Roeselare holds a claim few Belgian towns can match: it's the birthplace of Odiel Defraeye, who in 1912 became the first Belgian ever to win the Tour de France — a result credited with reviving Belgian cycling at a moment when velodromes were closing and the national scene was in decline.
Defraeye wasn't alone. World champions Benoni Beheyt, Patrick Sercu, Jean-Pierre Monseré, and Freddy Maertens were all also born here, enough of a concentration that the region calls itself, without much argument, "the cradle of the Flandriens."
The city has held onto that identity: KOERS. Museum van de Wielersport, established in 1998, occupies a renovated building near the Polenplein and holds one of Europe's most complete collections of cycling history, including a full "Service Course" of racing bikes and a 90-degree cobblestone wall visitors can test their legs against.
Roeselare also sits at the start of Dwars door Vlaanderen, the mid-week classic that bridges Milan–San Remo and the Tour of Flanders each spring — meaning the town's cycling identity runs continuously from a 1912 yellow jersey to a race still being decided on its roads today.
