The race that heralds the start of the Spring Classics season is coming up fast this weekend, with both the men’s and women’s editions of the 2023 Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on Saturday, February 25.
Where can I watch Omloop Het Nieuwsblad?
The race will be streaming live on FloBikes. A subscription costs $150 for a year.
We certainly hope they step it up and actually have announcers for BOTH races this year. Yep, that’s right: if you wanted to watch the 2022 women’s edition of the race, the audio accompaniment was nothing more than helicopter noise because only the men’s race featured an announcer.
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Do better, FloBikes.
The men’s race (207.3km) will start at 8 a.m. EST. The women’s race (132.2km) is kicking off at 10:25 a.m. EST
Riders to watch
Wout Van Aert’s (Jumbo-Visma) solo breakaway at 13 km from the finish made last year's win look easy for him, but he has announced that he will be skipping the race this year in favor of targeting Strade Bianchi, hoping to win a Monument in 2023. That will leave all eyes on Tom Pidcock (Ineos-Grenadiers) as the favorite to win on Saturday.
On the women’s side, last year’s winner Annemiek Van Vleuten (Team Moviestar) will undoubtedly be hunting for another win this year after Demi Vollering (SD Worx) really made her work for that top spot on the podium in 2022. As AVV winds down her incredible career during what she has announced will be her last season, she is still the top rider to beat this year.
Natascha Grief got her first bike shop job before she was old enough to drink. After a six-year stint as a mechanic, earning a couple pro-mechanic certifications and her USA Cycling Race Mechanics license, she became obsessed with framebuilding and decided she wanted to do that next. After Albert Eistentraut literally shooed her off his doorstep, admonishing that if she pursued framebuilding she will be poor forever, she landed an apprenticeship with framebuilder Brent Steelman in her hometown of Redwood City, CA. After that, she spent several years working for both large and not-so-large cycling brands. Somewhere in there she also became a certified bike fitter. Natascha then became a certified personal trainer and spent nine years honing her skills as a trainer and coach, while also teaching Spin. During the dumpster fire that was the year 2020, she opened a fitness studio and began contributing regularly to Runner’s World and Bicycling as a freelance writer. In 2022, she joined the staff of Bicycling as News Editor.
