Spring Classics - Travel Advice/Suggestions

This going to be all a bit vague but....
Thinking of a weekend break away to watch some cycling in the new year.
Needs to be easily accessible via a cheap flight out of Belfast - so probably into Paris and then rail(?)
Needs to be somewhere interesting enough to pass a couple of days and keep a non cycling other half amused too.
I think it would be the Flanders or Roubaix I'd be aiming for....
Any thoughts?
Thinking of a weekend break away to watch some cycling in the new year.
Needs to be easily accessible via a cheap flight out of Belfast - so probably into Paris and then rail(?)
Needs to be somewhere interesting enough to pass a couple of days and keep a non cycling other half amused too.
I think it would be the Flanders or Roubaix I'd be aiming for....
Any thoughts?
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I'd check both Paris and Amsterdam for flights. The cobbles are roughly half-way between both
4 day limit for childcare reasons
Cafés, mussels and beer essential
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells
I'd love to see them racing then, the speed of some of the riders at the start was pretty much full gas, and it was no surprise when I saw the first person being put into an ambulance on a stretcher about 50 metres before the official start line!
Fantastic sportive and weekend though, I would definitely pick this one over Roubaix, the circuits make it much better for watching as well as the fan parks and huge screen TVs
TWH, make sure you go to Oudenaarde and the Flanders Museum. Women's race started and finished there this year, men's race came through once and finished there. Plenty of bars where you can watch tv and enjoy the atmosphere if you're not able to hare round the countryside. Plus team buses park in the middle of Oudenaarde if your thing is gawking at bikes and stalking riders after the finish.
Near a lot of the hills & important bits, as well as the finish, and if you're on the square you can a) see the women sign on and set off (if you have interest in that) and b) mooch about the busses at the finish / catch the riders as they finish...
Wouldn't recommend the hotel on the east side of the square however - as much as I am a fan of a bit of Euro techno, the bar that plays it untill 3:30am is directly underneath and it literally shakes your bed.
Being at the front compounds the problem when the lights from the "tour of Flanders bar" shine into the room every 10 seconds.
I be they were british (or possibly Dutch). But ayway out of 25000 cyclists (or something like that) there will be some keenos. My experience last year was riding gently along the roads talking to whichever Flandrian/French/Italian/German/Dutch/American/British/Russian/etc cyclist that happens to be next to you at the time before we all go hard as we can along the cobbles or up the bergs then all relax again. C+ did a review of it a few months back and said broadly the same thing. If you want to go there to bag Strava Segments then do it another weekend.
- @ddraver
@gietvangent
I can vouch for the excellence of DG's guidance and drinking consultancy
If you call on his skills in this area, please ensure he takes you to "Gent's Most Unusual Bar" for some unspecified beer in a cup *grin*