The Crucibles of the Classics
What makes the Spring Classics so special? What is it about the history of these long running races that is so iconic? Does the interest simply come from a long list of winner or is it the tales of brave riders winning in unthinkable conditions on course that are overly cruel in their difficulty? Each race, regardless of its age, has faced developmental issues in modern times and the races we know now are not the same as those that took placed fifty years ago let a loner a century. Despite two World Wars, economic expansion across Europe the globalization of cycling and course changes, the one constant that transcends time in our sport is suffering. On May 29, 1892, 32 amateur cyclists gathered in a sooty neighborhood on the outskirts of the Belgian industrial city of Liege. The sport of cycling was about to embark on a new path, with a race that would eventually become the first of the Five Monuments of cycling and the first ever Spring Classic. Read More
