The UK is bracing for Storm Dave to make landfall this weekend, bringing gale force winds and heavy rain – but Belgium is likely to escape with only moderate winds.
Tiesj Benoot during the very wet 2024 Tour of Flanders. Photo: Jered Gruber.
Gruber Images, Cor Vos
For those of us in the British Isles, especially in the north of our verdant archipelago, Good Friday finds us bracing for the arrival of a low-pressure system from the Atlantic, which the Met Office has named ‘Storm Dave’. With heavy rain and strong winds expected to pick up on Saturday evening and persist until early afternoon Sunday, cycling fans may wonder what impact could be felt across the Channel in Belgium for Sunday’s Tour of Flanders double bill.
The Spring Classics are not for the fair-weather riders among us. But even the most wind-averse cycling fans derive a masochistic delight from whatever severe weather might be inflicted on their sporting heroes. Milan-San Remo 2013, Gent-Wevelgem 2015, Paris-Roubaix 2021, Tour of Flanders 2024 – just a few one-day races that were influenced by or especially memorable due to the weather, from a blizzard-enforced mid-race bus transfer to a muddy stomp up the Koppenberg.
The peloton split into echelons during Gent-Wevelgem 2025.
The idea of gusts of at least 60 mph (97 km/h) in parts of northern Europe, plus the threat of persistent downpours, and even blizzards on high ground, would of course have an enormous impact on a bike race – and probably who would turn up – however, it looks like Belgium is going to escape relatively unharmed.
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