fujimontar

Hi all!

I'm getting into cycling for the first time as an adult, and would like to start watching some professional cycling races as well.

Out of curiosity, what are your favorite races of all time? Best moments in a race?

For those in the U.S., what service/subscription do you use to watch cycling races?

Thanks!

slcbob

GCN+ subscription is, I think, $50 a year. Do not get suckered by FloBikes which is, besides Peacock, your main other choice in the US. They are more expensive and inferior.

You will need a VPN to watch some of the races "from the UK." Particularly those from ASO.

Watch A Sunday in Hell. Google "monuments of cycling" and watch some clips of them. Dabble in the grand tours - IMHO the Giro is the most spectacular and Vuelta can be the most up in the air, but clearly the Tour has its epicness. Also the classics - big one day races that aren't quite monuments.

I bet YouTube would return some interesting hits for top cycling moments. Hopefully more than just crashes, though Kruijswijk into a snow drift and Lance going cross country to avoid Beloki are some personal faves. I'd rather see Froome's long range attack to salvage the race than him slam into the building on his TT bike but, unfortunately, the latter packages into a tiny clip easier.

Don't overlook the value of going out to see a local cyclocross race or office park crit. Search bikereg.com for events. Though perhaps you're already doing that as a competitor.

Enjoy.

slcbob

P.S. I hope that wasn't too pedantic

I don't remember what I had for lunch yesterday so, even where I have a great memory of a specific race situation, the best I can do off the top of my head is something like "mid-mountain stage late in the Giro a few years ago ".

Shadco 

Paris–Roubaix

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fujimontar

Not at all! I appreciate it! Looking forward to checking some of them out

alcjphil

For me, it was the 1974 word championship road race which took place in my home city allowing me to go watch it in person. At that time, the world championships also included track racing with the velodrome set up in the football stadium of the University of Montreal. We were able to go and watch cyclists doing their training sessions prior to the competitions

semroc

Slcbob nailed it. GCN+ is awesome. 2016 Paris Roubaix is one of my favorites. Or any Roubaix. Watching Voeckler in yellow is a treat. Oh. I almost forgot Eros Poli on Ventoux with Pantani chasing him in 94., stage 15 I think. So very epic. Have fun.

jsxcsnow

GCN+ is the best deal going. Besides races, they have a ton of documentaries. This month you can get Peacock for $1.99 a month for 12 months or $19.99 for a year.

USAZorro

My favorite individual races?

World Championship Elite Men's race in Richmond, VA - 2015 (I was/am a Sagan fan, and this was pretty special).

2007 Elite Men's WC race. No way in the world Paolo Bettini should have ever won one - let alone 2 World Championships, but the little guy just had a gift. This one was exciting.

Personally, I do a lot of fast-forwarding through Time Trials, but there were two very special ones. Stage 21 of the 1989 TdF, when Greg LeMond overcame a substantial deficit on the final stage to "steal" victory from Laurent Fignon. Also, Stage 20 of the 2020 TdF, when Pogacar accomplished the equivalent of what LeMond did - only while going uphill.

As mentioned, there are numerous Paris-Roubaix editions that are worth watching if you can. One of my frustrations watching this race, though, is that we typically only get to see about the final 1/3 of the race here in the states. It's a wild and crazy event that has even had the podium influenced by train crossings.
The Tour of Flanders often gets compelling in the latter stages of the race, as does Milan-San Remo.

If you want to see some epic footage from the past 20 years, here are a few to look up - if you can find them, because WADA eliminated some of them, but still...

Google Lance giving "the look" Floyd's insane TdF stage - which would likely be considered the most epic performance of all time had he not fallen afoul of testing. Only possible because this may have been the overall weakest field of competitors in the Tour in many years, and despite a very high probability that 25% of the peloton was also likely cheating. Would have been fun to watch, but it was on a day when I was driving on a long-haul family vacation. There are better and more traditional videos, but it's Friday night, and I like LMFAO. For comedy conjoined with karma - Michael Rasmussen's time trial adventures. There must be a better one of just this - in English. The backstory... all the fans knew Rasmussen was a huge doper, and hated him. Iit was so bad that fan pressure caused him to abandon the race - For complete OMG - check out Fabian Cancellara chasing to get back on. One last recent one. 2022 Milan - San Remo. Mahoric burned 25 of his 9 lives winning the race on the downhill.

slcbob

Nice list USAZorro

Milan-San Remo is a beautiful race.

I'm a huge fan of De Ronde / Flanders. Watching Boonen / Cancellara / Sagan / et al torch the Koppenberg and the Kappelmuur are magical moments. I like it almost more than Roubaix though watching Adam Blythe almost lose his mud on the moto in the Trouee d' Arenberg a few years ago was up there. Brad on a bike debuted shortly thereafter.

Mohoric with his dropper seat post and PsyOps against the peloton was super worthy. A bold plan recklessly executed. Victory for the audacious.

I made it to Richmond for the men's elite road race. Did you? I can't remember if that was a re-Pete or three-Pete but it was great.

HeyItsSara

My favorite race is the most exciting and most famous race in the world, Le Tour de France!
My 2 favorite moments from this past summer were when both IPM riders won their stages - Hugo with a nod to his brother and when Simon Clarke went head to head with another rider to win quite dramatically!

str8jakett

Also made it to Richmond, and what a great time that was! Richmond was the first WC win for Sagan.

GCN+ is a must have to watch professional road racing. I load up whatever is on and stream it in the background during work hours. Don't tell my boss. I also use a VPN and the website version (versus the app) to watch races I can't otherwise.

GhostRider62

I've watched TdF, Paris Roubaix, and the World Champs in person.

Strangely, my favorite memory was Lemond's off the front win in 1983 for the World Champ. Afterwards, he was asked in an interview how he did it. He says something like, I put it in the 53x12 and went as hard as I could. Going off the front like that? Wow.

After a big Alp day in the town near l'alpe d;huez, the tour roles out of town. Lemond stays signing autographs for what seemed maybe 5-6 minutes. His team mate is freaking out. Greg!! Let's go. We have to go. "Just a couple more, don't worry we'll catch them" Yes....that was my favorite race. The day before up the Alpe d'Huez was fun or was it Galibier, I forget. I drank too much wine touring that day

The Worlds in Colorado Springs was fun to watch. Also in the days before I was doing a climb into the Rockies and a team catches me from behind. The freakin Italian team. As they pass, they invite me to hop on. So as they were chatting and joking, I was puking bile trying to hang on just barely but what a memory.

slcbob

Hey now! That wasn't one of the choices.

But darn it if you aren't spot on. PCS confirms my senility. 2015 was a helluva year for that lad. Even if you exclude his Grease music video which may have come out around then.

• White jersey in Qatar
• Green in Tirreno Adriatic
• 4th in MSR and de Ronde
• GC in ToC and a couple of stages
• Green in TdS and a couple of stages
• Slovakian Road and TT
• Green in TdF (and too many 2nd places)
• A stage in the Vuelta
• Rainbow jersey

alcjphil

I love an underdog. When Matt Heymans won Paris Roubaix after coming back from a broken collarbone by training on Zwift it was one of the most exciting finishes ever. Every single rider at the final was pure quality and any one of them deserved it except that the unrated underdog came through to win. Ironically, later that spring I was on a cycling vacation in France and we were on a big ride in the Pyrenees. We stopped at a crossroad to regroup after a fairly big climb when who should come along but Matt and his team. We asked them if we could take photos and Caleb Ewen jokingly asked for us to pay $5 each. We all laughed. To be fair, we were a bunch of middle aged cyclists that they found at the top of a pretty tough climb so I guess that Caleb figured we could take a little ribbing