Belgium: sometimes it gives, sometimes it takes. The Classics can offer up warm air run through with the scent of blossom. But days later – almost in the same breath – they can pummel riders with the kind of unbearable weather conditions that send riders home swathed in blankets, shattered and shivering, thousand yard stares looking vacantly through excited onlookers and eager TV cameras.
Wednesday's La Flèche Wallonne was one of those days, one of those races. In the women's race not much more than half the field finished, while in the men's event the weather scythed through the field like a farmer on a hot September afternoon. But Flèche was anything but hot. Seven degrees and less, with a north-westerly that drove cruelly through the bunch, paring it down despite efforts to the contrary, with jackets and even leg-warmers abound.
