The first Monument of the season is happening this Saturday and we couldn’t be more excited.
One race favorite, Tom Pidcock, announced Wednesday that he’s out of the race due to a concussion sustained during Paris-Nice last week, so all eyes will be on Wout Van Aert and the seemingly unstoppable Tadej Pogačar as the riders all the other teams—and all of us— will be watching.
Milan-San Remo is considered one of the toughest races on the calendar for the men, and is definitively the longest one-day classic, clocking in at 294K
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Another thing that’s considered a truism about this race is that “it ain’t over till it’s over.” In other words, it’s totally unpredictable.
How to watch Milan-San Remo
Milan-San Remo will be broadcast live on GCN+. The start time is 4:55 a.m. EDT, but if you’re not an early riser, don’t worry. The race will also be available on demand.
What’s the course like?
The course starts in Abbiategrasso, Italy and is relatively flat aside from one major (and by major we mean ten percent gradient in some spots major) climb up the Passo Del Turchino at around kilometer 144.
That is, it’s flat until it’s not. Starting at about 50K from the finish the climbs start pummeling the riders, one after the other like waves. The last climb, the Poggio Di Sanremo, is one of the most iconic climbs in cycling and is where the moves will likely happen that ultimately decide the race.
On the face of it, coming in at a 3.7 percent gradient and being less than 4K long, the Poggio may not seem that bad. But remember, the riders will have been racing for close to 300K by the time they reach the base of the very last climb. That’s about seven hours in the saddle. And that changes everything. If you’re watching from home, this will be the part of the race you’ll likely start yelling at your TV.
Natascha Grief got her first bike shop job before she was old enough to drink. After a six-year stint as a mechanic, earning a couple pro-mechanic certifications and her USA Cycling Race Mechanics license, she became obsessed with framebuilding and decided she wanted to do that next. After Albert Eistentraut literally shooed her off his doorstep, admonishing that if she pursued framebuilding she will be poor forever, she landed an apprenticeship with framebuilder Brent Steelman in her hometown of Redwood City, CA. After that, she spent several years working for both large and not-so-large cycling brands. Somewhere in there she also became a certified bike fitter. Natascha then became a certified personal trainer and spent nine years honing her skills as a trainer and coach, while also teaching Spin. During the dumpster fire that was the year 2020, she opened a fitness studio and began contributing regularly to Runner’s World and Bicycling as a freelance writer. In 2022, she joined the staff of Bicycling as News Editor.
