Il Lombardia....'The race of the falling leaves'.

Fallen leaves on one of my own cycling routes...

Yesterday was the Il Lombardia...which is one of my favourite one day classic races...In fact the race and everything connected with it was the inspiration for the 10 in 10 ride that I did way back in June this year.....
The Lombardia is known as the 'Race of the Falling Leaves' due to the time of year that it is held....

The top four places in this years race were:-
 1st Joaquin RODRIGUEZ  (Esp)     Team.. KAT
 2nd Alejandro VALVERDE (Esp)    Team..MOV
 3rd  Rafal MAJKA  (Pol)                  Team..TST
 4th Dan MARTIN  (Irl)                    Team..GRS

While trawling the net sometime ago I found a very interesting series on 'Roads to Ride' over at 'The Inner Ring'  blog website.....
It is a series about riding the famous roads/hills in cycling.....it looks at the routes....history..including race history, as well as what it feels like to ride. It also looks at travel and access to the road/climb and finishes with a brief summary....

Well worth checking out in my opinion...

The first in the series was Alpe d'Huez and the second was The Ghisallo the signature ride of the Il Lombardia...
 If you've not seen it go and take a look by clicking on this BUTTON 

At the end of the piece on the Ghisallo there is a list of links to the other iconic 'Roads to Ride' in the series..
The Inner Ring really is a blog worth following.....