- Eroica -

Eroica; it means 'heroic.'

This weekend is the Monte Paschi Eroica race in Italy. It's only in it's second year, but this beast over the white gravel roads staring in Gaiole in Chianti and ending 181 kilometres later in Siena's Piazza del Campo, is definitely one of my favorite races of the calendar already. The fact that they moved it from the end of the year to the spring only increases it's appeal to me.

It's true, I make exotic bespoke bicycles, but I really love the nasty, gnarly, brutal spring races.

With Het Volk and K-B-K last weekend, I got into full-steam fascination with bicycle racing again. This year I'll have enough to keep me interested through the Olympics (where Taylor and Meatball will be going for the big wins), but there is nothing that I love more than Paris-Roubaix and the Ronde van Vlaanderen (if you really love it you use the Flemish).

But I'll leave the digression and get back to the Eroica.

The thing that I love about the Eroica is that you can really understand its harshness. There is no way that anyone who has not gotten their electrons and protons rattled by the cobbles of Northern France can understand what that race is like. The Belgian cobbles are no picnic either, but they aren't half as bad as the French version. It's a level of chaos and suffering that no rider can even remotely comprehend without having been there.

The Eroica is different. It's run on long stretches of gravel roads; or the strade bianche as they are known. Every rider with a bit of adventure in them has taken the road bike down a gravel road or two and done some high-speed dodging of potholes that could fit an entire wheel.

In the spring (and summer, fall and winter actually) here in Boulder I have a route that takes in about 60% gravel roads between north Boulder and Hygine. I love it. I may even take it this weekend just in honor of the Eroica (though I had better ride the steel bike with 32 hole 202 rims rather than the Ti-carbon bike with Lightweights - that wouldn't be a good idea).

So here's to the Eroica; the Hardmen of the Spring; and taking a perfectly lice bicycle, covering it in dirt, dust and grime, and ratteling it and rider to within an inch of their life. Man, I love the Classics...