Do I still like the Cycling Monuments?

During the spring classic season of 2026 both Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogacar are pretty close to surpass everyone, including the greatest legends, in some sporting aspects. Collecting all the five Monuments There are three cyclists in the history of road cycling who won all the five Monuments at least once during their careers: Rik van Looy, Eddy Merckx, and Roger de Vlaeminck. (Also, there are some riders, like Sean Kelly and Philippe Gilbert, who has collected fourkf them, but were unlucky with their fifth, missing one.) Both Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogacar won 3 of them (but several times). Marthieu van der Poel's Monuments Milano-Sanremo (2023, 2025) Ronde van Vlaanderen (2020, 2022, 2024) Paris-Roubaix (2023, 2024, 2025) Missing Monuments: Liége-Bastogne-Liége and Giro di Lombardia Tadej Pogacar's Monuments Ronde van Vlaanderen (2023, 2025) Liége-Bastogne-Liége (2021, 2024, 2025) Giro di Lombardia (2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025) Missig Monuments: Milano-Sanre...

 The course of the 123rd Paris-Roubaix, held on 12 April 2026, will include some interesting changes.    The race will contain 30 sectors, and during sector 26,  relatively early in the race  there will be a 800-metre climb. According to the organizers this would help an early selection in the race.  This sounds bit strange considering that Arenberg (sector 19) used to be the first big sector for "early selection", a cobbled route so important that in the recent years some riders (and their teams), like Wout van Aerts built their tactic around trying to make a decisive split in the peloton before the famous road in the forrest.  Although I never rode Paris-Roubaix, or any professional cycling race, so I don't know the inner dynamics of it,  I still have the strange feeling that this addition won't matter too much. 

There is someting ironical (or I mesured well, that it's the right time for bigger changes in the world of one-day cycling races, especially in the life of the Monuments), that since I slowly started disliking Paris-Roubaix for its anachronistic nature, there are some big changes in progress.  Since I didn't watched the race during the last three seasons, when I recently spent a weekend with catching up with the event, I only learnt then that there is a slighly change in the course right before Arenberg for safety reasons.  And now here is another big change, a new official name   Paris-Roubaix Hauts-de-France.  (although in the everyday use it will remain simply Paris-Roubaix). Although it's partially because of sponsorship reasons, the regional government of Hauts-de-France is a sponsor of the race since the pandemic, I like the idea, that the different French regions related to different famous road cycling competitions get more attention.  It's really...