There are days in cycling that you remember for a lifetime. Stand out moments etched in your memory. If it isn’t already, the Tour of Flanders has to become one of them.
On a Sunday in early April, 278 kilometers from Antwerp to Oudenaarde, across cobblestones that have cracked knees and broken hearts for over a century, the 110th edition of the Tour of Flanders delivered everything the race has always promised and one more reminder that we may be watching the greatest Monument racer of his generation at the very peak of his powers.
The Race
Tadej Pogačar won. Again. His third Tour of Flanders title, a record-equaling performance, arrived in the way his victories so often do: a decisive solo move on the roads that matter most, the Oude Kwaremont and Paterberg delivering the final verdict long before Oudenaarde came into view.
Mathieu van der Poel crossed the line second, close enough to make the race feel contested, not quite close enough to change the outcome. And in one of the afternoon’s great storylines, Remco Evenepoel made his long-awaited Tour of Flanders debut count, finishing on the podium in a statement performance that suggests the race’s next chapter is already being written.
In the women’s race, Demi Vollering finally got the win that has been building for years. A solo move on the Oude Kwaremont, the same climb that decided the men’s race, carried her clear. It was the kind of victory that feels earned in the deepest sense, not just on the day, but across every hard season that came before it.
Both races were decided where Flanders is always decided: on the climbs, in the cobbles, in the final hour when legs give out and only the strongest survive.
What Made This Year Special
Pogačar’s third Flanders win is the kind of result that rewrites the record books while simultaneously making you wonder what’s left for him to prove. He has now won the Tour de France multiple times, collected Monuments like they’re stages, and continued to treat the hardest races in the world as opportunities rather than obstacles. Watching him attack on the Kwaremont, the crowd packed so tight riders can barely pass, the gradient savage enough to crack anyone, is to watch cycling reduced to its purest form.
But the story of the day wasn’t only Pogačar. It was Evenepoel stepping onto the Flanders podium on debut. It was Van der Poel pushing all the way to the finish. It was Vollering’s release of years of near-misses. And it was the race itself, 16 climbs, 7 cobbled sections, a route that has no mercy for weakness and no patience for tactics that don’t hold up under pressure.
This was a Monument at its absolute best.
The Decisive Climb: Oude Kwaremont
If you want to understand where Tour of Flanders is really won and lost, you don’t need to study the full 278-kilometer route map. You just need to know one name: Oude Kwaremont.
This is the climb that broke the race open today in both the men’s and women’s events. Vollering made her winning move here first, going clear on the Kwaremont’s long, grinding cobbled ascent and never looking back. Hours later, Pogačar did the same. Van der Poel gave everything he had in response and still finished six seconds back at the line. Six seconds, after 278 kilometers. That is what the Kwaremont does. It looks survivable until the moment it isn’t.
We know this climb from the inside. In 2025, we were roadside on the Kwaremont watching the race come through twice, and nothing quite prepares you for it. You hear the lead group before you see them. Then they’re on you, inches away, faces completely empty of expression because there is nothing left to give to anything except the road ahead. The crowd is screaming, flags are swinging, and the riders pass through it all like it isn’t happening. Standing there, you don’t just watch the race. You feel the full weight of what these athletes are actually doing.
That is the Oude Kwaremont. And in 2026, it was once again the place where everything was decided.
Why You Should Have Been There, and Why 2027 is the Year
Here’s what television doesn’t show you.
The sound of the peloton approaching the Koppenberg before you can see it. The way the cobblestones vibrate under your feet when 200 riders hit them at speed. The wall of people packed onto the Oude Kwaremont so tightly that riders seem to pass through a tunnel of noise and outstretched arms. The smell of frites and Belgian beer mixed with early April cold. The moment a solo rider appears at the top of the Paterberg and you realize, before the TV cameras confirm it, that the race is over.
None of that comes through a screen. All of it is available to you in person.
The Tour of Flanders is not just one of cycling’s greatest races. It is one of the greatest live sporting experiences in the world, a full cultural event wrapped around a bike race, held in a region that treats it as a national holiday. And the 2026 edition, with its record-tying champion, its fairytale women’s winner, and its drama that played out on the most iconic roads in the sport, is exactly the kind of race that makes you put 2027 in your calendar before the podium ceremony is even finished.
A 2027 camp is the smartest way to do it. The viewing spots you won’t find on your own. The logistics sorted so you’re not scrambling on race morning. The chance to ride the same cobbles, the same bergs, the same roads that decided today’s race before or after the pros do it for real. The shared experience of spending the day with other people who understand exactly why this matters.
Flanders isn’t something you should watch forever and visit someday. It’s something you experience once and return to for the rest of your life.
The Holy Week Continues
In cycling, they call this the Holy Week.
Flanders last Sunday. Roubaix this Sunday. The two greatest cobbled classics in the world, back to back, one week apart.
Sunday was Flanders. The bergs, the Kwaremont, the Paterberg, the vertical stadiums packed with screaming fans. Pogačar rewrote the record books. Vollering got the win that has been building for years.
This Sunday is Roubaix. The Hell of the North. 257 kilometers across 30 sectors of pavé that have been destroying legs and dreams since 1896.
If Flanders is a cathedral, Roubaix is a battlefield.
The Holy Week isn’t over, and 2027 is closer than you think.
Ready to stop watching from the couch? Join the Avanti Tours Spring Classics 2027 waitlist.