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Road Bicycling is one of the most popular sports in a number of European countries. The top countries in this sport are Italy, Spain, Belgium, Germany, France, the Netherlands, the United States and Switzerland (not necessarily in the order of interest).
Races are can be categorized by length and types:
Length:
- Single-day races: The competitor to cross the finish line first is declared the winner.
- Multi-stage races: Consists of several one-day races, often consecutively. The competitor with the lowest cumulative time to complete all the stages is declared the winner.
Type:
- Open road race: Generally going from point A to point B; can include multi-laps.
- Criterium: Generally a circuit race with multiple laps and some sort of elimination scheme (e.g. last 5 competitors of each lap is eliminated)
- Individual time trial: Every rider starts apart, and the rider with the fastest time wins.
- Team time trials: Riders start in groups or teams, usually of a fixed size. The time of the nth rider of a team counts for the classification.
The most famous Cycling race is the Tour de France, a multi-stage tour over three weeks through France, traditionally ending in Paris. Similar long multi-stage tours are held in Italy (the Giro d'Italia) and Spain (the Vuelta a España). The most important one-day races form the World Cup: Milan-Sanremo (Italy), Ronde van Vlaanderen (Belgium), Paris-Roubaix (France), Liège-Bastogne-Liège (Belgium) and Amstel Gold Race (Netherlands) in Spring, Clasica San Sebastian (Spain), HEW-Cyclassics Cup (Germany), Championship of Zürich (Switzerland), Paris-Tours (France) and Giro di Lombardia (Italy) in Autumn.