races is the semi-classic Dwars door Vlaanderen which takes place on Wednesday

 

The race opens a very exciting part of the cycling season. Over the next three weeks, the riders will do numerous races on the same roads and climbs in Flanders that have been the scene of some of the greatest action of the cycling history. At this time of the year, those narrow roads, their cobbles, and climbs are at the centre of the cycling world but for some reason they are barely used for the remainder of the season.

 

Dwars door Vlaanderen is the first one in the series and while it is a nice race to have on the palmares, it is also the smallest and least prestigious of the Belgian classics. That status is not for a lack of history though as it was first held in 1945 and has been held every year, with 1971 being the only exception. The race was originally a two-day stage race but since 1965, it has been held on just a single day.

 

From the start, the race was mainly a Belgian affair, with Dutchmen gradually starting to make their presence felt over the years. However, it took some time for the race to attract international attention and it wasn't until 1993 when Olaf Ludwig took the win that the race got its first non-Belgian or non-Dutch winner. However, the real internationalization is a new phenomenon but nowadays it is regarded as a top-level race and an important event for most of the teams that target the cobbled classics.

 

Despite being given a 1.HC status, however, the race remains the smallest of the cobbled races. As a mid-week race coming at the start of the race series, many riders see it more as a warm-up race and a chance to get accustomed to the cobbles and familiarize themselves with the roads that will be used for the major, upcoming races. The race is a nice opener but it won't make or break the classics season for the big teams.

 

Two years ago, a reshuffle of the calendar meant that E3 Prijs Vlaanderen was granted WorldTour status and moved from its usual Saturday slot to the Friday following Dwars door Vlaanderen. With another WorldTour event, Gent-Wevelgem, taking place on Sunday, plenty of points for the world rankings are available in the coming days, and this convinced a number of the biggest names to skip the Dwars door Vlaanderen to keep their powder dry for the more important battles ahead.

 

With Milan-Sanremo also rescheduled, this tendency was reinforced last  year, and the names of Fabian Cancellara, Sep Vanmarcke and Peter Sagan are all absent from this year's start list. On the other hand, this turns Dwars door Vlaanderen into a perfect opportunity for key domestiques to go for personal glory before they put all their services behind their captains in the biggest of races and the two most recent editions have seen some of the riders just below the top level battle it out in an exciting contest that shows who's on form for the upcoming races. This year the race has been boosted by the fact that Tom Boonen will again return to the race after a one-year absence as he tries to make up for the lost racing caused by his late withdrawal from Milan-Sanremo.

 

The Flemish race may be divided into two categories. Scheldeprijs, Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, and Ghent-Wevelgem are races that the sprinters may realistically target and which have a rather predestined format determined by their history and their names.

 

In the second category, the Tour of Flanders, Omloop Het Nieusblad, and E3 are races for the hard men and classics specialists. These are the true Flemish classic as they are  designed in the same way. The course map is a complicated affair as the riders zigzag their way through a rather small area in the Flemish Ardennes, heading back and forth and often using the same roads numerous times. All the famous hellingen known from the Tour of Flanders are located in this small area and it is easy for the organizers to make changes from year to year, varying the climbs used for the different editions of the race.

 

The Dwars door Vlaanderen falls in between those categories. The design of the route puts it into  the second category as the race heads from its centre of Waregem into the Flemish Ardennes on a sinuous course before heading back to the finish. On the other hand, the course has traditionally been easier than the bigger races, meaning that the sprinters have occasionally had a chance. Even though the race has been made tougher in recent years, good weather conditions may turn the race into more of an affair for the fast finishers.

 

That wasn't the cast in the 2013 edition which evolved into an exciting and very aggressive race. Several attacks on the hellingen kept reshuffling the front of the race until a 10-rider group with some of the really hard men of the Belgian classics had emerged on the front. Thomas Voeckler launched a gutsy move in the finale and seemed to be holding on for the win but the Frenchman was caught just metres from the line by his escape companions. Instead, Oscar Gatto took his first big classics win when he held off Borut Bozic and Mathew Hayman in the sprint.  Gatto will be back to defend his title as he gets a rare chance to lead Cannondale in a cobbled classic while Bozic and Hayman will both be back to try to do better than last year. As opposed to this, Voeckler is currently racing in Catalonia and won't try to make up for last year's disappointment.

 

The course

As said, the route for Dwars door Vlaanderen puts it into the same category as the Tour of Flanders, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, and the E3 Prijs Harelbeke that all share the same characteristics. The races all start with a long, flat section to get the legs going before hitting a series of hellingen and pave sectors in the second half of the race. This is where the selection is made before the races end with a flat section to the finish. What make the races different are their distances and start and finishing cities and this is what ultimately determines how difficult the finale is.

 

 

In the past, the race ended with a couple of flat laps around Waregem, making the race much more suitable to sprinters and turning it into a race more like Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne. To make the race harder, however, the organizers have abandoned this idea, putting it more along the lines of the Tour of Flanders and E3 Harelbeke. Since then, it has been much harder for the sprinters to prevail and only in 2011 was the race close to be decided in a bunch sprint when Nick Nuyens and Geraint Thomas narrowly held off the peloton.

 

The city that defines the Dwars door Vlaanderen is Waregem which is located in the heart of the Flemish Ardennes and like in any other of those races, the riders start by doing some flat kilometres. The 201km race starts in Roeselaere west of Waregem and travels along flat roads to the main city where they cross the finish line after 42.9km of racing.

 

After the passage of the line, the riders do a completely flat loop on the western outskirts of the city which brings them back to the finish line for another passage after 70.3km of racing. At this point, the early break will have been established and the race will have settled into a steady rhythm.

 

Now it is time to travel into the Flemish Ardennes which are located southeast of the city. However, the riders will follow mostly flat roads for the first part as they avoid the major hellingen. The first challenge comes after 91.3km of racing when they go up the Nieuwe Kwaremont (2000m, 4.2%, max. 8%) but it will only serve as an appetizer of what is to come.

 

The riders now reach Oudenaarde which is the finishing city of the Tour of Flanders and this signals the start of the finale. From now on, the hellingen come in quick succession with very little room for recovery and this means that positioning is crucial. The roads are very narrow and so it is important to stay near the front as a crash in front of you or poor positioning going into a climb may spell the end of your race. Hence, the pace is automatically increased and crashes are almost guaranteed to occur.

 

The first climb in the finale is the cobbled Kattenberg (740m, 5.9%, max. 8.2%) which comes with 90.1km to go. It is immediately followed by the 1500m pave sector Holleweg which precedes the more famous 1700m Haaghoek 80.7km from the finish. That section leads almost directly into the Leberg (700m, 6.1%, max. 14%) and with 70km to go, the riders go up the Valkenberg (540m, 8.1%, max. 12.8%). With the biggest stars all being absent, the racing is likely to be less controlled and we may see attacks from some of the race favourites on any of those climbs as the racing is guaranteed to be very aggressive.

 

If the selection hasn't occurred earlier, it will start for real with 57.2km to go when the real finale kicks off. The climb that signals the start of the moment of truth is the Eikenberg (1250m, 5.8%, max. 10%). It may not do the damage but the next one, the short, steep, cobbled Taaienberg (530m, 6.6%, max. 15.8%) certainly will. This is Tom Boonen's favourite climb where he usually makes a fierce acceleration but in his absence it will be left to others to do the damage.

 

The climb comes with 51.5km still to race and at the top, we are likely to see a small group of favourites go clear. Depending on the composition, there may be some kind of regrouping but there is a great chance that the number of contenders has been whittled down to just around a dozen of riders. However, the climb is floowed by a long flat stretch which has sometimes allowed a rather big field to find back together in this section. On the other hand, the flat roads are perfect for attacks from a small front group as there will be few domestique resources left and we may as well see the right move go clear at this point.

 

The decisive part of the race comes with 33.7km to go when the riders tackle the famous pair of the Oude Kwaremont and Paterberg in the same order as they will do a few days later in the very finale of the Tour of Flanders. First up is the Oude Kwaremont (1500m, 4%, max 11.6%) which is a long, gradual cobbled ascent which suits the really powerful riders. This is where Fabian Cancellara and Peter Sagan left their rivals behind in last year's De Ronde to bridge across to Jurgen Roelandts.

 

With 30.2km to go, the riders hit the Paterberg (365m, 12.9%, max. 20.3%) which is the complete opposite kind of climb. It is short, steep, and cobbled and more suited to the explosive riders. This is where Cancellara dropped Sagan to initiate his solo ride to the finish in Oudenaarde. Those two climbs are the places to launch the final accelerations and at their top we are guaranteed to see a huge selection.

 

After the two crucial ascents, there are still a number of challenges coming up that may be used to launch the final attacks. First up is the 2000m pave sector Varentstraat which comes with 24.3km to go. The Vossenhol (1400m, 6.5%, max. 9%) is the next option 4.8km further up the road while the Holstraat (1000m, 5.2%, max. 12%) comes 15.1km from the finish. The final challenge is the cobbled Nokereberg (500m, 5.7%, max. 6.7%) which was the finishing straight in last week's Nokere Koerse.

 

The final challenges are not overly difficult but at the end of a hard selective race, they may do some damage. After the Paterberg, a small front group is likely to have emerged, however, and this means that the attacks may as well be launched in between the climbs and the cobbles as such a group is hard to control. Last year Voeckler's move which seemed to be the race-winning one, was launched 6km from the line after the passage of the Nokereberg.

 

From the Nokereberg, the roads are flat all the way to the finish and this is often the scene of some attacking racing from a small front group, a tactical battle between the leading riders or a strong solo move that stays away to the finish. The final sprint in Waregem is completely flat and at the end of a hard race like this one, the usual sprint hierarchy may no longer be valid.

 

Compared to last year, the course has been extended from 200 to 201km but the number of hellingen has gone down from 13 to 11. The Berendries, Steenbeekdries and Cote de Trieu have been replaced by the Taaienberg which is a much harder ascent and so the race has not necessarily become any easier. From the Kwaremont, the race is completely unchanged.

 

 

 

 

The weather

In all Flemish classics, the weather is a key component and in a race like the Dwars door Vlaanderen where a number of different scenarios are possible, it plays an even more important role. In nice conditions, it is much harder to make a difference and there is a much greater chance that a big group will sprint it out in Waregem as it almost happened in 2011. As opposed to this, brutal weather will make it a race of attrition that allows the hard men to come to the fore and the peloton will blow to pieces in a gradual elimination race that only allows the strongest to prevail.

 

Today Flanders is enjoying spring like conditions and even though there won't be the same kind of beautiful sunshine for tomorrow's race, the conditions should be rather nice. It will be a cloudy day and even though there is a slight chance of a shower, the most likely scenario is that the riders won't have to battle the rain as they did  for so many hours in Sunday's Milan-Sanremo. The temperatures will reach a maximum of 9 degrees.

 

The wind usually has the biggest influence on the racing but it would have a major impact tomorrow. There will only be a light wind from a northern direction and as the riders zigzag their way through the Flemish Ardennes, they will have all kind of wind directions. However, there will be a headwind for most of the final part of the race as the riders will turn from a tailwind in the Paterberg into a headwind for the long final run back to Waregem. After the final climb of the Nokereberg, the riders turn left and so will have a crosswind for the final 8km back to the finish.

 

The favourites

With the weather conditions being nice, it's an open question whether the small group that will escape on the hellingen, will be able to battle it out for the win, or if things come back together for a sprint finish in a larger group. Brutal weather conditions would rule out the latter scenario but with little wind and a headwind on the run-in to the finish, both are realistic options.

 

As many teams are keeping their powder dry for Friday's E3 and so save their best riders for the more important battles, the line-up doesn't contain a lot of strong teams. On paper, Omega Pharma-Quick Step and Team Sky have by far the strongest teams in the race and the race could very well shape up to be a battle between those two formations. Both are likely to have strength in numbers in the small front group after the Paterberg and there won't be a lot of strong teams in the peloton to bring back the front group.

 

Furthermore, history proves that the race usually ends up as a selective affair and since the local laps in Waregem were taken out of the race, the race has never finished in a sprint - even though it almost happened in 2011 when Nick Nuyens and Geraint Thomas were caught just on the line. This suggests that the race will be one for the hard men but a sprint finish cannot be ruled out.

 

In this field, it is impossible not to select Tom Boonen as the favourite. He is maybe the only rider who can both prevail in a sprint finish and in a selective race and this means that he has a lot more options than most of his rivals. Alongside Fabian Cancellara, Peter Sagan, and Sep Vanmarcke, he is one of the best riders for these races and since none of those rivals are present in tomorrow's race, his name stands out on the start list.

 

After his disastrous 2013 season, a lot of factors indicate that he is back to his best. In the Tour of Qatar, he was his usual dominant self and he went on to have the usual more quiet Tour of Oman. The big disappointment was of course his performance in the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad but one day later his strong riding on the Oude Kwaremont in the Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne suggested that he was right when he claimed the reason for his below-par performance to be the cold conditions. With no windy stages in the race, Paris-Nice offered him few chances to excel but he showed his great condition when he was one of the few sprinters to survive the tough climb at the end of stage 5.

 

It's hard to imagine that anyone will be able to drop Boonen on the climbs and if he arrives at the finish in a small group, he is almost impossible to beat in a sprint finish. However, that doesn't make a Boonen win the guaranteed outcome. On the contrary, there is a great chance that he won't prevail in Waregem. Boonen's big test comes on Friday at the E3 Harelbeke and he is likely to use tomorrow's race more as a kind of warm-up. It certainly won't be all for Boonen in the Omega Pharma-Quick Step camp and the team is likely to try to send riders like Niki Terpstra and Stijn Vandenbergh into late moves while Boonen will save himself for a sprint from a select group of favourities. If a few riders go clear with Omega Pharma and Sky both content with the situation, it may be game over for all the riders who didn't make it into the move.

 

Boonen missed Sunday's Milan-Sanremo due to a personal tragedy and this may make him a bit more eager to test himself in tomorrow's race. He has won this race in the past and could do so again tomorrow. However, it is also a great chance to give his lieutenants a chance to shine and he may be keen to give them a bit of freedom. Even though Boonen is the most likely winner in a very open field, the most probably scenario is that he won't win.

 

Most teams have saved their biggest riders for the later races but Sky seem to be one of the few exceptions. With Edvald Boasson Hagen being the main exception, all their leaders for the cobbled classics will at the start in Roeselaere. The team will have several cards to play in the finale and all of them are rather fast sprinters. Even though they have Chris Sutton in case of a sprint from a bigger group, the team will be keen to make the race hard and selective.

 

Their strongest card seems to be Geraint Thomas. The Welshman has been close in this race before when he finished 2nd behind Nick Nuyens in 2011 and even though his results in the cobbled classics aren't outstanding, he has all the skills to excel in these races. Last year he was one of the strongest in the E3 Harelbeke and only bad luck prevented him from playing a bigger role in the Tour of Flanders. Due to his Olympic commitments, he missed the classics in 2012 but this year they are again the most important objectives of his spring season.

 

In Paris-Nice, Thomas proved his excellent conditions when he was clearly one of the strongest climbers in the race. He didn't suffer any major injuries in his crash on the final stage and lined up for Milan-Sanremo with big ambitions. The cold destroyed his race but his performance in that race is surely not indicative of his condition.

 

Like Boonen, he may choose to keep something in reserve for Friday's bigger race and this raises some questions. If he goes full gas, he will, however, be a danger man. Alongside Ian Stannard, Salvatore Puccio, and maybe Luke Rowe, he is likely to be one of several Sky cards to play in the finale and his fast sprint will make it possible for him to finish it off.

 

The race may mostly be a Sky-OPQS battle but there are other contenders as well. Sylvain Chavanel didn't get the expected results in Paris-Nice after a crash derailed his GC hopes already in the first hilly stage but in the next few stages he proved that there is nothing wrong with his condition. He rode extremely aggressively and his performance in the queen stage to Fayence where he spent the first part in a solo breakaway before bridging across to the early move in the finale, showed how strong he is. He may not be at the same formidable level he was one year ago but by finishing in the lead group in Sanremo as well, he is not too far off.

 

Chavanel can expect to be mostly alone in the finale and this will be a clear disadvantage against teams like Omega Pharma-Quick Step and Sky. However, he knows how to play his cards in these races and he has all the skills to excel. He is brutally strong on the cobbles, an excellent rouleur, and has a fast sprint to finish it off. Unlike most other Flanders contenders, he rarely holds anything back in this race but this may change a bit with his greater responsibility in his new team. If he chooses to go full gas, however, he should be up there in the finale.

 

Tomorrow may be the day when Salvatore Puccio may finally reveal his talent as a classics rider. The Italian has mostly been riding as a domestique but that may soon change. In the past month, he has been riding extremely well and anyone who witnessed his performance in Sanremo must have been impressed. The young Italian worked tirelessly on the front of the peloton before the Poggio to assist his leaders Ben Swift and Edvald Boasson Hagen but still had enough left in the tank to stay with the favourites on the final climb. Despite working for Swift in the sprint, Puccio crossed the line in 12th while Boasson Hagen had already fallen off the pace.

 

There is little doubt that Puccio was one of the strongest riders in the Italian classic and if he can bring that kind of condition into Wednesday's race, he will be a real danger. He has all the skills to excel in these races and has a very fast sprint to finish it off. As he is no established contender for these races, he is less likely to hold anything back and may see tomorrow's race as his big chance.

 

It would be a very bad idea to rule out a win for recent Milan-Sanremo champion Alexander Kristoff. The Norwegian is a really strong in the cobbled classics as he proved when he finished 4th in last year's Tour of Flanders where he won the sprint of the first big group. That is no wonder as he is the master of the sprints in the classics, winning the final dash of the first big group in Sanremo, Flanders, and Roubaix last year. At the end of a long, hard race, he is an exceptional sprinter as his convincing win in Sunday's race underlined.

 

Kristoff can defend himself on the hellingen but he doesn't have the skills to join the attacks and be a part of the front group at the top of the major hellingen. He is a guaranteed presence in the first bigger group but for him to win, he needs things to come back together. With riders like Alexey Tsatevich, Viacheslav Kuznetsov, and an in-form Aliaksandr Kuschynski he has a solid team to try to set up a sprint finish and if the team accomplish that mission, Kristoff will be a danger man. However, this race is not as hard as the biggest classics and this means that some of his rivals may be a bit more fresh at the finish, making it a bit harder to prevail.

 

The third weapon in the Sky attack is Omloop Het Nieuwsblad winner Ian Stannard. After several years of performing well in the cobbled races, he finally got his big breakthrough when he won the big race in the opening weekend. In Tirreno-Adriatico he honed his conditions for the bigger races to come and everything suggests that he will be firing on all cylinders.

 

Stannard is very strong on the hellingen but he may not be explosive enough to be with the very best at the top. However, he is rarely too far behind and usually gets back to make it into the front selection. He is brutally strong when the races become very hard and his past performances suggest that he is the king of the very cold races. He would have loved tomorrow's race to be another brutal affair but as part of a strong Sky line-up, he will have his cards to play. He won't attack on the climbs but as he did in the opening weekend, he may take off on the flat sections in the finale. He is not as fast as Puccio and Thomas but he proved in the Omloop that things may be a bit different at the end of a hard selective race.

 

Omega Pharma-Quick Step have several cards to play and after Boonen, their strongest weapon is Niki Terpstra. The Dutchman won this race two years ago and he will certainly not hold anything back in what will be a big chance for him before he puts himself at Boonen's service in the biggest races. In the finale, Omega Pharma-Quick Step are likely to play it aggressively by sending riders up the road, and Terpstra will be one of those. That's how they did it in the Omloop where Terpstra was part of what seemed to be the race-winning move with Lars Boom and Edvald Boasson Hagen. With Boonen waiting behind, however, Terpstra decided not to cooperate but he was clearly one of the strongest riders in the race.

 

Terpstra's main disadvantage is that most of the Sky riders are faster than him and so he is likely to be up against better sprinters if he makes it into a small group at the finish. This could prompt him to act as he did in the Omloop and makes it a bit harder for him to win the race. Nonetheless, he should be up there in the finale and if he plays his cards right, he will be a danger man.

 

Stijn Vandenbergh plays much of the same role as Terpstra. Last year the big Belgian got his big breakthrough in the classics when he finished 2nd in the Omloop and did an outstanding Paris-Roubaix before crashing on the Carrefour de l'Arbre. This year he has again been firing on all cylinders as he was clearly one of the strongest in the Omloop before going on to force the selection one day later in Kuurne. He will be one of the riders that Omega Pharma-Quick Step can send up in the finale but he is hampered by the fact that his sprint skills are rather poor. This makes it difficult for him to win but team tactics and pures strength may allow him to come away with the win.

 

Last year's winner Oscar Gatto hasn't shown the best condition since joining Cannondale. He was expected to be at Sagan's side in Milan-Sanremo and Strade Bianche but failed to be there at the end. This indicates that he has not hit his best condition for the cobbled races but no one can rule the Italian out. In this race, he gets a rare chance to lead the race and this may inspire him to raise his game. We doubt that he will emerge as one of the strongest riders in the race but if a small group comes together at the finish without the presence of any of the big sprinters, his fast finish will make him a danger man.

 

Matthew Goss had a terrible 2013 season and very little suggests that things have improved for 2014. He was not even selected for Milan-Sanremo despite being a past winner of the race. However, he showed some signs when he took 2nd in a Paris-Nice stage and this proves that he still has the speed to mix it up with the best. He won't be part of the front selection after the major hellingen but if things come back together for a sprint finish, he is one of the few who has the speed to prevail.

 

Since winning the Tour of Flanders twice, Stijn Devolder has been through a tough time but now he seems to be back to his best. He climbed excellently in Tirreno-Adriatico and did excellent time trials in both that race and the Three Days of West-Flanders. Without Cancellara in the line-up, he will be the leader of a depleted Trek team and he will be eager to show the world that he is back. His past performances show that he knows how to handle these races but he can expect to be on his own in the finale. If Sky and Omega Pharma-Quick Step look too much at each other, however, don't be surprised to see Devolder capitalize on the situation.

 

Gerald Ciolek failed to defend his Milan-Sanremo title but the German was clearly never troubled on the climbs. This suggests that he has hit peak condition in time for the cobbled races and like Boonen, he has a dual shot at the win. He may prevail both in a sprint and he is strong enough to be with the best on the climbs. It will be hard for him to win a bunch sprint against the likes of Kristoff and Boonen and so his best chance will be in a hard race. He will be completely on his own in the finale but if things turn his way and all escapees are brought back, he may take another big win for MTN-Qhubeka.

 

Finally, we will point to the race's dark horse. Alejandro Valverde will get his first taste of the cobbles as he prepares for the Tour de France and it will be a big surprise if he mixes it up with the best. As he most recently showed in the GP Nobili where he went on the attack 50km from the finish in a race that suited the sprinters, however, he is a fierce competitor that rarely lines up at a race without any competitive ambitions. It would be a big surprise if he excels in a kind of races that require so much experience but history proves that you can NEVER rule out Valverde.

 

***** Tom Boonen

**** Geraint Thomas, Sylvain Chavanel

*** Salvatore Puccio, Alexander Kristoff, Ian Stannard

** Niki Terpstra, Stijn Vandenbergh, Oscar Gatto, Matthew Goss, Stijn Devolder, Gerald Ciolek

* Jens Keukeleire, Maarten Wynants, Moreno Hofland, Jens Debusschere, Jean-Pierre Drucker, Alejandro Valverde, Juan Jose Lobato, Tyler Farrar, Borut Bozic, Danny Van Poppel, Mathew Hayman, Bjorn Leukemans, Kenneth Vanbilsen, Tom Van Asbroeck