Oudenaarde is a quiet Flemish town on the river Scheldt, and for a few weeks each spring it becomes the centre of the cycling world. The Tour of Flanders has finished here since 2012, and the town has built a museum around the event, so riders on two wheels of the pedalled kind and the engine kind share an obsession with the surrounding hills. The Flemish Ardennes, as they are called, are no mountains, only a rolling ridge of short, steep slopes laid with cobbles, but the names are legends in the sport: the Kwaremont, the Koppenberg, the Paterberg.
The town's old heart is the market square, and on it stands one of the finest town halls in Belgium, a lace-like Brabantine Gothic building from the early sixteenth century with a slender belfry. Oudenaarde was once famous for tapestry, and its weavers supplied the courts of Europe. In 1708 the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene beat a French army here in one of the great battles of the War of the Spanish Succession.
For a rider on a heavy motorbike, cobbled climbs are a different challenge. They are slick when wet, uneven and lined with fans on race days, so enjoy the scenery from the paved parallel roads unless you ride something light. The surrounding lanes through Zottegem, Kluisbergen and Ronse wind between hedges and farms and are lovely on a calm morning, though you will meet dozens of club cyclists, especially at weekends, so keep your speed polite.
Fuel is straightforward in a town of nearly twenty-eight thousand, and cafes around the Markt serve the Flemish classics: carbonnade stewed in beer, fresh waffles, and the local brown beers. The Flemish Ardennes also have a sour red ale tradition, and Oudenaarde was the home of Liefmans brewery.
April is the cycling month and also the busiest; choose September for warm, quiet days and the smell of cut hay.