The Spring Classics: Cycling's Greatest One-day Races - Hardcover

Bouvet, Philippe; Callewaert, Pierre; Gatellier, Jean-Luc; Laget, Serge; Brunel, Philippe

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1934030600 ISBN 13: 9781934030608

Publisher: VeloPress, 2010

Synopsis

Cycling's spring races are always the most anticipated of the year, not only because they herald the start of the season, but also because they are brutally difficult and spectacularly unpredictable. Known as the spring classics, these one-day races test cycling's toughest riders with the worst conditions imaginable - sucking mud, choking dust, leg-numbing sleet, fanatic spectators, and Europe's narrowest, most bone-grinding country roads. Clattering through agrarian hamlets on routes established a century ago, "The Spring Classics" celebrates cycling's most glorious and meaningful history. "The Spring Classics" delves into the stories of Milan - San Remo, Ghent-Wevelgem, the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, the Amstel Gold Race, La Fleche Wallone, and Liege-Bastogne-Liege through hundreds of rare and restored photographs presented in a lavish format. With authoritative text from cycling's expert sportswriters, "The Spring Classics" commemorates the riders, traditions, and secrets of cycling's greatest one day contests. This is the only book to explore the history of the spring classics. The authors are top sportswriters for L'Equipe, France's leading sports publication. It features hardback with jacket. It includes full-colour and black & white photographs throughout.

About this title

Review:

Get your cobble on without breaking your collarbone. "The Spring Classics" will keep you absorbed on rain-soaked April days and just might inspire you to get out and ride regardless of the weather. Bicycling magazine "The Spring Classics" is one of the most beautiful books it has ever been my good fortune to set eyes on. A monument in its own right. TheWashingMachinePost.net Enjoyable and emotive, "The Spring Classics" is like a children s fairy tale book for cyclists, full of valiant and fallen heroes and monstrous terrain. DailyPeloton.com Only a still photograph can capture the moment, provide a lasting and deep impression. The proof is "The Spring Classics." The superb pictures, complemented by text from the best cycling writers, capture the beauty, the excitement, and the brutality fo the toughest races of all, the spring classics. "Cycling Weekly" "The Spring Classics" delves deeply into the rich stories of the classics. "Peloton "magazine After reading "The Spring Classics," you ll be inspired to ride from your heart, ignoring the pleas from your legs and friends alike. The images gave me chills. RedKitePrayer.com "The Spring Classics" is for die-hard fans. The things I care about are all contained within this book. Hard man single-day racing. Great style from racers. Cool cycling photography from the days of yore and also from not that far back. "Embrocation Cycling Journal" If you ve never heard of riders like Coppi, Kelly, De Vlaeminck, and Moser, it s time to learn more about the epic history of our sport. "The Spring Classics" delves into the one-day events that have helped define professional road cycling. The classics are the most prestigious, longest-running events in cycling the domain of warriors and this coffee table book tells the stories of those races where men became legends. "VeloNews "magazine "The Spring Classics" emphasizes photographic composition and scenery, and the result is a beautiful photo book. The text is informative and conveys the passion that these races evoke." The Spring Classics" is a treat for fans. "Bicycle Quarterly" The work is smartly writtenand it is well illustrated. All of the great names are in the book. No rider who made an impact on the classics is forgotten. Epic stories abound; the book lays out the drama that attracts many to cycling and takes the reader over some of the most important terrain in cycling. Roadcycling.com "The Spring Classics," with its fascinating stories and insistent action photographs, captures the emotions of these intense races where, after all, there really is no tomorrow. The strength of this large-format book is in its highly-detailed photographs conveying expectation, effort, exhaustion, disappointment, triumph.As good as the accompanying essays are, the images are usually more persuasive and certainly more moving. PezcyclingNews.com Dig into the glory and history of some of cycling s iconic races with "The Spring Classics." The book serves as a good primer to what made these races the classics that they are. BikeWorldNews.com A fantastic coffee table book resplendent with amazing black and white photos of old time bike racers showing their all. A real gem. BostonBiker.org This homage to all the classics is about endeavour, excitement, battle, character, and those old chestnuts pain and suffering. TheWashingMachinePost.net A lavishly illustrated hardcover coffee table book that introduces readers to cycling s most famous one-day races in a format that includes insightful commentary from the sport s top writers. "Competitor "magazine For real aficionados and the riders themselves, the one-day classics hold a special place on the calendar. This is a hard sport and "The Spring Classics" brings home all its pain and glory. The text captures the special challenges of each race, its great rides and riders. "Lightweight News" "The Spring Classics" doesn t awe you with a new way to tell these stories. Instead, it respects the wondrous material and lets it breathe. PodiumCafe.com " "Get your cobble on without breaking your collarbone. "The Spring Classics."..will keep you absorbed on rain-soaked April days--and just might inspire you to get out and ride regardless of the weather." -- Bicycling magazine""The Spring Classics" is one of the most beautiful books it has ever been my good fortune to set eyes on. A monument in its own right." -- TheWashingMachinePost.net "Enjoyable and emotive, "The Spring Classics" is like a children's fairy tale book for cyclists, full of valiant and fallen heroes and monstrous terrain." -- DailyPeloton.com "Only a still photograph can capture the moment, provide a lasting and deep impression. The proof is "The Spring Classics." The superb pictures, complemented by text from the best cycling writers, capture the beauty, the excitement, and the brutality fo the toughest races of all, the spring classics." -- "Cycling Weekly" ""The Spring Classics" delves deeply into the rich stories of the classics." -- "Peloton "magazine"After reading "The Spring Classics," you'll be inspired to ride from your heart, ignoring the pleas from your legs and friends alike. The images gave me chills." -- RedKitePrayer.com""The Spring Classics" is for die-hard fans. The things I care about are all contained within this book. Hard man single-day racing. Great style from racers. Cool cycling photography from the days of yore and also from not that far back." -- "Embrocation Cycling Journal" "If you've never heard of riders like Coppi, Kelly, De Vlaeminck, and Moser, it's time to learn more about the epic history of our sport. "The Spring Classics" delves into the one-day events that have helped define professional road cycling. The classics are the most prestigious, longest-running events in cycling--the domain of warriors--and this coffee table book tells the stories of those races where men became legends." -- "VeloNews "magazine ""The Spring Classics" emphasizes photographic composition and scenery, and the result is a beautiful photo book. The text is informative and conveys the passion that these races evoke." The Spring Classics" is a treat for fans." -- "Bicycle Quarterly""The work is smartly written and it is well illustrated. All of the great names are in the book. No rider who made an impact on the classics is forgotten. Epic stories abound; the book lays out the drama that attracts many to cycling and takes the reader over some of the most important terrain in cycling." -- Roadcycling.com""The Spring Classics," with its fascinating stories and insistent action photographs, captures the emotions of these intense races where, after all, there really is no tomorrow. The strength of this large-format book is in its highly-detailed photographs conveying expectation, effort, exhaustion, disappointment, triumph.As good as the accompanying essays are, the images are usually more persuasive and certainly more moving." -- PezcyclingNews.com"Dig into the glory and history of some of cycling's iconic races with "The Spring Classics." The book serves as a good primer to what made these races the classics that they are." -- BikeWorldNews.com "A fantastic coffee table book...resplendent with amazing black and white photos of old time bike racers showing their all. A real gem." -- BostonBiker.org "This homage to all the classics is...about endeavour, excitement, battle, character, and those old chestnuts pain and suffering." -- TheWashingMachinePost.net "A lavishly illustrated hardcover coffee table book that introduces readers to cycling's most famous one-day races in a format that includes insightful commentary from the sport's top writers." -- "Competitor "magazine "For real aficionados and the riders themselves, the one-day classics hold a special place on the calendar. This is a hard sport and "The Spring Classics" brings home all its pain and glory. The text...captures the special challenges of each race, its great rides and riders." -- "Lightweight News" ""The Spring Classics" doesn't awe you with a new way to tell these stories. Instead, it respects the wondrous material and lets it breathe." -- PodiumCafe.com

From the Back Cover:

Cycling’s spring races are always the most anticipated of the year, not only because they herald the start of the season but also because they are brutally difficult and spectacularly unpredictable. Known as the spring classics, these one-day races test cycling’s toughest riders with the worst conditions imaginable—sucking mud, choking dust, leg-numbing sleet, and Europe’s narrowest, most bone-grinding roads. Clattering through agrarian hamlets on roughly paved routes carved from the hills more than a century ago, the spring classics encompass cycling’s most glorious and meaningful history.

With insightful text from L’Équipe’s top writers and hundreds of rare and newly restored photographs,The Spring Classics delves deeply into the rich stories of these great events—races such as Italy’s season-opening Milan–San Remo, which winds south toward the lumpy Ligurian coast on its way to a furious finish; Ghent-Wevelgem, Belgium’s test for sprinters, always won with a burst of lightning; the tooth-rattling Tour of Flanders, with its interminable stretches of treacherous cobblestones; and, of course, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, a monster created in 1892 whose tempestuous weather and sawtooth profile made it the dark prototype for every tough race that has followed.

Whether ancient or modern, each of cycling’s monuments contains within its route a maddening assortment of quirks, impossibilities, and delights, all of which must be conquered anew as the races unfold every year. In the Flèche Wallonne is the leg-breaking Mur de Huy, a wall of a hill with gradients as steep as 19 percent. Murderously, the race finishes atop the Mur, and only after the racers have climbed it three times. There are the successive climbs of Milan–San Remo—Le Manie, the Cipressa, the Poggio—designed to test the endurance of the riders in this longest of one-day races before they pour onto its finishing straight in a desperate sprint for glory. And there are the successive hills of the Amstel Gold Race, a string of no fewer than 31 wickedly steep ascents that include the Keutenberg, featuring ramps of 20 percent, and the 1,450-meter-long Cauberg, whose 12 percent gradient is diabolically placed at the very end.

In its encyclopedic embrace of Europe’s greatest one-day events, The Spring Classics also celebrates the essential races that round out the cycling year: Paris-Tours, which moved from spring to fall in 1951; the Clásica San Sebastián, which burst onto the cycling-mad Basque calendar in 1981 and is now enshrined as August’s most important contest; and the Tour of Lombardy, “the race of the falling leaves” along the shores of Lake Como that closes the calendar in October with elegance and style.

Taken together, these are the races that truly define a year in cycling. It is from these ultimate challenges that heroes are born, legends are made, history is written, and the eternal struggle to triumph over all odds is fought, won, lost, celebrated, and enshrined.

Liège-Bastogne-Liège: The Doyenne
La Flèche Wallone: The Arrow
Paris-Roubaix: The Hell of the North
Paris-Tours
Tour of Flanders: The Diabolical Ronde
Milan-San Remo: The Classicissima
Tour of Lombardy: The Race of the Falling Leaves
Amstel Gold Race
Grand Prix of Frankfurt
Clásica San Sebastián
Championship of Zurich
Bordeaux-Paris: The Derby of the Road
Paris-Brussels
Het Volk
Ghent-Wevelgem

“When you race a classic, there is no next day’s stage. You can get every last bit of energy out of yourself because you don’t have to worry about being eliminated from the race tomorrow. You can give it your all with no looking back.

Legendary races like the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix take the emotions of intense cycling competition to an even greater height. Seeing names such as Tom Boonen and Fabian Cancellara charging up the Mur de Grammont in the shadow of the Flemish fans

About this edition

• Publisher: VeloPress
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1934030600
• ISBN 13: 9781934030608
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224