Koppenberg

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Koppenberg

Top	77 m above sea level
Location	The Flemish Ardennes

Start	Oudenaarde
Altitude gained	64 m
Length	600 m
Average slope	11,6 %
Steepest part	22 %

Koppenberg is a 77 m high hill located in Oudenaarde, the Flemish Ardennes, Belgium. This climb is part of the route of the Ronde van Vlaanderen professional cycling race and is feared by many riders because of its extreme steepness (22% on the trickiest parts) and because it's paved with cobblestones. This makes Koppenberg extremely difficult to negotiate even for top professional cyclists. Quite often, riders would slow down almost to the point of losing their balance (especially common for those who approached the climb while riding at the back of the peloton) and thus have to dismount and scramble to the top on foot, while pushing their bikes.

Strategically, the climb has little importance: it's located too far from the finishing line (in 2006, on km 185 of 259). Even if a breakaway forms on the Koppenberg it would be very difficult for the riders to hold off the peloton in the finishing stages.

[edit] Koppenberg history

Belgian cyclist Roger De Vlaeminck riding the Koppenberg in the Ronde van Vlaanderen race.

Koppenberg was first climbed by the Ronde van Vlaanderen riders in 1975 and featured annually until 1987.

In that year, Danish rider Jesper Skibby made headlines when he broke away from the peloton early in the race and had been riding by himself for a considerable time when he approached the dreaded Koppenberg. With a lead of nearly 2 minutes over the pack, he began the climb but was unable to keep momentum and fell to the ground after losing balance. The race Comissaire, who had thought that Skibby would safely make it over the climb and followed the rider in his car, could not wait because the chasing peloton was quickly approaching the climb. The Comissaire ordered his driver to move, and because at the time, the road on the Koppenberg was very narrow, the driver had no choice but to drive right over Skibby's front wheel (destroying it but luckily avoiding Skibby) while the rider and his bike were both still lying on the cobblestones.

After the Skibby incident, the Koppenberg climb was excluded from the race route for 15 long years. After some major renovations, which included widening the road and re-paving it with new cobblestones, the climb was re-introduced in 2002.

The Koppenberg then formed part of the Ronde van Vlaanderen route until 2006. It has been announced that the Ronde van Vlaanderen will not climb the Koppenberg in 2007, though it may again in the future. ^[1]