TdE - Day 41 Kortrijk - Gent

Route: Kortrijk - Oude Kwaremont - Paterberg - Koppenberg - Oudenaarde - Gent
Distance: 79 km 
Elevation: 296 m
Duration: 4:19 h
Weather: sunny and some clouds, more in the afternoon, 20 C

Well, so I have to admit that sometimes I am in delay with my “homework” and this is one of these posts. So instead of writing it actually on the evening after climbing the Oude Kwaremont, the Paterberg and the Koppenberg, I am writing this while sitting on the pavement close to the Saint Antoinusberg in Leuven, waiting for the men’s World Championship to pass for the second time. 

But back to this ride, which took me over some pretty iconic climbs in Flandern, all three of them cobbled climbs. 

The first, Oude Kwaremont was actually reusable for me (and my luggage), this one being at an average of 4% and a maximum of 11,6 % (on cobbles!). The other two where much steeper with an rebate of 11% or 12 % and a maximum gradient of over 20% both of them. Who invented such hills? And then paves them with cobbles???

But then I was also able to ride over the pictures of Fabio Cancellara, Tom Boonen and Johan Museeuw on the top of the Paterberg. 

I wasn’t always a cycling aficionado, when living in Spain I was definitely following football and not cycling, but since rediscovering my love for cycling (myself, not necessarily watching others doing it), I got more into cycling and since last year watched my fair share of cycling races (on TV). So it was special to ride up (or push up) MY bike on a climb I had seen several times in television already, seeing the curve at the top of Paterberg … or the other day, seeing the chapel on top of the Muur. Something like being able to play football in a proper stadium. Maybe not like playing football in the Camp Nou, that would probably bring riding up the Stelvio , but still…

The day however started in the flat along a canal out from Kortrijk to the Schelde river. 

And if I hadn’t actively chosen to see/ride those three iconic bergs, the ride from Kortrijk to Gent would have been pretty flat, just along canals and rivers. 

I also came through Oudenaarde, an other city with cycling races named after it. 

And the night I spent together with Roubaix in a apartment hotel in the center of Gent …

… and tried an other version of Kwaremont.