Bike racing is back with a bang. With Strade Bianche proving that it ought to be held in much higher regard, and Paris-Nice, The Healthy Ageing Tour and Tirreno-Adriatico all being raced with an element of post 2020 hindsight, this might just be one of the most exciting springs ever. If that’s not enough hyperbole for one article, to get you in the mood for an exciting block of bike racing, here’s our preview of the best of March and April, including four out of five of the sport’s celebrated Monuments, and some of the riders to look out for.
Highlights of the Women’s WorldTour
After the climber-oriented Trofeo Alfredo Binda on 21st March and the often tactic-rich, fast and windswept De Panne on the 25th, the women take on Gent-Wevelgem in Flanders Fields on the last Sunday of March. A flatter Flandrian classic but still packing a bite thanks to the Kemelberg, Gent-Wevelgem is a Tour of Flanders rehearsal. Belgian champion Lotte Kopecky (Liv Racing) came second last year and after her impressive Le Samyn victory, she has the quality to be one of the best sprinters this season. She also has a winter of cyclocross races under her belt which we’ve heard helps.
Once March is in the rear-view mirror, the Tour of Flanders always gets April started with a bang thanks to its mixture of cobbled climbs and technical flat sections. The final two climbs of the Oude Kwaremont and Paterberg are nearly always decisive, either as springboards to solo victory or where the final selection is made before the sprint to the line in Oudenaarde 13km later. The winner will join a legendary list that includes Mirjam Melchers, Nicole Cooke and Marianne Vos.
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It’s here! The news broke last September that the women’s peloton finally has its chance to light up the Roubaix cobbles (11th April). Featuring 29.2km of pavé in total, the first Paris-Roubaix will without doubt be an epic race. Sadly, there’s no Arenberg Forest, but the gruelling five-star sectors of Mons-en-Pévèle and Carrefour de l’Arbre do feature and will likely be instrumental in whittling the race down before the iconic velodrome. The possibilities are endless.
After the always glorious finale to the Cobbled Classics in Roubaix, professional cycling travels a little way south to take on a triple crown of races in the Ardennes. First is the Amstel Gold Race on 21st April which this year swaps its traditional hilly route for a closed 17km circuit that includes the Geulhemmberg, Bemelerberg and Cauberg climbs. You can guarantee aggressive racing on a course that favours opportunists like Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon SRAM), Elisa Longo Borgini (Trek-Segafredo) and Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (FDJ).
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Next is the mid-week La Flèche Wallonne and its gruelling finish up the Mur de Huy (‘Wall of Huy’ in English). With the climb’s maximum gradient of 26% the drama is often reserved for the final kilometre. Six-time winner Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx) has become synonymous with this race and will be difficult to beat in her final season. The current world champion will also be a favourite a few days later at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the jewel of the Ardennes classics and the last chance to claim victory this spring.
Women to watch
The WWT truly is stacked with top names for the Spring Classics, and many of them on the same SD Worx super team. Jolien d’Hoore, Christine Majerus, Ashleigh Moolman, Amy Pieters, Chantal van den Broek-Blaak, Demi Vollering and world champion Anna van der Breggen all race for the Dutch team and all have a chance to win big. Elsewhere, Trek-Segafredo’s Lizzie Deignan and Elisa Longo Borghini are never far from the action, nor are British champion Alice Barnes and Kasia Niewiadoma of Canyon SRAM Racing. Not to mention the legendary Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma) and European champion Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar).
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As well as the headliners, there’s an equally huge crop of young riders ready to make their mark. Danish national champion Emma Norsgaard (Movistar) finished second in both Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Le Samyn, and goes into the rest of the spring classics as a rider to watch. Team BikeExchange’s Grace Brown is also building form and will hope to go one better after her second place in last year’s Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Last but not least, there’s 22-year-old Marta Cavalli (FDJ) who we’re sure is knocking on the door of a big result.
Men’s WorldTour highlights
Once the concurrent WorldTour stage races of Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico are over, it’s back to one-day spectacles. On the 20th of March is Milan-Sanremo, or ‘La Classicissima’. As the first of the Monuments – the five oldest and most prestigious one-day races of the season – it’s one of the most important days in the cycling calendar. At around 300km, it’s one of the longest too. Until the punchy climbs of the Cipressa and Poggio, it’s usually a pretty meandering and uneventful 270-odd kilometres, and after so long in the saddle, the possible outcomes are numerous. It could be anything from a bunch sprint to a solo celebration.
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In the run-up to Flanders and Roubaix, there is a host of smaller races and semi-classics that put the major players to the test. There’s the E3 Saxo Bank Classic, a kind of Flanders lite a week out from the Ronde itself, and the prestigious Gent-Wevelgem in Flanders Fields on the 26th and 28th March. Both races showcase the best of the region, the cobbles and crosswinds, and are Flandrian through and through.
To win the Tour of Flanders on 4th April, a rider has to have great legs, some good luck and a huge helping of tactical ability. With tons of cobbled climbs including some of the most feared stretches of road in the world, the top riders have to be there or thereabouts at the front of the peloton for the majority of the day. All the climbing makes it a race of attrition before the final selection on the Oude Kwaremont and Paterberg. But as Philippe Gilbert (now Lotto-Soudal) showed in 2017, the race can also be won from far out if the chase isn’t organised enough.
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The day we wait all spring for finally arrives on 11th April. Paris-Roubaix, or ‘The Hell of the North’, is the Queen of the Classics and the biggest one-day race of the season, this year with the added intrigue of a whole day festival starting with the first ever women’s edition. Cobbles, mechanicals, crashes, aggression, the Arenberg Forest, the velodrome finish and the world’s best classics specialists. What more could you want?
After the postponement and then cancellation of the 2020 edition, it’s great to see the Amstel Gold Race back on the calendar to kick off the Ardennes Classics on 18th April. Like the women, the men will race on a 17km closed circuit that will make for some exciting thrill-a-minute racing. It’s hard to believe that the last Amstel Gold Race ended in that dramatic eleventh-hour sprint victory for Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix), and the Dutchman has been gobbling race wins like they’re hot dinners ever since. Just days later, on Wednesday 21st April, we get to watch the lighter one-day specialists battle it out on the infamous Mur de Huy, stage for some of the most gruelling metres of the whole season.
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