The Tour of Flanders

Before the race began there was a lot of hype surrounding the rivalry between Fabian Cancellara and Peter Sagan. Cancellara is the down-to-earth strong man of cycling; Sagan is young, up-and-coming, and a tad overexuberant when he crosses the finish line first. Although Tom Boonen has won the Tour of Flanders three times before, this doesn't appear to be his year. Whereas he was a dominant force in the spring classics campaign of 2012, he has not been as lucky in 2013. His season didn't get off to a great start after developing an infection which hampered his training. He's then been held up by crashes or crashed himself in a number of races, as was the case in this year's Tour of Flanders.

So, since Boonen was out of contention, who was left? The favourites were obviously Fabian Cancellara, who is always a strong classics rider, and Sagan, who has proved himself to be an excellent all-rounder. There were riders such as Greg Van Avermaet, Edvald Boasson Hagen, Geraint Thomas, Daniel Oss, Matti Breschel, John Degenkolb, and Sylvain Chavanel, amongst others, who were all expected to feature. In the end, though, it came down to a tussle between Cancellara and Sagan. If it came to a sprint finish, then it was obviously going to be Sagan's day, which is why Cancellara had to ride him off his wheel.

Sagan was trying to get out of doing his turn at the front, but Cancellara managed to keep his patience and eventually it was Sagan who cracked on the final climb, allowing Cancellara to time trial his way to victory. Sagan was hoping to get Jurgen Roelandts to work with him to bring back Cancellara, but got a taste of his own medicine, because Roelandts wasn't going to work for the faster, stronger Sagan. In the end, Sagan had to concede defeat, claiming second behind Cancellara, with Roelandts in third.

The Three Days of De Panne: Stage Three

Stage three of the Three Days of De Panne was divided into two parts, with a road race in the morning and a time trial in the afternoon. In the first part of the stage, despite the best efforts of a group of breakaway riders that included Russell Downing, Mike Terpstra, Tim De Troyer, Niko Eeckhout and Thomas Vanhaecke, there was never any doubt that the riders would be brought back and that the stage would end in a sprint. Although there were a number of other riders who tried to get away, in the end the winner was the fastest man on the day, as the sprinters had an opportunity to go for it. It was Alexander Kristoff who took the honours, ahead of Sacha Modolo and Elia Viviani. This put Kristoff into the leader's jersey ahead of Arnaud Demare.

The second part of the stage was a 14.75 km time trial which would ultimately decide the winner of the Three Days of De Panne. All eyes were on last year's winner, Sylvain Chavanel, who is a strong time trialist and is, in fact, the French time trial champion. At the start of the time trial, he was only 10 seconds down on Kristoff and so needed an 11 second gap to take victory. Chavanel went on to take the stage victory, finishing 19 seconds ahead of Anton Vorobyev and 32 seconds ahead of former race leader, Kristoff. It was therefore Chavanel who took overall victory, ahead of Kristoff at 22 seconds down and his teammate, Niki Terpstra, who was 31 seconds down.

The Three Days of De Panne: Stage Two

Mark Cavendish once again he proved he is the man to beat in a sprint during the second stage of the Three Days of De Panne, as the indefatigable Peter Sagan was distanced in the final six kilometres. The former world champion, Cavendish, was well-protected by his teammates, including Tom Boonen, whose own form has been undermined by illness and injury.

There was a breakaway earlier in the day that included Mattia Pozzo, Niko Eeckhout, Matt Brammeier, Tim Mertens and Kevin Claeys. They were brought back, but then the peloton split, with 28 riders going off the front, including 2012 winner, Sylvain Chavanel. Again, they were brought back. Three riders once more decided to go up the road - this time it was Koen Barbé, Alessandro Bazzana, and Dmitriy Gruzdev.

It was left to the extremely strong team of Omega Pharma-Quick Step to lead the charge and bring them back, which they did with eight kilometres left to go. It was up to Cavendish to finish the job, though, which he did to perfection, finishing ahead of Elia Viviani and Francesco Chicchi. Arnaud Démare moves into the leader's jersey having finished behind Peter Sagan in the sprint the day before.

The Three Days of De Panne: Stage One

In the build-up to the Tour of Flanders, the Three Days of De Panne gives riders an opportunity to test their legs and there was certainly plenty of attacking going on throughout the first stage. Peter Sagan, in particular, was keen to show his strength and in the last 20 kilometres put in a number of digs. Sylvain Chavanel contemplated going with him the first time around, but realised that to do so would simply secure him second place. Sagan came back to the group, but once again went off the front and this time a number of riders went with him, including Niki Terpstra, Alexander Kristoff, Arnaud Demare, Oscar Gatto, Maxime Vantomme, Jerome Cousin, Davide Cimolai and Johan Le Bon.

Fresh from his victory in the Gent–Wevelgem, Sagan was obviously keen to prove his dominance once again. However, it wasn't as easy as he had perhaps expected it to be and for once their were no histrionics as he crossed the line. Instead of holding his line, he had moved across towards the barriers, thus forcing Demare to sit down, which almost certainly cost him the win. However, there was no protest from FDJ and Sagan was awarded the victory. It was Andre Greipel who led the rest of the peloton in, finishing nine seconds behind the winner.

Tour of Catalunya: Stage Seven

Prior to the start of the Tour of Catalunya, who would have predicted that, in the end, it would be Dan Martin who would claim overall victory? It may not have been expected, but Dan Martin has frequently proved he has the climbing legs and he once again demonstrated this during the decisive queen stage (stage four) when he managed to get away and stay away, putting time into his GC rivals. It was evident that Martin really wanted the overall victory, as he sprinted for bonus seconds available for intermediate sprints on a number of occasions, which meant that he finished the race with a 17 second advantage over Rodriguez.

As for stage seven, it was Thomas De Gendt who went on to take the victory, after bridging the gap between the peloton and a ten man breakaway alongside David Lopez. Scarponi also made his way across, as did Kiserlovski, which forced Movistar to work alongside Garmin to bring the breakaway back in hopes of defending their man, Quintana's, podium spot. It was too little, too late, though, as De Gendt, Lopez, Kiserlovski, Scarponi and Dumoulin finished 21 seconds ahead of the peloton, with Scarponi making up enough time to finish third in the GC, and Quintana being pushed back into fourth position. It was certainly an exciting end to a closely fought race!

Tour of Catalunya: Stage Six

In a very fast-paced stage it turned out that Simon Gerrans was the man with the legs on the day, as he claimed victory over the rest of the riders who made it into the bunch sprint. The riders were strung out, because the pace was so high and a number of GC riders were caught out again, with Wiggins and Scarponi losing a further five seconds.

A break of eight riders managed to get away early on in the race, but BMC were in no mood to hang around and pushed the pace on, bringing them back with four kilometres to go. Towards the end there was a sharp left turn and it looked as though Meersman might get to the line first, until Gerrans shot forward and crossed the line ahead of Meersman, Dumoulin, Ratto and Wyss.

Whilst Gerrans took victory, Dan Martin further consolidated his position as leader, taking a three second bonus during an intermediate sprint, so that he now leads Rodriguez by 17 seconds. With less than a minute separating the top GC contenders, stage seven looks set to bring fireworks.

Tour of Catalunya: Stage Five

Coming the day after the queen stage, stage five probably came as somewhat of a relief for riders, as they had a somewhat easier day in what turned out, rather predictably, to be a sprinter's stage. That is not to say the day wasn't without some drama, as a number of GC contenders lost a few seconds coming into the finish, as the bunch split due to the presence of a number of roundabouts which riders had to manoeuvre around. Dan Martin managed to keep out of trouble at the front, though, and even picked up a one second time bonus during an intermediate sprint. However, Rodriguez lost three seconds, whilst Quintana and Wiggins both lost nine seconds. Thus, Martin now leads Rodriguez by 14 seconds, Qunitana by 42 seconds and Wiggins by 46 seconds.

In terms of the stage itself, Olivier Kaisen and Tristan Valentin got into a breakaway early on in the race, but the sprinters' teams were not going to miss the opportunity for a stage win and so Omega Pharma-Quick Step worked hard at the front, setting the pace to bring the two riders back, which they did with 15 km left to go. There were a couple of attempts by lone riders to attempt victory or at least get some TV coverage, including Andrey Kashechkin and then Marcus Burghardt. However, neither the Argos-Shimano or Cannondale teams were going to let that happen and so it was left for the sprinters to contest the finish. In the end, it was François Parisien in his first season for Argos-Shimano who took victory ahead of Samuel Dumoulin and Stéphane Poulhie.