Fifteen years ago almost to the day, I was sitting in a bar in Ghent eating chicory and chips and trying to make sense of Het Nieuwsblad's coverage of the forthcoming Ronde van Vlaanderen bike race. In Flanders this race – which will be run on Sunday – is the sporting event of the year. It's Wimbledon, the Grand National and the FA Cup final all rolled into one.

On the plane over I had sat next to a conceptual artist from Oudenaarde who had spent a weekend on Tyneside getting a Celtic design tattooed on his shin. When I mentioned the Ronde, he rolled his eyes. "People think the Flemish are obsessed with cycling," he said, "but obsession is not the right word. It is more like a neurosis."

Likening a national interest in bicycle racing to mental illness may seem an exaggeration, but anybody who has spent time in Flanders in the week leading up to the Ronde will regard it as a typical Flemish understatement. The previous year I had travelled to Belgium to watch the midweek Ghent-Wevelgem race. On the slopes of the Kemmelberg near Ypres, I stood next to a young woman who, as the riders pedalled past, held up her 10-month-old son and whispered their names into his ear – Nelissen, Vanderaerden, Capiot – softly, devoutly, like somebody reciting the catechism.

Het Nieuwsblad carried a profile of Flandrian cycling hero Johan Museeuw. As a small boy I had, belatedly, learned to read by studying the backs of the football cards that came with Barratt's bubblegum. This had left me with the vague feeling that I might master a foreign tongue simply by staring at Gazzetta dello Sport or Marca.

This policy had worked, more or less, with L'Equipe, though it had skewed my vocabulary to such an extent that while capable of a relatively fluent discourse on Paul Gascoigne's latest crisis, I couldn't buy a train ticket without pointing and making chuff-chuff noises.

Het Nieuwsblad had always proved a good deal less penetrable than L'Equipe. This was because it was written in Dutch, a language that seems to include far more vowels than are strictly necessary. In fact, looking at Het Nieuwsblad's piece that lunchtime, I became convinced that at some point the Flemish publishers had bought up a job lot of As, Es and Us and told the printers they weren't getting any more consonants until they'd used them all.

As my mind wandered in this witless fashion, the owner of the bar, a kindly middle-aged lady who wore a floral pinny and a look of unfathomable disappointment, arrived with a glass of beer I hadn't ordered. "It is from the Germans," she said, indicating a thirtysomething couple sitting on a nearby table. When I looked across, the man raised his glass and the woman smiled. I smiled back and, taking this as an invitation, the Germans came over.

Having established that they were not disturbing my peace, they began to ask me about the Tour of Flanders. Was Museeuw as strong as everyone said, the man asked. Because, his wife added, there were rumours of a knee injury. What of Andre Tchmil? And how would the weather affect Fabio Baldato?

The Germans asked their questions and when I answered they listened very attentively, nodding in approval at my obvious wisdom. It was all very flattering, like being the subject of a South Bank Show special. In such circumstances it is difficult not to become pompous, and after a while I eased back in my chair and began speaking more slowly, with orotund flourishes, until I began to sound rather as the Yorkshire cricket broadcaster Don Mosey used to when delivering his close of play summary on Test Match Special.

Before they left, the German couple asked if they might have their photo taken with me. The bar owner took the snap and the Germans sat on either side of me, putting their arms quickly and bashfully around my shoulders as she called for us to smile. "Super," the man said, shaking my hand. "We will see you at the race on Sunday also I'm sure?"

After they had gone, the bar owner came over to pick up the empty glasses. "That is funny," she said with a dry chuckle. I asked what was funny. "Those Germans," the lady said, nodding in the direction of the door. "You see, they thought you were Edwig van Hooydonck."

Van Hooydonck is a Flemish racer who had won the Ronde in 1989 and 1991. He was tall and thin and beaky, with reddish blond hair. "I might have thought you were him too," the lady said, "except, of course, that you don't speak Dutch."

I asked who she wanted to win the Ronde. "I don't care," she said. "As long as they are Flemish. And if not a Fleming, then someone like a Fleming." She meant gritty, tough, stoic and down-to-earth. The sort of man who might travel the world making millions from racing but still take his family holidays at De Panne or Oostduinkerke. "As Museeuw says," the bar owner said, pointing at the newspaper, "you don't have to be Flemish to be a Flandrian."

Tom Boonen, who is Flemish and a Flandrian, is this year's favourite. Sadly I won't be there, so if you see someone who looks like me, the chances are it will be Edwig.