Spring Classics Midterm Grades… Don’t Ask

I’ve been to plenty of fun movies in my life, being of a certain age, and a large slice of that experience is the sports film. A typical sports film creates some sort of compelling sports conflict which builds and smolders and works its way to a stunning sports conclusion that solves the entire conflict. People at the cinema might even cheer a bit, because the actors can definitely hear them through the screen and the projector and whatnot.

But what if sports movies were more like real life? Take Rocky III, probably the spiciest of the Rocky films, which is not the same as being the “best” or the “least racist” but anyway it was a hoot back in its day. What if Rocky and Mr. T were circling each other, but then just before their scheduled fight, Rocky hurt his back or something and Mr. T just fought another random C-list “contender” instead. And then Rocky worked his way back to health, through a great deal of training which somehow fit neatly into a musical-sounding montage, with Apollo urging him onward. But then just before the big fight finally happens, Mr. T trips while mowing his lawn (huge DIY guy) and fractures his ankle, so Rocky just fights one of the sparring partners from Apollo’s gym.

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That’s a shit movie, let me tell you. Nobody is cheering at the screen after that, even if they think an all-seeing Sylvester Stallone can definitely hear them. Nobody is anxiously anticipating Rocky IV at that point. In fact, for that movie to even get made, Rocky would have to defeat communism, reverse the ending of the Vietnam War, and stop the British from burning the White House in 1812. Otherwise, who cares.

Well, that’s what it’s like being a cycling fan right now. That’s absolutely what we got from the cobbled classics. I’m not saying they weren’t worth watching — they always are, the scenery is compelling, the cycling is truly mind-numbing, and there’s always some action. But the drama ended at fucking Dwars, or perhaps even before when a bunch of sports directors decided to send major Flanders favorites to a Wednesday-before race that nobody needed to do.

[I get that crashes are part of the sport, of course, and it’s bad form to bemoan them all in hindsight as if anyone should have seen them coming. Unlike Dwars, the Itzulia crash just saddens me. But there’s also a long history of top Cobbles Contenders being very leery of the Wednesday events, and just because Dwars was a cool race in its former slot, it’s now shifted into the dreaded pre-Flanders spot that should be left to lieutenants, developing riders, and maybe the odd veteran who’s scrambling to establish some form. This isn’t hindsight. It’s of fucking course you don’t race the Wednesday before Flanders because there could be crashes-sight.]

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Everyone knows I’m a massive Mathieu van der Poel fan, have been since the young lad scampered past me at Louisville 11 years ago. So I should be among the more positive voices out there when it comes to scoring this classics season. But to me, it’s simply not the same without the drama. This isn’t 30 years ago when I’ve been utterly starved of any contact with the cobbles of Flanders for 11-plus months. I can go down to my basement and ride the Koppenberg now. I can see the familiar spots in a few extra races. I can dial up a video of the 2010 Boonen-Cancellara showdown in the time it took me to write this sentence. I feel great when MSR is over and the scene shifts to Belgium. But I still want my Major Cobbles Showdown, and too many people went missing before or because of Dwars. Maybe the Most Interesting Man in the World (of cycling), Tadej Pogačar, could have saved this season… but alas, he was off doing what he should be to get ready for summer. Nobody, not even a magical Slovene, can be all things to all people.

Sigh. Anyway, let’s turn this frown upside down. Here are three things to feel good about this season, besides yet another confirmation that van der Poel is one of the all time greats.

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1) The Women Are Killing It

I’m going to be a bit superficial here, but the past few years of overly dominant riders (now retired) have given way to a much more level playing field, and the results have been an absolute roller coaster. Each of the overall top five riders for 2024 — Kopecky, Wiebes, Longo Borghini, Balsamo and Vos — scored a lone win so far since the peloton headed back north. No two events were particularly alike, and nobody dominated any race more than, say, Kopecky sitting in for the Paris-Roubaix finale. Exactly nothing about this classics season has felt like a let-down.

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2) All Is Not Lost For the Men

Amstel Gold Race… bless its heart. [Americans use this phrase sometimes out of wry contempt, but in this case I really mean it.] Because we live in interesting times, the AGR and Liège-Bastogne-Liège have both made changes to their courses to tempt some of the Flanders stars to try their luck, and the results have valildated that, but AGR is still a race that tends to reshuffle the deck after Roubaix. Today was a perfect example. Sure, van der Poel was in the mix, but on this terrain he held fewer than all the cards as he had the last two weekends, and the race was tactically wide-open, with a nice result. It’s no coincidence that the previously absent Tom Pidcock won, given his mix of Cross-star pedigree with a small-body twist.

I’m not really remembering what Pidcock has said about Flanders and Roubaix, but presumably he sees what we all see, that this hillier terrain puts him in a position of real power. Sure, if van der Poel and Van Aert decide to skip the cobbles one year, maybe take a deal from a Belgian TV network to star in one of those wilderness survival reality shows where they have to eat snakes and build shelter and the winner gets like 10 million Euros… maybe Pidcock will gain complete control of his fate on the infernal stones. But as long as those two are around, he can compete, but he can’t expect to win. In the Ardennes, the tables are turned.

And while it won’t be absolute peak, next Sunday’s LBL will be one of the year’s best startlists to date. The Itzulia crash cost us Evenepoel and Roglič, but Pogačar, Pidcock and van der Poel will be the headliners, with another dozen or so intriguing names — or so I think; startlists are not fully populated just yet. If nothing else, van der Poel can race for a result in an event where less than all eyes are on his back, for the first time in a while. It’ll be fun, at least until Pogs goes nuclear and reminds us all to shut up.

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3) We’ll Always Have Paris

So… are we sure all of this is not just a prelude to Paris? This summer will see the most Cycling-attached Olympiad in a long while, offers a tremendous race course, and has to be the biggest prize for everyone in the sport right now. Of the great cycling nations, only Spain has hosted before in the modern era. London in 2012 was at least theoretically in Europe (apologies, no politics), and it was cool, but I wouldn’t compare the significance of that road race to what we will see in Paris, just after the Tour de France. The hope is that all the injured guys will have long since recovered, and maybe then, we will finally get the ultimate battle royale we (or at least I) have been salivating over since last summer. In fact, it’s such a delicious prospect that if it happens, it will overshadow all of spring — and would have done so even with all the top classics stars present the past few weeks. So if the pasta course wasn’t entirely to your liking, fear not… the main course is yet to come.