Tour of Flanders Sportive (Ronde van Vlaanderen) 2025

2025 sees the 108th edition of the Ronde van Vlaanderen (or Tour of Flanders in English), one of cycling's legendary Spring Classics.

Entries open on Friday 4 October 2024.

Each year the day before the pros battle it out a sportive is held to allow the public to share the experience of riding the famous cobbles of Flanders in one of the highlights of the sportive calendar.

Four distances are on offer ranging from 80km to 242km. The longest distance (242 km) will start from Bruges and finish in Oudenaarde. All other routes start and finish in Oudenaarde.

Tour of Flanders

Those thinking of riding the original, Spring edition of Vlaanderens mooiste ("Flanders' finest") had best be prepared for some serious endurance riding.

There are typically four distances on offer, and the exact distance varies depending on the start location. For 2025 you can choose from 242km, 177km, 144km, and 80km.

Each route features a generous helping of the trademark Belgian cobblestones to tackle. How tough the route is depends largely on the weather - it can be anywhere from close to freezing to 18 degrees in Belgium in early April and bad weather can make the Tour of Flanders pretty tough for even highly experienced riders.

There are feed stations roughly every 30km along the route, stocked with energy bars, waffles and fruit (mainly bananas and orange segments).

You may want to fit new bottle cages to your bike that will hold your bottles tightly over the cobbled sections - although it is nothing like Paris Roubaix in terms of roughness of surface plenty of riders in previous years have said they lost bottles thanks to having plastic lightweight bottle holders or carbon ones that simply didn't grip tightly enough.

Cobbled highlights to look forward to include:

• Molenberg: Molenberg, Zwalm. Climbs 32m from 24m to 56m. Maximum 17 per cent.
• Oude Kwaremont: Broekstraat, Kwaremontplein, Schilderstraat, Kluisbergen. Climbs 93m from 18m to 111m. Maximum 11 per cent.
• Koppenberg: Steengat, Koppenberg, Oudenaarde-Melden. Climbs 64m from 13m to 77m; Maximum 25 per cent at inside of bend, otherwise 22 per cent.
• Taaienberg: Taaienberg, Maarkedal-Etikhove. Climbs 45m from 37m to 82m. Maximum 18 per cent.
• Berg ter Stene: Stene, Horebeke. Climbs 68m from 32m to 100m. Maximum 9 per cent.
• Leberg: Leberg, Brakel-Zegelsem. Climbs 39m from 60m to 9m. Maximum 15 per cent.
• Berendries: Berendries, Brakel-Sint-Maria-Oudenhove. Climbs 65m from 33m to 98m. Maximum 14 per cent.
• Valkenberg: Valkenbergstraat, Brakel-Nederbrakel. Climbs 53m from 45m to 98m. Maximum 15 per cent.
• Muur-Kapelmuur: Abdijstraat, Ouderbergstraat, Oudeberg, Gerardsbergen. Climbs 77m from 33m to 110m. Maximum 20 per cent.
• Bosberg: Kapellestraat, Geraardsbergen-Moerbeke. Climbs 40m from 65m to 105m. Maximum 11 per cent.
• Tenbosse: Olifantstraat, Brakel. Climbs 28m from 45m to 73m. Maximum 14 per cent.

If you go to ride this event make sure you book yourself into the hotel long enough to experience the pro riders in the actual Tour of Flanders the next day. This is the race that stops Belgium...when Fabian Cancellara won in 2014, 85.7% of the population of the country watched his victory either live or on television!

Check out some more information on riding the Tour of Flanders:

• Louise Bell rides the 2023 edition of the Ronde
• Keith Gilks' 2016 Tour of Flanders ride report
• Oisin Sands' 2014 Tour of Flanders ride report 
• Tips for riding the Tour of Flanders for the first time