FLANDERS'25 Preview: The BIG Two… Or?

Yesterday at 04:00 AM

Ronde van Vlaanderen Race Preview: The Tour of Flanders is the best one-day race in the World, okay, I said it. Paris-Roubaix is phenomenal, but it’s flat. Vlaanderens Mooiste (Flanders Most Beautiful) has cobbles, but also has murderously short, steep climbs. It also has the crazy, Flemish bike fans. De Ronde never disappoints. Here is the PEZ 2025 Flanders Preview:2024 Tour of Flanders2024 Tour of FlandersLast year Mathieu van der Poel was expected to win the 2024 Tour of Flanders, but the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider took an epic Ronde with solo effort in the Flemish rain, going solo from the Koppenberg. Surprisingly, Luca Mozzato (Arka-B&B Hotels) was second and Michael Matthews was third, but the Australian was declassed in favour of Nils Politt (UAE Team Emirates). After 20 kilometres a group of eight made their escape: Bert Van Lerberghe (Soudal Quick-Step), Luke Durbridge & Elmar Reinders (Jayco AlUla), Damien Touz (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Lionel Taminiaux (Lotto Dstny), Stanislaw Aniolkowski (Cofidis), David Dekker (Arka-B&B Hotels) and Jelle Vermoote (Bingoal WB). At first they were chased, but it suited the teams of the favourites and so their lead was allowed to increase. Alpecin-Deceuninck and Lidl-Trek took control of the peloton for Mathieu van der Poel and Mads Pedersen and so the break soon had a lead of 4:20, but that was their maximum. There was a lot of fans at the roadside, this caused at least three crashes one looked particularly bad for a woman spectator. Strangely, the first counter-attack came from...