There’s nothing like the opening weekend of the spring classics to kick me out of my blogging hiatus and get me excited about my impending trip to Belgium to see the Tour of Flanders live from the roadside.

The Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix are the climax of over a month’s worth of racing over the cobbles and hellingen of West Flanders. A week’s cycling holiday bookended by these two monuments is a must for all professional cycling fans, and one that my husband and I undertook in 2014.  However, visiting races earlier in the season offers the opportunity to see many high-profile riders battle it out over the same gruelling cobbles and climbs that will be used in the Tour of Flanders but without the crowds. Neither the riders nor the fans are as invested in these races as they are in the upcoming Ronde, so you have a better chance of seeing star riders up close and personal. We discovered this for ourselves when we stopped by the start of Scheldeprijs that takes place rather discreetly midweek between Flanders and Roubaix.

Up close and personal with Wiggo

Although I’ve yet to visit the early season races myself, I’ve spent enough time in the region to know how I’d go about it in the best way possible – by bike.

Opening weekend

I may not have been to see the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad but I have had the pleasure of visiting glorious Ghent, which hosts the start of this race on the last Saturday of February. If you want to catch any race live, the starting point is always worth a visit to grab photos of the riders signing in before the action kicks off. The neutralised start of this race is in the Citadel Park to the south of the city centre and conveniently close to Sint Pieters train station if you want to move on to catch the race live again at a later point. The park is also home to the legendary Kuipke veldodrome, venue for the Six Days of Ghent each November and the pre-race team presentations on the day of Het Nieuwsblad.

Sculpture on the Kuipke velodrome

The rest of the race is not as long as the Tour of Flanders but takes in many of its famous climbs and has shamelessly co-opted its pre-2011 finale over the Muur Van Geraardsbergen and Bosberg before finishing in Ninove. As this part of Belgium is obsessed with cycling you will have no trouble finding a bar or café in Ghent to settle in and watch the race on TV, but if you want to see the race live I recommend taking the train to Geraardsbergen, which is under an hour away. To my knowledge none of the races in Flanders have official fanzones with big screens etc except the Ronde itself, but hanging out in Geraardsbergen is the next best thing. The numerous cafes along the agonising kilometre-long climb of the Muur will all be showing the race, so you can settle in with a Mattentaart and beer before the race zooms past.

Some of the same riders will be in action again the next day in Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne if you fancy negotiating the bus network to get to the start line. Again, the race goes through Geraardsbergen (but not up the Muur), which might be an option for seeing the race live, but no-one will blame you for spending the day in Ghent and taking a bike ride to take in its impressive medieval sights and the largest car-free centre in Europe.

St Bavo’s Cathedral, Ghent

The build up to the Tour of Flanders

Things are quiet for the next month until a flurry of races in the week leading up to the Tour of Flanders. Again, Ghent would make a good base for seeing any of these races, as most of them start or finish in towns less than an hour away by train.

The E3 Harelbeke  is on the Friday of the weekend before the Ronde and takes in many of its most famous climbs such as the Oude Kwaremont, Paterburg, Taaienberg and Eikenberg. This is an easy race to enjoy live as it starts and finishes in Harelbeke and events are held by the finish zone throughout the day, including musical acts of the Belgian persuasion and, this year at least, a giveaway of 500 bags of chips!

Two days later Gent – Wevelgem, a race with a long and noble history in its own right, kicks off not in Ghent but in nearby Deinze. It really does end in Wevelgem which again is under an hour from Ghent by train. If you can hang about until the following Wednesday you could also catch Dwars door Vlaanderen, which starts in Roeselare around lunchtime and finishes in Waregem, taking in climbs like the Taaienberg and Kruisberg along the way.

Still in Ghent? Try ‘t Velootje for a unique drinking experience

The Tour of Flanders and Paris – Roubaix

On the first Sunday of April comes the race we’ve all been waiting for, the Tour of Flanders itself. Until last year the race started in Bruges, where we have enjoyed watching the pre-race sign-in many times.

World champion Peter Sagan signs in at the 2016 Tour of Flanders before going on to win

The start has now moved to the historic town square (or Grote Markt) of Antwerp, where we intend to base ourselves this year having only visited briefly before. As we’ll have our three year old with us we’re going to settle for heading to the official fanzone in nearby Groenplaats square later in the day to watch the race unfold on the big screen and enjoy some beer and friet. In a former life however we headed over to Oudenaarde  and got the free shuttle bus from the station to the Oude Kwaremont. This is by far the best way to experience the race live;  you see the race pass by three times, often at a really crucial point, and can follow what happens in between on a big screen.

The Tour of Flanders hammers up the Oude Kwaremont

There are also fanzones at Geraardsbergen, the Koppenberg, the Kruisberg , the Paterberg and the finish line, the last three being accessible by shuttle bus. Also, the town square of Oudenaarde itself, surrounded by cafes and bars showing the race, has a party atmosphere and is home to the wonderful Tour of Flanders museum which you must visit if you have time.

Hijinks in Oudenaarde town square

Note that if you want to see both the start and finish of the race, it’s a two-hour train journey from Antwerp to Oudenaarde, via either Brussels or Ghent. Once again this suggests Ghent as an ideal place to base yourself for this race, being an hour from Antwerp and half an hour from Oudenaarde by train.

If you want to stay on in Belgium in order to see Paris-Roubaix the following Sunday(which apparently takes place in France but to all intents and purposes still feels like a Flemish classic), there’s plenty of great cycling in the area. If you’re staying in Ghent then you could ride the reverse of the route we cycled in 2014 out to Bruges and spend a day or two there that won’t disappoint. You could also break up your week with a trip to see Scheldeprijs, which is held on the intervening Wednesday (the start has moved from Antwerp to Terneuzen in the Netherlands since we visited, but the finishing circuit remains in the Antwerp suburb of Schoten). When it’s time to head on to see Paris – Roubaix you cycle south along a very scenic route beside the Sheldt river back to Oudenaarde and then on from there alongside the canals to Lille.

Traffic-free cycling along the scenic Sheldt to Oudenaarde

Why Lille? Roubaix itself is not a particularly pleasant place where you’d like to linger but it’s essentially a suburb of Lille which itself has plenty of places stay, visit and eat and drink.  So it’s worth staying here for a day or so and just heading out to the Roubaix velodrome for the day of the race.

See cycling superstars in the flesh at the Roubaix velodrome

And then it’s time to go home on the all-too-convenient Eurostar from Lille. Unless you want go east and push on into Ardennes week of course, but that’s another story…

Getting there

Eurostar runs from London St Pancras International to Lille Europe and Brussels-Midi and you can take your bike with you as luggage if you take it in a bike bag. Alternatively you can book your bike on as luggage in advance for £30 each way which means you can simply ride off when you get to the other end (although if there isn’t enough room on board you will need to take the wheels off with Eurostar-provided tools and put it in a box).  You can also turn up and register your bike on the day but there’s no guarantee your bike will travel on the same train as you – more details about bikes on Eurostar here.

Your Eurostar ticket will cover you for a journey on to any other station in Belgium, and bikes can be taken on board Belgian trains for EUR 5 per trip (or EUR 8 for an all-day pass).