{"id":573982,"date":"2026-04-01T00:09:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T00:09:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/573982\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T00:09:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T00:09:24","slug":"cobbles-classics-recon-with-ef-education-oatly-%f0%9f%87%ba%f0%9f%87%b8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/573982\/","title":{"rendered":"Cobbles Classics recon with EF Education-Oatly \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Making a list and checking it twice, EF Education-Oatly are coming to town. \ud83d\udcf8 Keir Plaice<\/a>\/EF Pro Cycling.<\/p>\n

Hauwaart 88, 9700 Oudenaarde.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a corner junction where an old fruit market once stood. The doors are boarded up, the weeds are seeping across the car park, and it\u2019s just an innocuous crossing in Belgium with nothing remarkable about it.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m here because these are the coordinates I was sent by EF Education-Oatly\u2019s Huub Duyn the previous evening after the sports director and I agreed to meet ahead of the team\u2019s recon of Dwars door Vlaanderen.<\/p>\n

Get 20% off for 1 year<\/a><\/p>\n

Follow me on: Twitter<\/a> \ud83d\udfe2 \u2014 Instagram<\/a> \ud83d\udd34 \u2014 Bluesky<\/a> \ud83d\udd35<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 10:45 am, and just like clockwork, the big pink team bus arrives with two team cars in tow. In the blink of an eye, the bikes are unloaded, and the riders\u2019 machines are lined up outside the bus. Duyn and fellow sports director Daniel Foder gather for a last-minute chat, as the athletes make their final preparations.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The full race route. The team would recon the most important sectors before the finish.<\/p>\n

Ahead of them lie around 70km of recon, with seven athletes set to tackle the most demanding part of Wednesday\u2019s course, starting with the Berg Ten Houte climb and running through until the final lap around the finish in Waregem – the scene where the team\u2019s Neilson Powless took on three Visma-Lease a Bike riders in 2025, and won.<\/p>\n