Northwestern Belgium, also known as the region of Flanders, was brimming with excitement Saturday as the biggest race of the Flemish racing calendar was set to kick off at 9:40 a.m. Sunday morning in the historic city of Brugge. After 256km of racing, 17 hills and 21km of cobblestone sections, the race will end in the city of Ninove, with a new king of Flanders crowned at its 89th running since 1913.

An estimated 15-20,000 enthusiastic cyclists participated in an amateur ride over the undulating course of the Ronde Van Vlaanderen (Tour of Flanders) Saturday, with a majority consisting of Belgians predicting one of their own to win. In fact, in Johan Museeuw and Peter Van Petegem, Belgians have won the event four times over the past 10 years, with Van Petegem the most recent winner in 2003, the year he followed his Flanders win with a win at Paris-Roubaix a week later.

Warm, sunny skies greeted the throngs of cyclo-tourists, and with temperatures again expected to be in the 60s, conditions are expected to be a contrast to the wet, muddy conditions that have often marked one of the most difficult one-day events on the professional calendar. With the balmy spring conditions, one million spectators are expected to line the difficult course, particularly around cobbled climbs such as the Kwaremont, Paterberg, Koppenburg and Muur, drawing one in 12 of the Flanders region and making it one of the most largely attended sporting events in the world.

Countrymen Van Petegem (Davitamon-Lotto-Domo) and Tom Boonen (Quick Step-Inergetic) are the overwhelming favorites this year, particularly with last year’s winner, Steffen Wesemann (T-Mobile) derailed by with stomach ailments at last week’s Three Days of De Panne. De Panne wasn’t kind to Boonen either, who crashed twice and pulled out of the Belgian stage race with a bruised pelvis and stitches to his hand. Boonen, who finished third at Paris-Roubaix in 2002 while riding for U.S. Postal, has won five races this year and will be backed by cobblestone specialist Nick Nuyens. And while Boonen is clearly Belgium’s rider of the future, Van Petegem has won Flanders twice and finished third in 2002, and lives in the town of Brakel, which lies toward the end of the course.

In the Saturday edition of the Belgian newspaper Het Volk, Van Petegem praised Boonen’s performance at the recent E3-Prijs Harelbeke, and predicted Sunday’s winner would come from Davitamon-Lotto, Quick Step, T-Mobile, Rabobank or Discovery Channel-Berry Floor. Out of 16 experts asked in Het Volk, two named Van Petegem the favorite, with eight picking Boonen.

Pairs of co-leaders seem to be a recurring theme at this year’s Tour of Flanders. With Andreas Klier, Wesseman has a co-leader at T-Mobile, also joined by perennial workhorse Erik Zabel. And while Rabobank’s Oscar Freire has enjoyed a strong early season, his questionable status for Flanders, due to a painful saddle sore, was confirmed as an absence on Saturday, leaving teammate Erik Dekker as Rabobank’s top pick as the likely winner. Even Discovery Channel’s assistant team director Dirk Demol predicted Dekker to take the win in Het Volk, with Wesseman a second-place prediction over Discovery Channel’s own rider, American George Hincapie.

Hincapie, a perpetual just-off-the-podium finisher at Flanders and Roubaix, comes into Flanders as Discovery’s co-leader with De Panne winner Stijn Devolder. Hincapie, who won the early-season Belgian race Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, comes into Flanders fit and recovered from an illness that kept him out of Milan-San Remo, and would dearly love a win at a classic. Also a threat for Discovery is Russian veteran Viatcheslav Ekimov, a specialist in the long and hard cobblestone classics.

A close friendship with Hincapie is in part what prompted Tour champion Lance Armstrong to make a spot for Flanders in his highly analyzed race schedule. That, of course, combined with the legend of the race. “Flanders is a very hard race, it’s for supermen,” Armstrong told Het Volk. “It’s a big fight, and it all comes down to position and condition.”

Other pre-race favorites include Aussie Stuart O'Grady (Cofidis), a Flanders podium finisher in 2003, strongman Thor Hushovd of Credit Agricole; last year’s Paris-Roubiax winner Magnus Backstedt; and Fassa Bortolo’s Juan Antonio Flecha and Fabian Cancellarra.

Also contested Sunday will be the women’s Tour of Flanders, or Ronde Van Vlaanderen Vrouwen, which begins in the town of Oodenarde, near the first climb on the men’s course, and also ends in Ninove. The fourth round of the women’s 11-round World Cup, the 112km race begins at 11:30 a.m. and is expected to finish by 2:30 p.m., almost two hours before the men are expected to roll into Ninove.