THE EURO

Self-supported, point to point. No daily stages, no prescribed overnight stops, no one telling you where to sleep. A GPX file, a live tracker, and a start line in Brussels — the next 650 kilometres are entirely your problem, in the best possible way.

We begin in Brussels and turn first toward Waterloo, where Napoleon gets a brief look-in before the bikes take over properly.

South of Waterloo the Flemish Ardennes open up — the landscape of De Ronde, the Tour of Flanders. Farm lanes, gravel, narrow roads and brutally abrupt cobbled climbs fold into each other, and your GPS starts throwing up names you already know: Kwaremont. Paterberg. Koppenberg. Kruisberg. Steenbeekdries. Short climbs on a map. Rather more significant if you ride bikes.

This is the land of the Flandrien. Keep riding when it rains. Keep riding when the cobbles are awful. Keep riding when your legs suggest otherwise. THE EURO probably won't turn you into one. But it may introduce you to the idea.

West of the bergs the landscape opens into long gravel roads, canals and old railway lines. This should be fast, which is potentially dangerous — there's very little to slow you down, and 650 kilometres gives you plenty of time to regret riding the first 200 like a Belgian sportive. Flat doesn't mean easy. Sometimes it just lets you make mistakes faster.

Calais to Dover is dealt with plainly: a commercial DFDS crossing, booked as a foot passenger with your bike. There's no allocated departure and no support vehicle shepherding you to a fixed sailing — DFDS runs the route many times a day, so you book whichever crossing suits your pace, and change it yourself if your pace turns out to be a polite fiction.

Budget roughly £25–£35 each way, paid direct to DFDS and not included in your entry fee. It's the one unglamorous, entirely necessary part of the route — dealt with here so it doesn't need dealing with twice.

England meets you at the port with a different kind of terrain. No bergs here — just chalk. The North Downs and the byways around them trade Flanders' short, brutal ramps for something longer and quieter: sunken lanes, beech woodland, flint tracks that don't forgive a slick tyre.

From the Downs it's the long run into London proper — the Thames towpath, Greenwich, and a finish line that means something if you know the sport. Herne Hill Velodrome opened in 1891 and is still one of the oldest cycling tracks in the world in regular use. Three countries, one ferry, and a finish on a track that predates the Tour de France itself.

L'Échappée is the elegant one — Paris to London, a chartered sailing, understated by design. THE EURO is the louder cousin: three countries instead of two, a commercial ferry queue instead of a private crossing, cobbles and coastal sand instead of open French farmland.

Same appetite for a long way home. Different route to get stubborn about it. If you've already done L'Échappée, this isn't a rerun. If you haven't, it's as good a place to start as any.

Fifty riders. That's the whole field — no waitlist theatrics, no scaling up if it sells well. The route is 650 kilometres across three countries: big by any measure. The event stays small on purpose. No expo, no branded gantry, no queue for a coffee van at the start line. Just fifty people who wanted to ride a long way through Belgium and didn't feel the need to make it complicated.

If you're after a number on a t-shirt and a finisher medal, this isn't it. If you're after fifty people who understand why you'd want to do this anyway, it might be.

This is genuinely self-supported. Whatever's on your bike at the start line in Brussels is what you've got for the next 650 kilometres, give or take whatever you can buy from a shop or talk your way into at a café. There's no van leapfrogging you with spare inner tubes, and your bags aren't magically waiting at the next hotel.

The live tracker isn't there so someone can talk you out of quitting at the second café. It's there so someone knows roughly where you are if you genuinely need help. Use it for that, not for asking the group chat where the good waffles are.

£140 (+ £150 refundable tracker deposit)

Entry covers the route, live GPS tracking, and a start line in Brussels. It doesn't cover your DFDS ferry (budget roughly £25–£35 each way), travel to Brussels, accommodation, food, or insurance, sort those the way you'd sort any other trip abroad.