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Best race of the major spring classics of 2019?

Best of the major spring classics of 2019?

  • Omloop Het Nieuwsblad

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Strade Bianche

    Votes: 3 4.0%
  • Milano-San Remo

    Votes: 2 2.7%
  • E3-BinckBank

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Gent-Wevelgem

    Votes: 7 9.3%
  • Ronde van Vlaanderen

    Votes: 6 8.0%
  • Paris-Roubaix

    Votes: 20 26.7%
  • Amstel Gold Race

    Votes: 51 68.0%
  • Flèche Wallonne

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Liège-Bastogne-Liège

    Votes: 1 1.3%

  • Total voters
    75
With the cobbled, gravelly and hilly classics races done, it's time for an evaluation. Which of the ten big one-day races was the best?

I've been pleasantly surprised with all of them. But Amstel Gold Race was the most surreal experience for me.

Discuss..
 
I missed big parts of some of the earlier races so I can't really judge how good Omloop, SB, E3 and GW were.
Of the rest, MSR was fantastic from the Poggio onwards, better than most of the time imo, but as always as boring as a race can be until there.
The Ronde had a lot of good racing early on but at the end it was kinda meh. The least memorable editions of the Ronde are usually the ones where it entirely comes down to who is strongest out of a big group on the last Kwaremont ascent and that's exactly what happened.
Paris Roubaix was fantastic in my opinion and is probably my 2nd favorite race of this spring. It had action from early one, the winning move came really early but while that has led to race situations in the past where the race was basically over 50 kilometers from the finish. There was supsense all the way to the finish and I was really happy with the winner.
Still Amstel takes the price for me. Nonstop racing on the final 40 kilometers, fantastic chase between Alaphilippe/Fuglsang and Kwiat/Trentin, while behind there were constant attacks from the peloton and to top it off we had one of the craziest finishes and most incredible performances I've ever seen to a cycling race.
Fleche was better than most of the time but that still doesn't make it a great race and LBL was also better than in previous year without being great. Good to see that Fuglsang finally got a big win though. Would have been tragic if his biggest win of the spring had been a stage in Tirreno Adriatico.
 
Gigs_98 said:
I missed big parts of some of the earlier races so I can't really judge how good Omloop, SB, E3 and GW were.
Of the rest, MSR was fantastic from the Poggio onwards, better than most of the time imo, but as always as boring as a race can be until there.
The Ronde had a lot of good racing early on but at the end it was kinda meh. The least memorable editions of the Ronde are usually the ones where it entirely comes down to who is strongest out of a big group on the last Kwaremont ascent and that's exactly what happened.
Paris Roubaix was fantastic in my opinion and is probably my 2nd favorite race of this spring. It had action from early one, the winning move came really early but while that has led to race situations in the past where the race was basically over 50 kilometers from the finish. There was supsense all the way to the finish and I was really happy with the winner.
Still Amstel takes the price for me. Nonstop racing on the final 40 kilometers, fantastic chase between Alaphilippe/Fuglsang and Kwiat/Trentin, while behind there were constant attacks from the peloton and to top it off we had one of the craziest finishes and most incredible performances I've ever seen to a cycling race.
Fleche was better than most of the time but that still doesn't make it a great race and LBL was also better than in previous year without being great. Good to see that Fuglsang finally got a big win though. Would have been tragic if his biggest win of the spring had been a stage in Tirreno Adriatico.
They were awesome thank you very much.
 
I didnt really get in my cycling groove before Paris-Nice started which is a lot later than usual, so I cant really remember the opening weekend and Strade that well (saw the races, but couldn't concentrate on them lmao). But from my understand Strade was its usual race, a great one, the 6th monument!!!!

All the flemish classics were pretty good, E-3, G-W, Dwaars, Flanders. Again, pretty much your usual race in terms of excitement. Reason I say that about G-W is it still ended in a pretty big group sprint, but I may be underrating it a bit. Guess you can say the same about MSR, altho it was the most exciting group I can remember getting anyway. Top class riders.

Roubaix was the best race for me, I watched it almost in its entirety and it was literally never boring. No races can do that better than Roubaix. Gilbert getting away, getting rejoined by the likes of Sagan and such, then the elimnation from the group, Sagan bonking, Sep's problem etc. Great winner as well. Takes the cake.

Amstel the second best. Early action, then a bit of a lul in the action and MvdP's amazing comeback. Legendary ride.

Fleche Wallone I found better than your average Fleche Wallone. Was a fairly hard race with a great duel in the end.

Liege? I dont really know. Its hard to judge it, but not overly happy about how the route played out, but being a Dane and all, it was great to see Fuglsang pull an Andy on Roche and take the race with power.

Overall, I think pretty much all the classics were at least average in terms of how they usually play out, so thats good. Roubaix was a great edition, 8/10-8/5/10 and Amstel was pretty memorable, but other than that, it was not an out of the ordinary campaign overall like i found 2017 to be. As always, a lot of great racing.
 
Of course AGR was the race with the major surprise outcome, a bit like a detective novel where the most likely suspect did it after all, just when it seemed impossible. However if you mean the strongest win I would say Fuglsang's LBL and Gilbert's PR. Alaphilippe and Van der Poel are the two best riders of the spring in that order. Most remarkable was the emergence of several young riders at the top level.
 
Amstel for me. It was only 40 kilometres of action but the finish was the most surreal one I have ever seen.

MSR had the second best final kilometres.

Gent-Wevelgem must have been the most crazy race to be part of but the fact that it ended in a sprint which looked impossible to avoid the last 50 kilometres makes it miss the top spot.

Paris-Roubaix was fun as always but when Sagan suddenly disappeared, it was impossible for me to keep much interest in what was going on.

Flanders was not a good race compared to what it usually is if you ask me.

Strade was good but again, the outcome seemed given as soon as Fuglsang and Alaphilippe attacked. It also continues to piss me off that we can't see more of this race. The first decisive splits have always been established before we are allowed to watch.
 
G-W was my personal favourite. Absolutely gripping race and imo highest level Flemish race of this spring. Many big favourites couldn't completely recover from it in time for De Ronde.

Amstel had quite obviously the best finale, but for a race as a whole I enjoyed G-W little bit more.

Roubaix, while a great race, was dominated by QuickSteps numbers game. An unexpected ending ripping up the playbook scenario (like Politt beating Gilbert in the end) would have lifted it higher in my list. Nothing against Gilbert, but QS-s dominance in March was such that it almost forced to cheer for their rivals.
 
Voted for Amstel as it was the only great one day race of this season. But the cobbles classics were also good, most of them. I probably find that RVV was the best of them.

Overall, I feel that the week long stage races were a bit more exciting than the one day races. Tirreno and Itzulia were both better than any one day race. Normally, this is not the case, and it's not because the one day races were significantly worse than last year but because some of the week long stage races were of such high quality compared to normal.
 
I chose Roubaix. It took until 50k to go that a group of riders had an advantage over the peloton of more than 40 seconds. EVERY move before that was shut down. We had racing from the get go! And the finish with Gilbert taking home his 4th monument on top of it was just special. Yeah, the end of Amstel was more crazy but the race as a whole, no way it was better than Paris-Roubaix.
 
Paris-Roubaix, because the suspense (and unlikely outcome) in Amstel mostly came from stupid riding, while the suspense in Roubaix came from clever and positive riding. Moreover, Roubaix was entertaining for hours, Amstel for about an hour. I don't even understand why that race gets more votes than Roubaix.
 
Re:

Jagartrott said:
Paris-Roubaix, because the suspense (and unlikely outcome) in Amstel mostly came from stupid riding, while the suspense in Roubaix came from clever and positive riding. Moreover, Roubaix was entertaining for hours, Amstel for about an hour. I don't even understand why that race gets more votes than Roubaix.

Possibly because what we saw there was completely unique.
 
Re: Re:

tobydawq said:
Jagartrott said:
Paris-Roubaix, because the suspense (and unlikely outcome) in Amstel mostly came from stupid riding, while the suspense in Roubaix came from clever and positive riding. Moreover, Roubaix was entertaining for hours, Amstel for about an hour. I don't even understand why that race gets more votes than Roubaix.

Possibly because what we saw there was completely unique.
This.

I will remember Amstel 2019 finish for years but I'm not sure I will remember much from Paris-Roubiax 2019 in 10 years. There weren't many plot twists in PR. A group of 6 got away, then a group of 2 got away and then a 2-men sprint on the velodrome.
 
Amstel had a good final, but other than that, the other races easily eclipsed it for me personally.
Van der Poel's crash and chase in Ronde v Vlaanderen, Bettiol out of the blue.
Van Aert's tripple chase in Roubaix, Gilbert winning a 4th monument.

Haven't voted yet... i'll have to sleep on it.
 
To be honest, P-R was my favorite this year. Amstel was nearly as good, but only because Alaphilippe/Fuglsang threw it away at the end. Had they continued to ride and finished in a 1/2 sprint with the VDP group coming up fast, it would have been memorable but not much above average. But to me P-R was just nonstop action, and recall that many (including myself) thought Sagan was going to be a serious factor at the end; and it had been a while since he looked less than in top shape...so it was a little shocked that he fell off the pace at a point where normally he'd put the hammer down.

Biggest disappointment was LBL, not because Fugl wasn't worthy but because a lot of his top competitors just didn't have it last weekend. There was a lot of talk from guys like Kwiat that they'd waited all year for LBL but everyone just kind of fizzled at the end.
 

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