For saying March is a month that carries the optimism of spring, we cycling fans seem to like it brutal and gritty don’t we? There may not have been any ice-encrusted riders this year, but we had the usual instalments of will-crushing bad weather, climbs so steep you expect to see John Lithgow chasing Sly Stallone up them, dust, crashes, and of course, plenty of those Flandrian cobbles.

Yet somehow, in spite of all that, riders threw themselves into the burgeoning season with the vigour and enthusiasm of, erm, me in a Belgian brewery, and out of all that mayhem came some outstanding racing. Continue reading →