Known as the Spring Classics, these one-day races test cycling’s toughest riders with the worst conditions imaginable—sucking mud, choking dust, leg-numbing sleet, fanatic spectators, and Europe’s narrowest, most bone-grinding country roads. Clattering through agrarian hamlets on routes established a century ago, the Spring Classics celebrate cycling’s most glorious and meaningful history. Riders that perform well amidst the intensity of these one-day races are acclaimed as cycling’s “hard men.”The Spring Classics delves into the stories of Milan-San Remo, Ghent-Wevelgem, the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, the Amstel Gold Race, La Flèche Wallone, and Liège-Bastogne-Liège through hundreds of rare and restored photographs presented in a lavish format. With authoritative text from cycling’s expert sportswriters, The Spring Classics commemorates the riders, traditions, and secrets of cycling’s greatest one-day contests.

    This paperback includes the seasons of a professional cyclist.

    Each chapter covers a particular part of the bike, from the frame, to forks, headsets, wheels, tyres, hubs, gear components, chains, brakes, saddles, handlebars, pedals, water bottle cages, and accessories. Including beautiful studio images of the latest kit, the chapters feature interviews with the top designers and manufacturers, and maintenance tips from professional mechanics.

    A publication of more than 400 photographs taken in the course of almost twenty years by the messenger and photographer Eddie Williams (1963), who began working as a bicycle messenger in 1984. Two years later, he began to take photographs of this environment. Besides acting as a messenger and focusing on photography, he also directed the Nayak Gallery in Brooklyn. The book is a picture of a profession that has become part of the iconography of the city of the skyscrapers.

    It offers information you need to know from the basics of how to balance on a bike right through to how to back flip one giving aspiring riders the skills they need to be a better biker - whatever type of riding they do.