The Tour de France may provide the most obvious fame and glory, but it is cyclings one-day tests that professional riders really prize. Toughest, longest and dirtiest of all are the so-called Monuments. Each provides the sports outstanding performers with a chance to measure themselves against each other in cycling's most challenging tests. From the bone-shattering bowler-hat cobbles of Paris-Roubaix to the insanely steep hellingen in the Tour of Flanders, each race is as unique as the riders who push themselves through extreme exhaustion to win them. In The Monuments, Peter Cossins tells the tumultuous history of these extraordinary races. sakriti opis