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

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Peter Cossins

The Monuments 2nd edition

The Grit and the Glory of Cycling's Greatest One-Day Races

Peter Cossins

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Paperback

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English

Bloomsbury Sport
04 July 2023

European history; Cycling

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 cycling’s 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 sport’s equivalent of golf’s majors or the grand slams in tennis. Milan–Sanremo, the Tour of Flanders, Paris–Roubaix, Liège–Bastogne–Liège 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 sport’s 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 Paris–Roubaix 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.

By: Peter Cossins
Imprint: Bloomsbury Sport
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: 2nd edition
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 153mm,
ISBN: 9781399407861
ISBN 10: 1399407864
Pages: 448
Publication Date: 04 July 2023
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

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 Ariège in the heart of the French Pyrenees.

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

'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 cyclist's bookshelf' * Podium Cafe * 'A treasure trove for the committed cycling fan' * thewashingmachinepost *