Insider's guide: Climbs of the Ronde van Vlaanderen

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The steepest section of the Molenberg (Image credit: Ben Atkins)

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This climb can take the uninitiated by surprise. The course is rolling along quite comfortably along a nice, flat, well surfaced road when it suddenly takes a sharp right turn and is faced with a steep wall of cobbles. First time riders may find themselves almost grinding to a halt as they're stuck in too big a gear, simply because they weren't expecting it. The steepest section is near the middle before it begins to ease off and the cobbles give way to asphalt for the last few metres.

Despite being pretty steep, and the race's first exposure to uphill cobbles, there's not too much to trouble anyone here. Legs will be pretty fresh for all but the domestiques who've been doing all the work up to this point. The favourites will want to be near the front, because the climb is narrow and they won't want to be delayed behind any slower riders, but it's unlikely that any of them will show their hand at all this early on.

With a maximum gradient of 11.6%, it's not going to put too many riders in trouble, apart from those who are already getting tired, but the mere fact that it has 1600m of uphill cobbles really makes this one felt. Generally, this is the point where one of the stronger teams starts to gently turn the screw by putting a few men on the front and increasing the pace a notch. This is to jettison as many of the weaker riders as possible, but also to get their man into a good position for the next climb where things start to get serious.

This one is a real monster. The riders turn a sharp right-hander at the bottom and it just rears up in front of them. With a maximum gradient of over 20% it gets steeper and steeper, not letting up until the top - and it's cobbled all the way up. The only saving grace is that it's mercifully short, and also, due to it's exposed position it dries pretty quickly, so if it's showery then it doesn't stay too slippery for long.

With 76km still to go, it's still a bit early for a race-winning move, but its ferocity is usually too much for some to resist. Expect to see a dig from one of the favourites - probably the one whose team was putting the pressure on at Oude Kwaremont. This may have the effect of pulling a smallish group clear, as Boonen's attack on the Koppenberg did last year. Any favourites missing this split will have to get their team to do an awful lot of work to get them back, and they may well find that they've missed the boat.

In the absence of the Koppenberg (they generally use one or the other as they're not very far apart) this is the climb to use to get the race back in the direction it wants to go in. Similar in many ways to the Knokteberg, it starts of gently enough before steadily getting tougher and tougher as it winds its way through the woods. The asphalt is fairly smooth, but is usually covered in mud and gravel from the high banks on either side. If it's wet it could be fairly slippery.

The only difficulties facing riders on this climb is the fact that it is cobbled and comes at the end of a flat stretch of cobbles that will give stronger teams the opportunity to put the hurt on those riders who aren't so proficient at riding them. What's more frightening is the descent down the other side, a straight cobbled road that's steeper than the one they just climbed up - so much so that, if the direction of the course didn't dictate it, you'd expect them to be racing up this side (in fact, when this climb was first introduced in 2002, fans of Nico Mattan painted his name on the downward side - assuming that the course would climb up that way).

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