March Madness of Cycling

The next three weeks or so is Spring Classics season -- the March Madness of cycling. The classics are the races for the strongmen, who duke it out in groups of threes and fours in the schizophrenic spring weather and bleak northern european countryside.

The first Sunday of April means Ronde Van Vlaandren. It's trademark are short steep climbs, and it all plays out like a chess game moving down the road at 30 mph.

There's still a core of aficionados who know it is the most beautiful sport, but cycling will never have the social importance it had in post-war Europe. It was the show case of working-class suffering and heroics, and who can relate to that now ? Everyone works in an office and behind a desk or in the service of others.