Just For Fun...
disgruntledgoat
Posts: 8,957
I found an article about the 1913 Tour of Flanders, the first ever, in a magazine a while back and found the description of the route so interesting, I decided to plot it out on Strava.
https://www.strava.com/routes/3355197
There's no trips to the lanes of the Vlaams Ardennen, a skirt through Zottegem, Horebeke and Oudenaarde is the only real reminder of todays course, but it does take in nearly every major town in the west of the country in 324km (official route, mines longer due to modern road routing) of mainly N roads (given these would be the only ones reliably surfaced enough to run a bike race over). This is interesting too, given the lengths modern races go to to find novel and unused roads! The race started and finished in the Velodrome in Mariakerke, now a suburb of Gent.
For interests sake, the winner that day was Pol Deman in 12 hours and 3 mins, an average speed of 26.99kmh
https://www.strava.com/routes/3355197
There's no trips to the lanes of the Vlaams Ardennen, a skirt through Zottegem, Horebeke and Oudenaarde is the only real reminder of todays course, but it does take in nearly every major town in the west of the country in 324km (official route, mines longer due to modern road routing) of mainly N roads (given these would be the only ones reliably surfaced enough to run a bike race over). This is interesting too, given the lengths modern races go to to find novel and unused roads! The race started and finished in the Velodrome in Mariakerke, now a suburb of Gent.
For interests sake, the winner that day was Pol Deman in 12 hours and 3 mins, an average speed of 26.99kmh
"In many ways, my story was that of a raging, Christ-like figure who hauled himself off the cross, looked up at the Romans with blood in his eyes and said 'My turn, sock cookers'"
@gietvangent
@gietvangent
0
Comments
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Looking at historic races I'm always astounded by average speeds. Massive distances on bikes that weighed 20kg, no support car, no gears, roads like bridle ways, no idea about fuelling. It's not normal I tell you.0
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Very cool.
Now you have to ride it and set the Strava KOM!0 -
Good work. Could be some sort of Belgian Eroica.0
