Tour of Flanders

Experiment with your tyre
Experiment with your tyre pressures, i.e. you want them lower than usual and I’d go for 25mm at least. Double bar tape recommended. For me the hardest parts are the long cobbled sections, Maria borrestraat, Paddestraat and another one I forget the name of which is impossibly terrible, flat but it just shudders you to smithereens! Koppenberg certainly harder than Paterberg imo. You want to power over the cobbles, rather than spin, but expect people in front of you to either come to a sudden stop or fall off, yes it is that much fun!

get some super low gearing,
get some super low gearing, its not that you maybe about to get up these things with a bigger gear its the fact that there will be masses of riders that will be walking & getting in the way, so you have to think of this a bit like you would when doing technical MTB! The Paterberg comes really sudden on a tight right hand bend where you will probably be in 53×12 keep an eye out for the banners of it on the way down to it & you should have warning enough to drop to the small ring before its too late. The Koppenberg also comes after a tight right hand bend but this starts a bit more calm & turns into a cobbled cliff further up. We have it as a indoor trainer ride for our free software noted in the other thread . The old Kwaremont is for me the worst of all the climbs as its so long, its will sap everything out of you, I hated racing up this thing back in my day.