Feel The Race: Smelling Flanders

The Tour of Flanders is a complex essence requiring many different ingredients. The best cyclists in the world, the roads of the Belgian countryside, the most animated fans of the whole season and the history of cycling.

Flanders is the smell of clean air breathed in deeply by fans opening the doors of their camper vans early in the morning, already in place to see the race.

It’s the smell of embrocation before the start.

It’s the smell of motorbike exhaust that fills your lungs and makes you cough whilst you climb 20% cobbled grades.

It’s the smell of wild poppies and flowers hanging from the balconies of red houses, all the same, that you pass through a million times, before the endless straight that leads to Oudenaarde.

Flanders is the smell of incense and candles typical of a sacred place like the Kappelmuur and of the most famous church in cycling. A smell that goes hand in hand with a ritual that is repeated every year, always the same and always different in its nuances.

It’s the smell of malt of the Belgian beer. Whether double or triple, it’s strong, full-bodied and complex. The kind of smell that in a pub lets you know, even without looking, that they have that beer on tap. A smell that makes you smile, because it’s your favourite beer, but also that makes you think that it will be a complicated evening.

You can find the smell of beer amongst the fans on the Murs too. A smell that hour after hour becomes increasingly intense, as there is as much beer in the glasses as there is on people’s clothes and in the fields behind the barriers. Between the tussles to get a good viewing spot and the rising merriment, spillages are common place. 

It’s the sweet smell of chocolate and icing sugar on a waffle, mingled with the smell of frites and the smell of burning fat in the grills working round the clock.

Flanders is the smell of manure in the fields crossed by the race, an albeit small price to pay in order to see such a magnificent show.

This year’s Tour of Flanders had the smell of burning that you start smelling when you stop during the sprint, risking that the two behind catch up. It’s the same smell of burning that you can smell during a barbecue: one minute the meat is raw and the next it’s charcoal. To win a sprint at the Tour of Flanders you must be able to seize the right moment. 

For Tadej Pogacar it’s like the smell of truffles. When you smell it the first time, it’s almost unpleasant. But as soon as you get used to it, it becomes the best smell in the world. You just have to get used to it and he looks like someone who will soon get used to it.

For Van der Poel it’s the smell of wine in the press room, after the winner’s champagne spray on the stage. Not an altogether pleasant smell on your clothes, but what do you care. You’ve just won the Tour of Flanders.

It’s a complex and expensive perfume. Everyone has a different one, but we all have one that we use for the great occasions and important appointments. Flanders is just such an occasion, whether you’re a racer or a fan, it’s an unmissable event. The first of the three most important weeks in the cycling calendar.