At 9:30am, Rufino Martellini, the UCI assigned Jury President, arrives. He greets everyone. Every time a new person enters the room, a round of handshakes occur. After assessing the situation and getting a briefing from Patrick DeMunter, we go for the inspection of the race course at 10am. The three UCI commissaries, the arrival judge, and one other Belgian commissaire with two members of the race organization walk the race course backwards. For the sake of understanding what the racers would see, the description below will be walking the race course forwards. The juniors would take eight minutes to do the lap. The Elites did nine laps in an hour.

Think of the race course as three plateaus: the lower section going through an athletic field near the permenance; the middle section one tier higher through the town; and the upper section much much higher in an athletic field around a corn field. In total, the racers would climb, I would estimate, two hundred feet per lap.

The starting zone is located in the middle section in town. The starting grid is laid out in a block that is not used in the normal race course. The grid has eight lanes, but the two side lanes are partially blocked by advertising panels. This race extensively uses steel barricades with the feet that protrude out to stabilize the barricade. Thus, the advertising panels were set at an angle to cover these feet and thus the side lanes were partially blocked. This same zone would be opened up again to allow sprinting riders a straight section after the line.

The start goes backwards, going south, towards the finishing line to allow maybe two hundred meters of straight away before the first turn. They take a small loop that then puts them back on the race course in the opposite direction, not going through the finish line, but up a slight hill through a grassy area heading northwest.

The weather in Belgium during winter is nothing to write home about. It’s grey, no sun, and always threatens to rain or it rains or it just spits a bit. Today it threatened. It must have rained a couple of days earlier as the dirt sections were moist, and there were numerous mud pits. That said, given the snow races in the northeast this year, the weather was just perfect today.

So this grassy area, somewhat moist and somewhat soft mud by the Elite race, passed by a hamburger stand and fries stand (frituur), and then rounded a tent and went back into the town. A short northerly road through the town and then left an uphill paved climb of 300-350 meters in length. The bottom looked like an 8% grade softening to 5-6% near the top all the time climbing through residential apartments and townhouses, Belgian style ones. This is short enough to stand up and power your way to the top, but at aerobic cost. The climb rounded to a short straight section paralleling the tramline going south and then takes a sharp right across a bridge over the tramway. Another right hand turn after the bridge ends and you’re passing the "beer" tent on the left of the course. This huge long white tent looks like it could host a couple hundred people.

The course is now on the uppermost portion of the race and goes straight for 50-60 meters paralleling the tram line going north. Then a short descent into a 150 degree turn on pavement into a grassy, muddy run up where you need to shoulder the bike. At the top, you can remount and you make a gradual right turn into an athletic field where you’ll pass the first single pit. Pits will be described in more detail later.

A right right-angle turn after the pits and another left hand right-angle turn around the corn field puts you into the plank section. Here there’s about five red-cross people with a stretcher waiting for something to happen. This whole section from the run up is on grass turned muddy

After the plank section, the course takes a right hand right-angle turn onto the road which goes straight across the bridge over the tram line. Just before the bridge is the Fidea cycling team merchandise truck, selling Bart Wellen and Erik Vervecken merchandise. This was like the Verge truck we see in the Northeast, but a lot more team merchandise – posters, postcards, Bart Wellen DVDs, jerseys, shorts, down vests, jackets, head bands, several types of polo shirts, fleece bands and hats, etc.

Over the bridge, which is split down the middle with barriers to allow not only two way race course, but separate lanes on both sides for spectator traffic, you make a right turn down a south bound road paralleling the tram line, into another grassy area behind houses where a chicane series of five switchbacks descends gently.