While other Crest members were doing The Vercors, Pete Wragg was in Oudenaarde to ride The Retro Ronde van Vlaanderen.
The Retro Ronde is a 120 km ride on bikes that had to be built before 1987. This basically means down tube gear levers, brake cables coming out of the top of the brake levers, non index gears and mostly steel frames. Additionally all riders have to wear pre 1987 kit or replicas.
The course was round the Flemish Ardennes. Short sharp hills including some which are ridden in The Tour of Flanders such as Oude Kwaremont and the Molenberg,
So as you can imagine this means cobbles and also quite a few farm tracks! Fortunately it was warm and dry until the last 20 minutes with a heavy thunder shower, just right to cool down.
Peter Wragg