March 27, 12:30 p.m.
Dwars door Vlaanderen officially began.
This route started from Roeselare, a city in western Belgium. After riding 32 kilometers of flat roads, the riders would first pass through Waregem, where the finish line was located.
Judging by the straight-line distance alone, the start and finish were very close together.
But during the first lap, the riders would not pass the stretch containing the finish line. Instead, they would take a detour along the roads beside it.
They then had to head east in a wide loop, passing through twelve climbs and nine cobbled sectors before circling back west to Waregem.
Those nine cobbled sectors were practically nine more climbs. The immense friction of the cobbles not only made riding extremely difficult and greatly increased rolling resistance, but their irregular bouncing also left the entire body numb from the vibrations.
As a top-tier one-day classic, the race saw no fewer than eight riders attack the moment it began. They were Abrahamsen of Uno-X, Dries De Bondt of Decathlon–AG2R La Mondiale, Mathias Norsgaard of Movistar Team, Thomas Gachignard of the TotalEnergies team, Dries De Pooter of Intermarché–Wanty, Pascal Eenkhoorn of the Lotto team, Casper Pedersen of the Quick-Step team, and Amund Jansen of Jayco AlUla.
Huang Chong was familiar with only a few of those eight breakaway riders. He knew Abrahamsen, Dries De Bondt, and Pedersen from the Quick-Step team.
Both Abrahamsen and Dries De Bondt were riders capable of threatening the overall standings.
But as a domestique, since Aldag had not ordered him into the breakaway, he would naturally remain in the peloton and advance steadily.
For this 188.6-kilometer classic, the first fifty kilometers were naturally the easiest, consisting entirely of flat roads with barely any elevation changes.
During that stretch, Trek, Ineos, and Visma–Lease a Bike—the