L'Eroica Dreams

For a L’Eroica participant, spring is the time that alerts the senses to the open road and alerts the mind to the realization that training must begin now. Inspiration in these cold, dark months can

Book Cover, Spring Classics

be found in the sepia toned photos and online videos of previous rides. Another boost awaits us, though, and that’s the tonic of the beginning of the racing season in Europe, beautifully detailed in “The Spring Classics: Cycling’ Greatest One-Day Races.” from Velopress.

Just before this sumptuous bit of coffee table bike porn was released, I found an out of print book on a subject in sport that rises above most others for me: baseball. George Will’s “Men at Work” is an exploration of the important efforts made by several different baseball “workers.” It was auspicious that this book, which I read when it was released 20 years ago, would show up so close to the cycling book. 

I won’t try to draw parallels between the two volumes except for the fervor that both sports engender on opposite sides of the Atlantic. As with the excitement that accompanies spring training so it is with spring racing. 

Most of us know Paris-Roubaix and see it as the jewel in the crown of spring bicycle battles. In some ways, Paris-Roubaix is the only spring race that many on this side of the Atlantic can identify. The Tour de France occupies a similar position in American minds. Paris-Roubaix’s difficult conditions on the pave, the notoriously brutal weather, the distances and the agony of the riders all make for a compelling narrative and drama. But, many other spring races dominate the schedule, which began last weekend with the seminal Milan-San Remo. 

Readers who are most familiar with the sights of carbon fiber bikes ridden by highly trained athletes with radio earbuds fixed and phalanxes of domestiques pulling them along will enjoy seeing working class men pushing single speed bikes over the cobblestones and muddy paths that are the origin of today’s spring races. The copy matches the photography well. By that, I am confirming that this is foremost a picture book, with just enough historical perspective and race reporting to make it more than a gauzy retreat into nostalgia. And, sufficient space is given to current racers to insure that the book, and the races, are relevant to today’s reader. 

So, why review it here, in a blog about L’Eroica, a casual tour in the fall in Italy? Because, the focus of the book is really the tradition of the spring races, where fairly ordinary men, looking for a bit of money and recognition, rode the existing roads and cart paths to a heroic end. L’Eroica’s focus on the old roads and old bicycles, and by association old riders, is consistent with the conditions of the spring races.