Classiques Belges

[Robyklebt]

I just copy the hellingen from this years E3 in here, copied from their site, km might slighly differ from what we have ingame.

Just always found it useful to have it in the forum, for comparison, even if of course on la Flamme rouge you can also load the route from the previous year and compare there...

1 Km 31.5 Katteberg
2 Km 75.7 La Houppe
3 Km 84,9 Berg Ten Stene
4 Km 107.4 Oude Kruisberg
5 Km 113.4 E3 Col - Karnemelkbeekstraat
6 Km 121.3 Keuzelingsstraat - Oude Kwaremont NEW 4 3***
7 Km 125,7 Hotondberg
8 Km 132,8 Kortekeer
9 Km 137,6 Taaienberg
10 Km 143,8 Boigneberg
11 Km 148,2 Eikenberg
12 Km 162,1 Kapelberg
13 Km 166,2 Paterberg
14 Km 269,0 Oude Kwaremont
15 Km 176,8 E3 Col - Karnemelkbeekstraat
16 Km 188.5 Tiegemberg

Unchanged c4f rating, see in posts from earlier years.

Pavé, only the flat one grr, no easy copy, so I just write it down, looking at the profile only 3 anyway.

33.3 Hlleweg
44.8 Paddestraat
184.3 Varent

[Robyklebt]

Ah, one criticism for GW, too late I know.

In the profile looks like the finish is higher than the 18 meters above sea level that it should be? It won't really affect the race, so no problem.... but it's always nice when the race finishes at the right altitude... overdesign up, you then have to compensate a bit in the downhill, make a bunch of -2 into -3, or overdesign the first downhill km to make up for it. Here IMO though it's just that we don't go down enough right after the last Kemmelberg. According to la flamme rouge should lose around 100 meters in the next 3 km, for us it's only 70. Might be other similar problems there too, but this one is definitely there I think.

[Falcor CC]

Ah, one criticism for GW, too late I know.

In the profile looks like the finish is higher than the 18 meters above sea level that it should be? It won't really affect the race, so no problem.... but it's always nice when the race finishes at the right altitude... overdesign up, you then have to compensate a bit in the downhill, make a bunch of -2 into -3, or overdesign the first downhill km to make up for it. Here IMO though it's just that we don't go down enough right after the last Kemmelberg. According to la flamme rouge should lose around 100 meters in the next 3 km, for us it's only 70. Might be other similar problems there too, but this one is definitely there I think.

Definitely possible. Don't think the last Kemmelberg passage changed a lot from the gpx, but on the first 2 there were some changes: passage 1 went from 2-4-2 to 5--3-8, so gains 20 metres of height compared to the gpx. 2nd passage 5-0-4 to 5--3-8 again, so another 10m higher than gpx. There's your 30m difference. If the part between the last Kemmelberg climb and the finish has a different height difference than the real race, I guess that's part of the gpx.

[Gipfelstuermer]

Route 2026 is different from Route 2025:

- Total Climbs: Increased to 12 (compared to 10-11 in previous editions).
- New Climbs: Added Hellestraat (km 48) and Onderbossenaarstraat (km 107, 1.4km long, 10% max).
- Earlier Climbing: The hill zone begins 21km earlier than in 2025, with climbing starting after 47.7km (-> Hellestraat).
- Structure: The race retains the familiar Flemish Ardennes key spots, including double ascents of Berg Ten Houte, Côte de Trieu, and Hotond, with 7 cobblestone sections.
- Finish: The finale remains in Waregem after a double loop via the Nokereberg and Herlegemstraat.
- Length: approximately 185km

Source: Cyclingstage.com and official homepage as well as La FlammeRouge.

GPX-File: https://cdn.cyclingstage.com/images/dwa ... /route.gpx

With

Hellestraat +4 +4
Onderbossenaarstraat / Bossenaarberg +7 +3

Taking comments until early tomorrow morning, when I am going to publish it.

[Falcor CC]

Ronde van Vlaanderen

First draft today with just the hills, will add more flat pavé sections later. Currently only Lippenhovestraat/Paddestraat added, known for being the first pavé sections of the race after around 100km.

Start from Antwerp, so first 100+km similar to 2024, not 2025. Comparisons are mostly with 2024.

Hills
First passage Kwaremont (km142-143) stayed the same as the last 2 years, 6***,3***.

Next up Eikenberg (km158) not on 2024 route, 6** on 2025 route. Bumped down to 5**, 1.2km 5.1% climb, first steepest km is 5.4%, so don't see why we should keep it at 6%.

Then Wolvenberg (km163), 0.7km 6.7% irl. 6% in past years. Also down to 5% over the full km, think overdesigning is not needed here, as it is not that selective.

Kerkgate (km167-169) 2.6km, 2.1%, cobbles the whole length. Last year 2**,0**,-2**, not sure where that comes from. Climb itself is 3%, 1% in the first 2kms, then 600m 0%, but going up, so probably 0.4% or something. Either way, this year I put it at 3**, 1**, 0**.

Molenberg (km175) 400m 7.7%, 4%** last year. Checks out, kept the same.

Marlboroughstraat (km178) 900m 4.8% added as 5%.

Berendries (km183) 900m 7.1% added as 7%. Seems to be the same as last year.

Valkenberg (km192) at 5%, gpx and climb profile a perfect match.

Oudenaardestraat (km196) 3.3% avg for 900m, so 3%.

Berg Ten Houte (km204) 1.1km 6.2%, so 6% here.

Oude Kruisberg-Hotond (km212-214) 6,1,4. First passage, Oude Kluisberg from the non-cobble side. Can't seem to find it last 2 years. Rode it myself 2 weeks ago and in combination with climbfinder, 6-1-4 seems to be very accurate.

Koppenberg (km234) 600m 11.2%. Last year set at 7****. Probably the most hellish climb of the route, think 7 undersells it a bit, so bumped it up to 8****.

Taaienberg (km241) seems to be 6** in past years, which looks spot on. Kept it.

Oude Kruisberg-Hotond (km250-252) 6**,1,4. Second passage, Kluisberg is the same climb just from the parallel street, this time with cobbles

Kept Kwaremont-Pater passages (km222-226 and then again km261-265) with 6***,3*** for Kwaremont and 7** for Pater, but took out the flat km between them. Was 1km flat on rsf in previous years, but from gpx it's really mostly downhill between them, no flat. Top of the Kwaremont is at ~km262, top of the Pater at km~165 on gpx, so kept that distance for the rsf profile. Think this is the most important part of the profile and a change from previous years. So feedback for this part most important of all.


Current design should have all hilly pavé included. Any feedback on this is welcome.
Will add flat pavé sections tomorrow, but any info on those is greatly appreciated.
Stage is up for review, should I link it in the race editor yet?

[Robyklebt]

Next up Eikenberg (km158) not on 2024 route, 6** on 2025 route. Bumped down to 5**, 1.2km 5.1% climb, first steepest km is 5.4%, so don't see why we should keep it at 6%.

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eikenberg

Not sure how reliable Wikipedia is here, the very detailed numbers give the impression of being reliable, but might not be. Indeed it's not. Donkey calculation with the length and altitude number gives 5.406% So between your 5.1% and their 5.78%

https://www.geo.be/map?l=en&x=404472.56 ... tour_lines

With very weird contour lines, (if the link works) one of the brown one is 1.25 meters, the green ones are 5 meters, I get only 61-62 or so meters up, (start a bit below 22.5, finish a bit over 83.75) not their 67, which if we take 62 meters would only be 4.96% with a length of 1250. Ok, now further going down this rabbithole... plotaroute gives me only 1229 meters from the bridge to where we reach the road above, 5.04% then. So indeed, 0 reason to keep it at 6%
But if we take the km that starts at 25 meters altitude, the brown line, slightly above the house on the left (The houses on the right don't appear in plotaroute maps) and take 1 km, we end up at 81 or 82 meters, so 5.6% or 5.7%. If we start from the bridge, 1km, we end up at 79 meters (altitude taken from Geo.be, distance from plotaroute. Starting at +/-22, that's 5.7 again. Taking in from the top, 1 km is just above where that little "river" in the west starts, so 34, or so, from there indeed then it's less than 5%. But from the bottom, or what at first sight looked like the steepest km (but in the end is like the bottom)... there could be a reason to keep it at 6%! 1) steepest km at 5.6-5.7% 2) due to it's overall length, making it a 6% ok. 3) in Flanders a lot of hills are overdesigned, this wouldn't even be overdesigning just rounding up, if for once a hill is indeed long.. then don't make it easier than some of the shorter hills. At 5% of course is not wrong either, old designers (Donkey mostly I fear) were mislead by this strange Wikipedia thing I guess. But 6% ok too

.

Kerkgate (km167-169) 2.6km, 2.1%, cobbles the whole length. Last year 2**,0**,-2**, not sure where that comes from. Climb itself is 3%, 1% in the first 2kms, then 600m 0%, but going up, so probably 0.4% or something. Either way, this year I put it at 3**, 1**, 0**.

That comes from a different route in 2025
2024 when it was the same after the Wolvenberg (whose downgrading seems ok to me, less controversial than the Eikenberg) it was 3** 1 0 0 * Kerkgate la flamme rouge says 1400 meter, so shortened to 1 km here. Making it 2 ok too, but then I probably would have the second km at * only..
Last year after the Wolvenberg the route went on cobbles directly, Holleweg, Karel Martelstraat. that's the 2** 0** -2** 2.4 km says la flamme rouge made it 3 km, the -2 at the end seems to include the part after the pavé, where from around 80 we drop to 60 for a moment before going back up to 80 immediately..the pavé itself seems to be rather flat. But irrelevant, since this year we take the route from 2024 and previous years again... 3** 1** 0** seems way too hard and long. If it includes Jagerij already, think that's doubtful, there should be at least 1 km break between the end of Kerkgate and the start of Jagerij. Ok, plotaroute says Kerkgate 1.4km, then 1.6 without pavé, then Jagerij for 850 meters. Jagerij at ** might be ok, no idea anymore, and since I already spent way too much time on this I won't check, but 1 km or 2 km break between Kerkgate and Jagerij is necessary.

But anyway, enough time wasted, mine and yours, I go do something else.

[Robyklebt]

Ok, couldn't resist... checked Jageij on google maps, street view. For the most part, that's really highly unoffensive super easy cobbles. Start in the south slightly harder, once in a bend too, but the rest so easy, and not even 1 km, would keep it at *
Kerkgate part easy too, other part clearly harder, ** there, if you do 1 km ** sure, if you do 2 I'd do * **, since the beginning, until you enter Mater, and that's almost exactly 400 meters, is really like Jagerij, after that gets harder. But only 1km seems kind of ok too, since 400 meters at * can also simply end up as nothing. Ok, now I'm done! Promise

[Falcor CC]

Thanks for the feedback.

Takeaways:

-Eikenberg 5% or 6% both fine. 6% could work, but climb itself probably closer to 5% avg, and quite a lot easier than Paterberg, which only gets 7% that km. Mayne time to re-assess Paterberg and Koppenberg anyway since those, together with the Oude Kwaremont, are the real deciders anyway, and then 7** feels really soft for the Paterberg... Anyway, Eikenberg 5% or 6%, given the place on the parcours that decision very unlikely to devide the outcome. What do others think?

-Kerkgate: will recheck. Pavé sections harder to design for me compared to (pavé) hills. Went based off climbfinder, but maybe even have to check if they do the entire climbfinder climb. Will take another look at it later when I add the other flat pavé sections.

[Gipfelstuermer]

Thanks for the feedback.

Takeaways:

-Eikenberg 5% or 6% both fine. 6% could work, but climb itself probably closer to 5% avg, and quite a lot easier than Paterberg, which only gets 7% that km. Mayne time to re-assess Paterberg and Koppenberg anyway since those, together with the Oude Kwaremont, are the real deciders anyway, and then 7** feels really soft for the Paterberg... Anyway, Eikenberg 5% or 6%, given the place on the parcours that decision very unlikely to devide the outcome. What do others think?

-Kerkgate: will recheck. Pavé sections harder to design for me compared to (pavé) hills. Went based off climbfinder, but maybe even have to check if they do the entire climbfinder climb. Will take another look at it later when I add the other flat pavé sections.

Eikenberg: I have no more insights, but in case of doubt, probably leave it as it was last year?

Paterberg: Can be re-assessed. I guess the argument for ** was always that it's only 400m in real life.

Kerkgate: I have no more insight, either, unfortunately.

Let me know when I can publish. RVV is coming soon

[Falcor CC]

Ronde van Vlaanderen final adjustments

-Kerkgate-Jagerij changed to match 2024 (3** 1 0 0*), Donkeys explanation makes sense and matches that profile. Haven't been there myself, which is different for the next point.

-Eikenberg kept at 5%. Would be fine with either 5 or 6, but in comparison to Kwaremont, Paterberg, Koppenberg, I don't think it should be classified as a red km on rsf. Rode there myself, and it is really just a tempo climb where I assume guys like vdP and WvA are actually stronger than Pogacar, hence I choose to make the km so that type of riders benefit.

-Added Marioborrestraat. Normally it is in combination with the Steenbeekdries, but they don't ride that because of contruction there. The combination was 3*** 0*** in 2024. Now they turn left instead of right for a downhill part after about 800m of Mariaborrestraat (just shy of a 2.5% avg), while the section with Steenbeekdries is over 1km. After 800m they go downhill on asphalt. Gpx shows climb starts km138 and has half of it in km238 and half of it in 239, which leads to -1% and 0% because of the slight downhill before and after. Mariaborrestraat also with new, better (easier) cobbles. Decided to tweak it a little here and make it 3**% -4% over the 2kms.

Seems like all is done from my side now. After potential feedback and final adjustments based on that feedback it should be ready to be published.

Edit after seeing Gips post: decided to change Eikenberg anyways, but if others prefer 6%, I have 0 problems with that. As for Pater it's mostly the steepness I'm worried about, not the quality of the cobbles^^

[Tukhtahuaev]

Maybe we should reassess Paterberg/Koppenberg for next year? For this year I don't think it would be good to change it since everyone already planned for them as they were the last years and it might significantly change how they play out

[Robyklebt]

We sort of had a discussion about it in this thread after last years Flanders in this thread.

[Robyklebt]

Route 2026 is different from Route 2025:

- Total Climbs: Increased to 12 (compared to 10-11 in previous editions).
- New Climbs: Added Hellestraat (km 48) and Onderbossenaarstraat (km 107, 1.4km long, 10% max).
- Earlier Climbing: The hill zone begins 21km earlier than in 2025, with climbing starting after 47.7km (-> Hellestraat).
- Structure: The race retains the familiar Flemish Ardennes key spots, including double ascents of Berg Ten Houte, Côte de Trieu, and Hotond, with 7 cobblestone sections.
- Finish: The finale remains in Waregem after a double loop via the Nokereberg and Herlegemstraat.
- Length: approximately 185km

Source: Cyclingstage.com and official homepage as well as La FlammeRouge.

GPX-File: https://cdn.cyclingstage.com/images/dwa ... /route.gpx

With

Hellestraat +4 +4
Onderbossenaarstraat / Bossenaarberg +7 +3

Taking comments until early tomorrow morning, when I am going to publish it.

Comment now for 2027. Eikenberg has cobblestones. Has been ** for us. 6** or starting from Flanders 26 5**, both ok.
But that's why it can help to write out all the hills and cobbles we ride here in this thread for each or most races. New ones more important, old ones nice too. Easier to catch mistakes. The mistake can happen, no problem, but by writing it here, chances are just bigger somebody catches the miss, or the designer himself when he writes it out and remembers that that Eikenberg used to have **. I checked a bit other races designed by newer designers, didn't check this, Gipfel is experienced enough, thought ok, but if it had been written out chances would have been much bigger that I catch it. Guess it doesnt' change much in the race, can happen, but better to have it with cobbles.. .next year then.

[Gipfelstuermer]

Comment now for 2027. Eikenberg has cobblestones. Has been ** for us. 6** or starting from Flanders 26 5**, both ok.
But that's why it can help to write out all the hills and cobbles we ride here in this thread for each or most races. New ones more important, old ones nice too. Easier to catch mistakes. The mistake can happen, no problem, but by writing it here, chances are just bigger somebody catches the miss, or the designer himself when he writes it out and remembers that that Eikenberg used to have **. I checked a bit other races designed by newer designers, didn't check this, Gipfel is experienced enough, thought ok, but if it had been written out chances would have been much bigger that I catch it. Guess it doesnt' change much in the race, can happen, but better to have it with cobbles.. .next year then.

Someone with your attention to detail could be a great race designer.

Anyway my design, my bad. As I will explain below.

My research tells me they changed the route in 2025:

Some changes vs. 24:
- Different route from Roeselare to Berchem (without Varent)
- Trieu-Hotond twice in same direction
- no Kanarieberg
- in total 5km shorter (in RSF only 4km)

No one spotted the change from Ladeuze to Eikenberg, likely because Ladeuze is +6, like Eikenberg, and on the map right next to Eikenberg.

When I have a lot of time, I write down all the bergs/difficulties.
If I have limited time I only write down the changes vs. previous year.
And if I have no time at all I dont write anything.

So the truth is we are not riding a +6 Eikenberg today. We still ride Ladeuze.

This brings me back to the problem that I designed it 3 days before the race with no time at all. Which is not much fun. Too hectic. Increases risk for errors massively. But I prefer a 99% correct version over riding last year's version without any checks, either. So I do these hectic designs sometimes. Hope to avoid them somehow in the future. It's more fun when you actually have spare time for design. Instead of doing a 10min hectic design make a coffee, spend 1 hour on one race, write down all the bergs. Would be a dream.