Famous Belgian Climbs and an Epic Ride

Today Rus, Brian and I decided we were going to do an epic ride that went over some of the famous climbs of the Tour of Flanders. The route we took coverse 170K and goes over at least famous climbs that i know of. There were a few other climbs but i am not sure of their names. This was a tough ride to say the least. These cobbled climbs are extremely difficult. The Kwarmont is suprising long and i would say about 1k in length but of course cobbled and very steep. The steepest climb would have to go to the Patersburg. This climb is about 25% in grade, cobbled and probably the toughest climb i have done. There are cars that wouldn't make it up this climb. The ride went well and we had pretty decent weather. It ended up taking about 6.5hrs to do the loop and all i can say is i can't imagine racing on that terrain. I am pretty tired after that ride and we just rode the loop casually. Add another 80K or so and do it at race pace and you will find out what kind of a bike racer you are. It really is some tough man kind of stuff. Well, that is the end of that story, it definatly goes down as one of my top 5 rides ever. Thanks for reading, bye bye til next time.