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In Belgium they protest paving cobbles

Cobbles purist in Belgium fights the good fight

Belgium cycling fans are a passionate bunch. Audience share in the final hours of the Tour of Flanders averages 75 per cent with three out of four televisions in Belgian households tuning in to some part of the final four hours of the race. An estimated one million people line the roads of Flanders for the race. They also know their local bergs and cobbled sections like the back of their hand. Those sections of road are sacred ground and even bring out protesters.

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Ahead of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, road crews in the municipality of Maarkedal in Belgium were paving over the shoulder of the Eikenberg. It’s a climb that features in a number of the Flanders Classics and is 1,252 m long avering 5.8 per cent with max gradients of 10 per cent.

The shoulder of cobbled sections are often used by riders to get a smoother ride avoiding the slipperier and bumpy middle section of road. It’s not cheating per say but the purists don’t like it. A cycling vigilante was filmed trying to disrupt the paving ahead of the spring classic season opener.

“War, police brutality, global warming, Trump… In Belgium we only protest against real matters, like paving cobblestone climbs,” read the Instagram caption.

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Demonstrations in Europe are not uncommon and in 2015 if you watched Flanders the roads were lined with farmers protesting. This protest was in response of a much more trivial matter perhaps in the grand scheme of things but not to hardcore cycling fanatics and cobble purists.

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