Spring Classics 2024: schedule and guide so you don't miss anything

March and April are for many the most exciting cycling months of the year. It is the time of the Spring Classics. One-day races that are fiercely contested, where no one holds back and in which, in recent years, thanks to the talent of extraordinary riders such as Van der Poel, Van Aert, Pogacar, Pidcock or Evenepoel, we are perhaps enjoying some of the best cycling in history.

The best cycling in the Spring Classics 2024

Let's not fool ourselves, even though the 2024 cycling season has already been pedaling for a few weeks with the Australian races, which give way to the European calendar with the tests of the Challenge de Mallorca, Comunitat Valenciana, Andalucía, etc. and then continue with major events in terms of tours in races such as Paris-Nice or Tirreno Adriatico.

These have been the races that traditionally have attracted the attention of the average fans, tests on the route of preparation of the great tour riders on their way to the Giro d'Italia or the Tour de France. But there is another cycling, that of the spring classics, a mini-season in itself in which real specialists in some tests that are disputed without the constraints of a general classification offer us superb shows in each race.

Opening weekend

Omloop Het Niewsblad

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The classics start strong with one of the most reputable tests of the spring calendar. A mini Tour of Flanders in all its glory, in fact, it concludes in what, for many years, was the arrival of the Flemish monument with a final part equally classic facing that iconic chain of walls with the ascents to Muur-Kapelmuur and Bosberg.

• Date: Saturday 24 February
• Place: Ninove (Belgium)
• Winner 2023: Dylan van Baarle

Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne

The border cities with France, Kortijk and Kuurne, both neighbors are the scene of this test that, as its name allows to put, heads towards the region of Brussels, towards the known as Flemish Ardennes where the hills that host the walls that have given cycling fame to the region are concentrated. However, the final part, with a circuit without hardly any demand around Kuurne usually results in unexpected outcomes, sometimes with a small group that sought their bet from afar on the walls, among them the mythical and very hard Koppenberg or the Oude Kwaremont.

• Date: Sunday 25 February
• Place: Kuurne (Belgium)
• Winner 2023: Tiesj Benoot

Italian classics

Strade Bianche

For many fans, this Italian race, which popularized the inclusion of dirt sections in races, has unofficially become the sixth monument. A denomination that the race itself seems to want to accept with changes like the one in this 2024 edition that extends its distance to 215 kilometers with the inclusion of a final circuit around Siena.

• Date: Saturday 2 March
• Place: Siena (Italy)
• Winner 2023: Tom Pidcock

Milan-Turin

The history of this race is curious as it has alternated its location in the calendar between the end of the year and the month of March. Between 2012 and 2021 it seemed to have settled among the Italian races that preceded Il Lombardia, with a route that had its own entity with its finish at the basilica of Superga. However, two years ago, the organization decided to return to spring becoming a test without hardly any difficulties that gives an opportunity for the sprinters to shine on the eve of Milan-San Remo.

• Date: Wednesday 13 March
• Place: Orbassano (Italy)
• Winner 2023: Arvid de Kleijn

Milan-San Remo

The dispute of the monuments starts with the Classicisima, as it is often said, the easiest to dispute and the hardest to win in which the very high speed that is developed throughout its 300 kilometers means that only a few chosen ones are in a position to make a difference in the Poggio of San Remo, a tachuela that would be little more than a long slope in any other race but that here becomes the climax after hours of pedaling to give us one of the most exciting finals of the calendar.

• Date: Saturday 16 March
• Place: San Remo (Italy)
• Winner 2023: Mathieu van der Poel

Cobblestone classics

Brugge de Panne

De Panne has always been an atypical test within the Belgian spring calendar, in fact its traditional denomination of 3 days of La Panne refers to the mini-tour format that it has traditionally had although for some years now it is disputed as a one-day classic whose route, without hardly any difficulties and marked by a final circuit around De Panne offers an almost inevitable outcome to the sprint.

• Date: Wednesday 20 March
• Place: De Panne (Belgium)
• Winner 2023: Jasper Philipsen

E3 Saxo Classic

A race usually accompanied by controversy for its controversial advertising posters, in fact, a few weeks ago they managed to get the LGBTI+ collective on top of them with a publication in which they alluded to the end of the Benidorm World Cup of Wout van Aert after losing the chair. In purely sporting terms, we are facing another mini Tour of Flanders with the ascent to no less than 17 walls and which, in 2023, offered us one of the best races that are remembered with a fierce battle between Van der Poel, Van Aert and that new classic man called Tadej Pogacar.

• Date: Friday 22 March
• Place: Harelbeke (Belgium)
• Winner 2023: Wout van Aert

Ghent-Wevelgem

Without a doubt, one of the races with the most prestige among the cobblestone classics, in fact, if we made a classification of the Belgian races, after the Tour of Flanders would be this and Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and then would come all the others. Another tough succession of walls and cobblestones that are concentrated in the final part with the various ascents by different slopes to the Kemmelberg in another of the images that always appear in the retina of any good fan of the classics.

• Date: Sunday 24 March
• Place: Wevelgem (Belgium)
• Winner 2023: Christophe Laporte

Dwars Door Vlaanderen

A race that in recent years has lost some steam in the days leading up to the Tour of Flanders in which the main favorites for this one prefer to reserve themselves and focus on their final training. In any case, a new transit through the region of the Flemish walls despite the fact that its final part, further away from them, gives rise to other race alternatives: distant attacks, groups of strong people who play the race in a tactical battle or even sprint in some edition.

• DAte: Wednesday 27 March
• Place: Waregem (Belgium)
• Winner 2023: Christophe Laporte

Tour of Flanders

Undoubtedly, the monument with the most complex development of the calendar despite its location for some years now in Oudenaarde and the final loop with the chained Oude Kwaremont - Paterberg largely conditions the outcome. However, the talent of the best classics riders, not afraid to make a mess elsewhere or the arrival of fresh air with Tadej Pogacar make the indeterminacy increase. Anywhere, since 150 km from the finish line the walls start to rise, could be where the race breaks.

• Date: Sunday 31 March
• Place: Oudenaarde (Belgium)
• Winner 2023: Tadej Pogacar

Scheldeprijs

Another of the few options for the sprinters during the spring, the Scheldt Grand Prix, in allusion to the route around that river, in the area of Antwerp, close to the border with the Netherlands. A practically flat route and with a usual sprint resolution. As with Dwars Door Vlaanderen, it is not easy to find top names among its participants, who prefer to save their strength for the great denouement of the pavé season.

• Date: Wednesday 3 April
• Place: Schoten (Belgium)
• Winner 2023: Jasper Philipsen

Paris-Roubaix

The climax of the cobblestone season is undoubtedly one of the most iconic races in cycling and one of the few that transcends the realm of the cycling fan. Little can be said about this race that is not already known: 100 undulating kilometers in which the wind and the fierce search for the breakaway are already generating significant wear and tear. A breakaway that in this race is usually a guarantee of a good final position. After that, the pavé sections start in an endless succession with several high points that all have marked the passage through Arenberg, Mons en Pevele or the Carrefou de l'Arbre and, however, it is not strange that the decisive movement occurs elsewhere, always looking for a surprise.

• Date: Sunday 7 April
• Place: Roubaix (France)
• Winner 2023: Mathieu van der Poel

Brabantse Pijl

The journey through the cobblestone classics ends with a race that for several years was the preserve of Oscar Freire. A race that is perhaps a little out of place as a link between the cobblestones and the Ardennes, but that often offers us cycling of many carats in its final circuit in Overijse.

• Date: Wednesday 10 April
• Place: Overijse (Belgium)
• Winner 2023: Dorian Godon

Triptych of the Ardennes

Amstel Gold Race

The hills that mark the Dutch province of Limburg, surely the most rugged that can be found in the Netherlands, are the stage of the beer classic, a race that, within the classics, is not one of the most traditional but that usually never disappoints, without going any further, with the distant attack in the 2023 edition of Tadej Pogacar that turned the race upside down when no one expected it. As in the case of the three races taking place this week, it is a race for another type of cyclist, not so much a classicist but more versatile, and even the all rounders can be seen here with a good performance.

• Date: Saturday 13 April
• Place: Valkenburg (Netherlands)
• Winner 2023: Tadej Pogacar

La Flèche Wallonne

A strange race if ever there was one, as it is a very specific race for this type of rider with a tremendous uphill finish. In any case, a race that serves as a precedent to the last of the spring monuments and whose outcome, despite the attempts of the organization to toughen it, continues to be focused on the mythical Wall of Huy of the homonymous city.

• Date: Wednesday 17 April
• Place: Huy (Belgium)
• Winner 2023: Tadej Pogacar

Liège-Bastogne-Liège

The doyenne, the most classic classic of the calendar will test the strength of the riders through the Ardennes hills in an endless series of climbs, longer than the Flemish walls and where it takes a very special type of rider, able to climb with the best and at the same time have enough explosiveness to not collapse in the face of the violence with which these climbs are faced. The question for 2024 is whether Remco Evenepoel will be able to continue to make this race his private preserve after two consecutive victories in recent seasons.

• Date: Sunday 21 April
• Place: Liège (Belgium)
• Winner 2023: Remco Evenepoel