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Ronde van Vlaanderen

— A ronde to remember: atop the Muur van Geraardsbergen for the great cobbled Classic.”

Barely ten days after the Grote Prijs E3, we were being treated to another tour de force from cycling’s strongest men: Fabian Cancellara and Tom Boonen.

Four and a half hours after taking the high ground on the Kapelmuur, we were still holding out. We’d been sitting on coats and plastic bags, alternating between sunglasses and umbrellas and fending off unwelcome latercomers.

On the Muur van Geraardsbergen, the lions of Flanders were strident on a thousand flags and the Flemish spirit was aroused by a thousand bottles of Jupiler.

To those who wonder what the point is of hanging tough so long when the race goes by within a couple of minutes, I affirm with a weary smile that waiting is half the fun.

As radios crackled and Blackberries buzzed, those without communications gleaned the facts, the half truths and the rumours. Boonen had put the hammer down and Cancellara had followed. Hincapie had waited too long before responding and the rest were hanging on.

Between the rattling Flemish and a barely more comprehensible, boggy northern French I heard Cancellara’s name cited most often. The Swiss threat to Boonen’s supremacy was real, massive and the cause of much Flemish anxiety.

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Ronde van Vlaanderen 2010

A visit to the Ronde museum before the 2010 edition of the Tour of Flanders itself on the Muur van Geraardsbergen!

As it turned out, these fears were well-founded. Yet again, Boonen’s earlier, eager efforts were to cost him the zip he would need to match the unstoppable Cancellara. The Swiss knew – as he had at Harelbeke – that he couldn’t match Boonen’s sprint but the style in which he just rode away from the Fleming halfway up the Muur was breathtaking.