The hard men come out to play

Or crash.

Imagine you're a fit cyclist, and you're on one of the speediest rides you've been on. Your eyes are glued to the wheel in front of you as the peleton you're riding with aggressively ups the pace 20% more than you're used to, and stays there for over 100 miles and many hours of max-effort.

The road you're on has long cobbled sections, rough and uneven with frequent potholes. You're in a bunch that swerves from side of the road to the other side, looking for a better strip of smooth, non-cobbled track. Trying to avoid having the cobbles cause a flat in your tire where there's no place to pull over to change out a wheel. No place for a support car to bring you a replacement.

The twisting roads have numerous corners, and you have to ride them at full tilt, then exit from them at a sprint. Little towns along the way have trams with rail gaps that swallow the wheels of the inattentive.

Then, the rain starts. And it rains while it's just barely above the freezing mark. Making the cobbles slick, and sending cyclists crashing down onto the cobblestones at 25mph/40kph, creating deep bruises in hips, arms, and fracturing femurs and arms.

Now you're seventy miles into your race, and you start the bergs -- climbs that can reach 15% 22% grade (the Koppenberg climb) for a kilometer or two. Just long enough to tear your lungs out, but short enough that the pack hits them at full speed, and never backs off. The strongest scream up the climb at a pace that sends fear into the followers, lest the leader get too much of a gap on them. Forget a paceline, or pacing your effort: it becomes a war, and every man is out for himself. You might make it to the top; or your handlebars might get caught on the close-by barriers keeping the crowds barely inches away from you. Or, some crazy might try to pat you on the back or shoulder, throwing off your balance, sending you tumbling into the middle of the peleton, and sending everybody to the ground.

The finish is a cobbled street. If you're lucky enough to have not crashed out, or exhaust all the fuel from your liver, the only chance you have of winning the race is to sprint across the cobbles. You know the winner is going to accelerate from 25 to over 40mph/65kph over 500 meters. Yes, on cobbles. The sprinters must raise their power output to over 900 watts - enough to power half your house. If they doesn't crash.

The man who wins is a true hard man. A PRO that deserves the title: Winner of the Tour of Flanders.

I love the spring classics. And Belgium knows how to do them. (Dries — great country.... ;-)