Classics

Cycling is the second most important sport in Belgium. This time of the year, various one day races captivate the country in front of their television, often twice a week. They are known as "the classics". Many of the spring one day races happen in Belgium: take a look at the calendar of one day races. Among them Gent-Wevelgem, Brabantse Pijl, Ronde van Vlaanderen, Waalse Pijl Liege-Bastogne-Liege and others.

My top three classic races are: (1) Ronde van Vlaanderen - tour of Flanders (rvv.be) (2) Paris - Roubaix and (3) Liege-Bastogne-Liege.

Naturally I try to follow the races on the internet. There are various ways to follow the races. Cycling.tv provides a subscription video feed. Sporza Radio broadcasts the races live. (Sporza, part of VRT, is the sport channel of the publicly funded national Belgian broadcasting station in Flemish). Unfortunately, the Sporza video stream is only if you live in Belgium, as the contracts with the race organizers prohibit broadcast to other countries.

Voor wie niet in België woont...
De livestreaming van sporza.be is in het buitenland niet te bekijken, omdat er rechten op de beelden rusten. De eigenaars van de contracten (de organisatoren van de evenementen) zeggen uitdrukkelijk dat de beelden alleen op het Belgische grondgebied te bekijken mogen zijn

Anonymous internet proxies to the rescue! With any luck I will be able to follow the Ronde van Vlaanderen with the help of an anonymous internet proxy in Belgium (e.g. from aliveProxy). If you know any good ones, let me know.