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WORKWEEK CLASSICS

Dwars door Vlaanderen and E3 Harelbeke

By Gruber Images

April 2^nd, 2015

it started with rain.

Last year’s Dwars door Vlaanderen race start was a wet one. The only difference between last year and 2015? The rain stopped a few minutes after the race started, and it was dry and sunny for the rest of the Classics. Not so in 2015 - it started wet and cold - and so it has stayed ever since.

****On a sidenote: this is NOT like yesterday’s Gent-Wevelgem post. These races were not held under some of the most extreme conditions we’ve seen in recent memory, and in the case of Dwars door Vlaanderen, the race is over a week old at this point. This is all ancient history. Forgive me for revisiting these old races, but I just got started with all of this yesterday. I’m trying to catch up!

Early going.

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water and rocks.

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Holleweg

I normally try to stay semi-focused on the race, to the point where I have a hard time editing non-race shots. This year, I’ve been trying to pay a little more attention to non-race images, and a funny thing happened in this spot: I realized that I liked the shots before and after the race more than I liked the actual race shots.

eikenberg.

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grim.

There were no smiling faces after the Taaienberg - just a lot of remnants of a once intact field - and pain.

rainy paterberg.

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terpstra.

The #1 on your back doesn’t ever seem to help much. They always talk about the curse of the rainbow jersey, but how many times do you see a repeat winner in cycling? This rhetorical question excludes cyclocross.

Van baarle.

Dylan van Baarle always looks like he’s about to fall asleep. True or false?

heading to waregem.

…by way of the last sector of cobbles, I mean, dirt path. It’s Varent. Can you call it cobbled if no one rides the cobbles? I guess so, otherwise, the Taaienberg and Paterberg would be cobbled only one day per year.

unbelievable finale.

Topsport 1-2? Who would have picked that in a million years???

after the fight.

Exhausted, dirty, stunned faces after the race in Waregem.

race starts.

If I’m honest, I’ll tell you I really dislike them. If I’m being diplomatic, I’ll say - they’re not my favorite.

a day off, then it's back to work.

Well, for some. The big hitters generally took Wednesday off, but a solid portion of the field got a Wednesday/Friday hit. DDV is a solid race, but for me, E3 is the race. I think it might be one of my favorites of the year.

Nothing special here.

But man, I do like this little series.

boigneberg.

If you ride in Flanders, make sure to ride up the sequence of Boigneberg/Kapelleberg or Kapelleberg/Boigneberg. They’re way better than the Eikenberg. The Eikenberg just has cobbles, it’s the only reason most anyone has ever heard of it.

Kapelleberg.

It used to be a beautiful, wooded climb/descent, but Belgium has gone tree cutting crazy this year, and it lost a huge swath of trees above the road. Sad to see the trees go, but it made for an interesting new angle. In other news, this descent is scary.

Stationsberg.

It’s a nasty little climb on a wide road that always seems to find its way into the E3. Admittedly, this is a much nicer proposition than the Ronde’s version, which starts with the Mariaborrestraat (flat cobbles), then Steenbeekdries (uphill cobbles), and Stationsberg (downhill cobbles). It’s a menace.

koren's attack

The field chases, while the Koppenberg looms behind, waiting for next weekend.

From Paterberg to koppenberg.

This is one of my favorite places anywhere. It’s wide open with winding miniature roads. It has an amazing feel.

Window seat.

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like i said...

I love the fields between the Paterberg and the Koppenberg.

The view i will always remember

…it might be this one. It’s not the greatest shot in the world, but it says a lot to me. I can feel this moment, and when I’m old and laid up with a bad back, reminiscing about the good old days, a scene like this will be in my mind, and I’ll smile. This is Belgium to me. It’s not rain or mud or cobbles - it’s the fields and the thousands of tiny roads and the fields and the houses and the rows of trees.

Paterberg.

Geraint Thomas was a fair way back on the Paterberg - making it all the more impressive that he got himself into the winning break by the top of the Kwaremont only a few minutes later.

oude Kwaremont

We weren’t supposed to shoot the Kwaremont, but at the last moment, Yoeri made a game time call to give it a go, which meant stopping, jumping out of the car, and sprinting as fast as I could to arrive just in time to see Stybar leading the charge. I felt like a biathlete - 190 heart rate, sling the camera around the shoulder, charge through the crowd apologizing as I go, then trying to get a peek through the heads, arms, and hands.

karnemelkbeekstraat

It’s a mouthful, but man, this is a good climb.

varent.

The break was up the road and never to be seen again - save for Sagan - but they didn’t know it at this moment, and Greg Van Avermaet hadn’t crashed yet, so the chase was full on.