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The well-illustrated complete record of the first 10 years of Germany's first ever cycling classic.
The Hamburg Cyclassics (currently known as the Bemer Cyclassics for sponsorship purposes) is an annual one-day professional and amateur cycling race in and around Hamburg, Germany. Although the route varies, its distance is always around 250 km.
The first edition was its shortest ever, totaling just 160 km, won by Italian Rossano Brasi.[5] HEW, Hamburg's Electricity Works, served as the race's title sponsor. In 1997 Jan Ullrich won the second edition amid hordes of fans, two weeks after winning the Tour de France, and the race gained prestige fast.
With cycling's fast-growing popularity in Germany in the 1990s, the race became part of the UCI Road World Cup in 1998, cycling's ten highest-classified one-day races. It replaced the Wincanton Classic, Britain's only cycling classic, as the seventh leg of the World Cup. Dutchman Léon van Bon outsprinted Michele Bartoli to win the third edition; the distance was increased to 253 km.
Erik Zabel was the second German winner of the HEW Cyclassics in 2001. In 2002, Belgian classics specialist Johan Museeuw won his eleventh and last World Cup race, leading out the sprint from a group of ten.[10]
In 2002, race sponsor HEW was overtaken by Swedish electricity conglomerate Vattenfall and was renamed Vattenfall Europe Hamburg. Vattenfall, Swedish for Waterfall, became the race's new title sponsor in 2006. In 2005, the race was included in the inaugural UCI ProTour, successor of the World Cup.
29 x 23 cms, hardback, 176 pages.
2005
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