The changes that have spoiled part of cycling have not yet reached the monuments
You already know that story of Asterix and the small Gallic village that resists high, very high, on the map before the conquest of the Roman Empire.
A childhood story that comes painted for what we see happening with cycling and how I think that the five monuments are a bit like the containment dam against the unstoppable changes that are permeating.
And it is that if we see the five great events of one day, worldwide in the background on the sidelines, we will appreciate that in all the identity and signs of cycling are kept to a great extent.
Not only because in their history they house great names from the ancient times to the present, but also, above all, because they preserve those characteristics that make this sport something unique that escapes a little from what is being imposed.
Without going into the debate about what is and is not a monument, it is true that all five have characteristics that make them eternala bit of the mustard seed of cycling that one day we fell in love with.
We are talking about long-distance races, the ones that most here they are not negotiated with youth mileageas he likes to say.
260 kilometers up, until reaching the threshold of 300 with Milan-San Remo.
The great names in history have always set their sights on monumentsto the point of giving them more value, on many occasions, than the grand tours.
No one holds anything back here, some would give an arm or both to win on Via Roma in San Remo, on the Ourdenaarde straight, the Roubaix velodrome, the Liège boulevard or the Lungo Lario Trieste, on the shores of Lake Como.
Important sites in the cycling tradition weave their passion and phenomenal stories around their monument.
In this the Italians have known how to sell better than anyone what they have and transmit, the opening of spring in Sanremo, its steps along the cliffs, the city of cinema, the Poggio and its cabin, without forgetting the beauty of Lake Como , the Madonna del Ghisallo or the dead leaves of Lombardy.
Flanders has a De Ronde museum in the very center of Oudenaardeand its routes are full of souvenirs, squares, names on the ground, cartoons by Boonen and Remco, among others, and even bicycle cafes with wonderful rice cakes.
The end of Roubaix and its showers, the steps of the path, the Arenberg mystique and the other passes, next to the turn of the Decane to the center of Liège, the elevated motorway that we distinguish in the Redoute….
As you can see, cycling established a long time ago, incorruptible over time, from which books and t-shirts are made, to which the best in the world go, with the best surrounding them.
racing a special nervousness and intensityeven San Remo, the one that has been able to receive the most criticism, is a bundle of nerves turned into a competition from the moment the runners face the Capi towards Cipressa.
Everything here oozes cycling history as Croatians would say “as it was once”, as it was once…
Welcome to the monuments.
