Milano-San Remo, this was the race that woke me up to the fact there was more to bike racing than the Tour de France. Living in Hong Kong and not having any family who were into cycling meant that I learnt about the sport through magazines and books and old tapes of races. Milan-San Remo caught my imagination for some reason.

I think it was because it was the first classic I ever watched. I thought the way Maurizio Fondriest won it was such class. He became my hero for years to come and his racing style and form on a bike was something I always wanted to emulate. I ended up rooming with him my first year pro on Cofidis. That was weird.

For the few people who read this and don’t know what Milan-San Remo is, or represents, I will give a brief history. The first edition was held in 1907, and along side Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, Leige-Bastogne-Leige, Amstel Gold Race, Tour of Lombardy, Paris-Tours and of course the World Championships, is one of the major one-day classics of our sport. These eight races are the equivalent in the one-day racing world of the three Grand Tours of France, Italy and Spain. To win one makes you one of the best bike riders of the epoch. To win more than one makes you one of the greats of your generation destined to leave a mark in the annals of the sport.

Each one of these classics caters to a certain sort of rider, sprinter, (Zabel, Friere) climber (Di Luca, Cunego), all round weapon (Bettini, Bartoli, Fondriest, Kelly). The all-round weapons tend to be able to consistently perform in all the classics, making their strongest marks in the Ardennes races of Amstel and Leige, and more often than not, the World Championships.

Milan San Remo is the longest of these classics. This year it will be 298 km. Oddly it is also the easiest to finish out of all of them, giving it the subtitle of a ‘sprinters classic.’ The course is mainly flat and the race is very controlled. It follows a strict protocol and very rarely deviates from it.

We leave the industrial city of Milan (believe me, there is little sign of the fashion industry at 9 am on a Saturday morning in March) in the cold and mist. We roll along neutralized for 10-15 km until we reach the edge of the city. We pass ‘km 0’ and the race lights up for what will be a maximum of one hour, high-speed, lined-out racing. This ends when a break goes that the peloton is happy to let go, a break that ticks all the boxes for inevitable failure. Failure being it is catchable.

Then the peloton shuts down for about an hour after which the teams of the favorites start riding. They may strike up some alliances with the other favorites and their teams depending on the quality of the break and time gap and distance to finish. From this moment on the race is controlled.

At the half-way mark, we reach Passo del Turchino, a 20 km mountain pass. This is the range that runs along the coast. Then we descend 12 km onto the coastal front. At this point - 170 km in - we enter a different world and a different race. This is where surplus clothing is removed and the race starts for real.

The speed gradually increases and the peloton becomes more and more stretched out as it winds and rolls along the waterfront of the Italian Riviera. The break is reeled in with about 50 km to go generally, sometimes a bit later, sometimes a bit earlier. But rarely does a break make it to the foot of the Cipressa just inside 30 km to go.

This is where the finale begins. The next 28 km are some of the most intense racing we do all year. We have two climbs, both of which go over the hills which run along the coastal front. And both times, we turn off the main road onto smaller roads which take us up and down before spitting us back on to the coastal road. The climbs are not very hard, but after 270km they feel like mountain passes.

You have to be near the front as the speed is high and gaps open when you least expect it. Riders you’d normally trust to hold the wheel in front of you suddenly have their lights go out, their Milan-San Remo finished as the wheel in front disappears into the distance. Being caught behind these dropped men means wasting a huge amount of energy closing the gaps. And in a race that is 300 km long, every single pedal stroke counts in the end.

Then there’s the descent of the Cipressa. It is technical and fast. The peloton gets stretched to its breaking point and gets slung shot off the hillside onto the main coastal road once again. This is one of the hardest bits of the race. If you lose a wheel here, you’re generally finished. It is usually going at close to 70 km/h on a flat road, so the chase back on means you’re too wrecked for the upcoming Poggio climb.

Then we hit the Poggio.

Alongside Alpe d’Huez and the Stelvio, it is the most famous climb in cycling. It’s not much in all honesty. If you were to go and ride it in training you’d wonder what all the fuss is about. But if you’ve ever watched any of the races on TV you would most definitely feel the energy that’s present on that climb. It’s a magic 3.7 km. Every cycling fan should ride it once in their life. One can feel the presence of all the greats who’ve raced up there, more so than you can on any of the big mountain passes.

I rode it a few times last year with Max Sciandri. He knows it like the back of his hand and was telling me where Argentin and Fondriest and Fignon all attacked. He showed me exactly where they launched, all within metres of each other, and yet years apart.

This is what I love about this race. We race 298 km and yet we know almost to the metre what is going to happen, that one definitive moment where the race is made. Only a handful of riders ever break free on the Poggio, and in my opinion to do it is one of the most beautiful moments in a career. From when I first watched Fondriest go, I have dreamt of doing it. Making it to the finish is in the hands of the gods. But descending THAT descent, leading Milan-San Remo, that I intend to do at least once before I hang up my bike for good.

Watch this clip from the 1992 Milan-San Remo. It will get you in the spirit of the thing. An interesting footnote: the guy in green who is the last to get dropped by Moreno Argentin is Jim Van de Laer. He was my first room mate as a pro cyclist. I was the last man dropped by Bettini and Paulini in 2003. That was probably one of the most horrible feelings I’ve ever had a cyclist, one I can’t forget.

Also, youngsters who watch this clip, watch the way Sean Kelly is the iceman incarnate in the final. He’s just raced 300 km, dropped the field on the descent of the Poggio, bridged up to the other great one-day rider of the time, and doesn’t even blink an eyelid at calling Argentin’s bluff.

And everybody thought Sean Kelly was too old and but a thing of the past when he rolled out of Milan that March morning. As the French would so wonderfully say, ‘Il etait un seigneur.’

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