The Monuments 2nd edition: The Grit and the Glory of Cycling's Greatest One-Day Races

(Paperback, 2nd edition)

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An awe-inspiring history of the five most legendary classic races in world cycling. The Tour de France may provide the most obvious fame and glory, but it is cyclings one-day tests that the professional riders really prize. Toughest, longest and dirtiest of all are the so-called Monuments, the five legendary races that are the sports equivalent of golfs majors or the grand slams in tennis. MilanSanremo, the Tour of Flanders, ParisRoubaix, LigeBastogneLige and the Tour of Lombardy date back more than a century, and each of them is an anomaly in modern-day sport, the cycling equivalent of the Monaco Grand Prix. Time has changed them to a degree, but they remain as brutally testing as they ever have been. They provide the sports outstanding one-day performers with a chance to measure themselves against each other and their predecessors in the most challenging tests in world cycling. From the bone-shattering bowler-hat cobbles of the ParisRoubaix to the insanely steep hellingen in the Tour of Flanders, each race is as unique as the riders who push themselves through extreme exhaustion to win them and enter their epic history. Over the course of a century, only Rik Van Looy, Eddy Merckx and Roger De Vlaeminck have won all five races. Yet victory in a single edition of a Monument guarantees a rider lasting fame. For some, that one victory has even more cachet than success in a grand tour. Each of the Monuments has a fascinating history, featuring tales of the finest and largest characters in the sport. In this updated edition of The Monuments Peter Cossins tells the tumultuous history of these extraordinary races and the riders they have immortalised.

Reviews

A masterful account of the five classics that should become a classic itself a triumph of readability: fine tales very well told * Road.cc *
Peter Cossins has skilfully combined history, analysis and anecdote to bring these classic contests vividly to life * Independent on Sunday *
The Monuments is a book that should be on every cyclists bookshelf * Podium Caf *
A treasure trove for the committed cycling fan * thewashingmachinepost *

Author Bio

First drawn into the sport while a student in bike-obsessed Spain in the mid-1980s, Peter Cossins has been writing about cycling since 1993, contributing principally to Cycling Weekly, Cycle Sport and Procycling, as well The Times, the Guardian, Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Express and Sunday Herald. He is the author of several acclaimed books, including Butcher, Blacksmith, Acrobat, Sweep: The Tale of the First Tour de France, which won the 2020 Telegraph Sports Book Award for Cycling. He lives in the Arige in the heart of the French Pyrenees.