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It’s rightly gone down as one of the most legendary stages in the Giro d’Italia: when the race hit Tuscany’s Strade Bianche amid a deluge of rain turning the usually dusty affair into a mud slick.

Luxembourg climber Charly Gaul braved blizzards and frozen temperatures on Monte Bondone to win Stage 20 of the 1956 Giro. By doing so, the ‘Angel of the Mountains’ overturned a seemingly impossible deficit to take a heavenly overall victory as his rivals gave up or hitched a lift to the summit.

As Mario Cipollini moved towards retirement, his flaws were amplified, his words were heard differently and his true nature became clear. "In the pantheon of Giro greats – the names that have really shaped the history of the event – he wasn’t fit to shine their shoes"...

Alfredo Binda’s record of 41 stage wins in the Giro d’Italia stood for 70 years, until Mario Cipollini went one better. With his wavy blonde locks, bulging biceps, and a penchant for an eye-catching skinsuit, Super Mario was as ruthless as he was fast. Cipo made headlines and Giro history – but few friends during his controversial and colourful career.

For 10 days in the spring of 2011, Philippe Gilbert was invincible. Having won Brabantse Pijl, the Amstel Gold Race and La Fleche Wallone, he held his arms aloft in Liege at the race most dear to his heart. A decade on, Felix Lowe recalls a mesmerising run on home roads with the brilliant Belgian.

Swedish powerhouse Magnus Backstedt felt so strong going toe-to-toe with Johan Museeuw in 2004’s Hell of the North, he even questioned whether there was a chain on his bike. Felix Lowe recalls the Lion of Flanders’ last major race, when a flat tyre stopped him sprinting for a record-equalling victory.

Thirty-four years before Mathieu van der Poel won the Tour of Flanders, his father pipped Sean Kelly to the line. Felix Lowe turns back the clock to 1986, and the race in which the Irishman would come closest to glory in the only Monument that would forever elude him.

We’re winding the clock back a bit further this week to 1910 and a spectacle we will never again see in cycling. Before he became the first man in history to wear the Tour's Yellow Jersey, Eugène Christophe battled mountains of snow, freezing temperatures and even wore the wrong trousers to take victory after more than 12 chilling hours at La Classicissima.

No one has shone brighter in the Race to the Sun than Sean Kelly, who won seven straight editions after Stephen Roche’s GC victory got the wheels turning for Ireland in 1981. Felix Lowe recalls Kelly’s formidable streak, after speaking to the man who dominated the likes of Bernard Hinault and Laurent Fignon during a golden age for French cycling.

Re-Cycle is back for a third season - and we kick off with the day Team Sky's Ian Stannard pulled off one of the surprises of the century at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in 2015. Outnumbered three to one, Britain's Stannard outfoxed a stellar Etixx–Quick-Step trio of Tom Boonen, Niki Terpstra and Stijn Vandenbergh to defend his Omloop Het Nieuwsblad crown in 2015.

The fearsome Angliru immediately became a Vuelta a España legend on its introduction to the race in 1999, when Spanish climber José María Jiménez was first to conquer the mountain. We remember a mythical win shrouded in fog and controversy.

Just when you thought Tao Geoghegan Hart’s Giro d’Italia victory over Jai Hindley was a close-run thing, we rewind to the 80’s and the closest a GC battle has ever been. In 1984, French rookie Éric Caritoux was called up at the 11th hour to replace the legendary Sean Kelly and make his Vuelta a España debut. He would defy a hostile home crowd, take the race to the wire and top the GC by just six seconds. As it became clear that Caritoux would push local favourite, Alberto Fernández to the line fans insulted him, spat at him, doused him in cold water, threw newspapers at his wheels, and pelted him with rotten fruit. Some even tried to shove umbrellas into his spokes.

On the 50th anniversary of Luis Ocaña's breakthrough 1970 Vuelta a España title, we recall the first Grand Tour of the volatile Spaniard’s colourful career – and ask why it did not lead to more triumphs for the nearly-man Eddy Merckx thought of as his biggest threat...

Nerves of steel from the Irish underdogs saw Stephen Roche ride to the Rainbow Jersey at the 1987 World Championships, becoming only the second man in history after Eddy Merckx to wear it after winning the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France. But he got a big helping hand from Sean Kelly.

A mix of leg power, cunning and killer instinct from charismatic Yorkshireman Tom Simpson saw him outkick Rudi Altig to take the Rainbow Jersey in San Sebastian. Felix Lowe winds back the clock to 1965, when Major Tom banished British cycling's inferiority complex.

An artist and adventurer who flew planes and crossed oceans; an intrepid reporter who rubbed shoulders with presidents, kings, popes and dictators; a pioneering broadcaster who brought the Tour to life, and in doing so, paid with his own. In this week's Re-Cycle, we remember the remarkable figure of Alex Virot...

We look back at the 1956 edition of Il Lombardia, when Fiorenzo Magni – incensed by some goading from the so-called Woman in White – denied Fausto Coppi a sensational sixth win in the autumn Classic as the leaves were falling on the poster boy of Italian cycling’s career.

Few Tour de France stages have caught the imagination quite like the day Lance Armstrong crashed on Luz Ardiden before fighting back for victory. We rewind to 2003 and the extraordinary centenary Tour tussle between Armstrong and Jan Ullrich.

A desperate Eddy Merckx's seemingly indomitable grip on the Maillot Jaune was prised loose when Bernard Thévenet reeled in The Cannibal on the climb to Pra Loup at the 1975 Tour de France. We recall the punches, punctures and brutal controversy for Re-Cycle.

Felix Lowe remembers the first Dutchman to lead the Tour de France: Wim van Est, in 1951. But he crashed 70m into a Pyrenean ravine – and was lucky to escape with his life – before Pédaleur de Charme Hugo Koblet reigned supreme.

Spaniard Eduardo Chozas denied Italy's Claudio Chiappucci in the Giro d'Italia's first ever summit finish in the ski resort of Sestriere in 1991 – 14 months before El Diablo soloed to victory on the same climb in one of the most magnificent breakaways in Tour de France history.

Marco Pantani's swashbuckling victory at Madonna di Campiglio in the 1999 Giro d'Italia should have been his crowning moment. Instead, the Italian was kicked out of the race while wearing the Maglia Rosa, ending the defence of his title and sending his career into freefall.

We kick off our Giro episodes with the story of Franco Bitossi. Felix Lowe remembers how the Italian rider with cardiac arrhythmia became the first to conquer Mount Etna in the 1967 Giro d’Italia. But questions remain over whether his psychological frailty cost him a Rainbow Jersey in an agonisingly close, famous finish.

It was a year in which everything the flamboyant tyro touched – even his hair – seemed to turn to gold. So dominant was Franck Vandenbroucke’s showing that spring that the question had to be asked: was this the second coming of Eddy Merckx? But 10 years later, he was dead.

Eighteen years after Belgium's Johan Museeuw won his third cobblestone trophy, Paris-Roubaix fans are still waiting for another wet edition of the Hell of the North. The second of our Roubaix-themed retrospective Re-Cycle features ponders the enduring appeal of slippery cobblestones while looking back at the muddy mayhem of the last time it rained on Roubaix.

It's also our first episode recorded in lockdown...

Set against a backdrop of renewal and recovery, when cycling was battling back from the destruction of war, two brothers pulled off a famous, unparalleled one-two in the 1921 Paris-Roubaix in spite of a bounty on their heads for trying to break away from La Sportive, the suffocating consortium which then governed the sport.

In the latest episode of Re-Cycle, we recall the fraternal feeling of 1921’s Paris-Roubaix, won by Henri Pélissier ahead of his brother Francis. It remains the first and only time in cycling history that siblings have finished on the top two steps of the podium in one of cycling's fabled Monuments.

In 1992 Frenchman Jacky Durand defied all the odds by winning the Tour of Flanders from a breakaway of 217 kilometres. Part of a four-man move, the 25-year-old became the first rider in Ronde history to win from a long-distance break – and remains to this day the last Frenchman to win the cobbled classic.

Rewinding only five years to the crazy, windswept 2015 edition of Gent-Wevelgem, Felix Lowe remembers bearded Italian veteran Luca Paolini’s victory on a day of blustery subplots, cobbled catastrophe, endless drama and a meme-tastic crash by Geraint Thomas.

As season two of Re-Cycle continues, we look back at Sean Kelly's second Milan-San Remo victory, when the Irishman reeled in rival Moreno Argentin on his fearless descent of the Poggio before kicking clear for the final big win of his illustrious career.

The first of the 2020 series looks back at one of the greatest editions of Paris-Nice. Felix Lowe revisits the 1966 Race to the Sun, when Jacques Anquetil won the race for the fifth and final time by denying compatriot Raymond Poulidor on the very last day.

In the final Re-Cycle of season one, we take a look back at the last time the World Championships came to England prior to the 2019 race. The 1982 world title may have gone to the red-hot Italian favourite, but it was the actions of Greg LeMond, who controversially chased down fellow American Jonathan Boyer, which made the headlines.

From winning the inaugural Vuelta a Espana in 1935 to helping put a man on the moon, Belgium's Gustaaf Deloor was a pedalling pioneer whose career was cut short by war.

This time, we’re rolling with the first rider to win all of cycling's Grand Tours – France’s Jacques Anquetil and the 1963 Vuelta victory from the man considered the best time triallist of his generation.

In this edition of Re-Cycle, we’re riding with the first South American to win a Grand Tour – Colombia’s Luis 'Lucho' Herrera – and delving into the stories of race fixing and saddle sores behind his 1987 Vuelta a Espana title, as well as the kidnapping that followed.

In the latest episode of Re-Cycle, we look back at the year the greatest road cyclist of all time, Eddy Merckx, broke rival Luis Ocana by almost winning two stages in one day during the 1972 Tour de France.

One hundred years after the introduction of the first yellow jersey, the latest in our historical Re-Cycle series looks back at the creation of one of the most iconic symbols in the world of sport. We delve into the origins of the fabled maillot jaune – first worn by the Frenchman Eugène Christophe on 19th July 1919...

In this episode of Re-Cycle, we doff our cap to Brian Robinson, Britain's first ever Tour de France stage winner courtesy of a remarkable solo win on Stage 20 in the 1959 race.

This time out we’re going back to 1937, when defending Tour de France champion Sylvère Maes withdrew from the race with his entire Belgian team while wearing the yellow jersey – just days away from Paris. Yes, really...

From one extreme breakaway to another, and this time out we’re riding with Andy Hampsten, who – with the help of sheep's wool fat and neoprene diving gloves – conquered the snow-capped Gavia to become the first American to don the maglia rosa in 1988. It was the day that did more than any other to make Hampsten the first and only American to win the Giro – and a stage otherwise known as ‘The Day the Hard Men Cried’.

Last time out, we climbed to the Basilica San Luca with Fiorenzo Magni biting down on an innertube to distract him from the pain of a broken collarbone. Magni had, despite winning the Giro d’Italia three times, always lived in the shadow of his compatriots: Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali. This time out, we’re on the road with Coppi himself – and his mythical long-range attack from Cuneo to Pinerolo that helped him win the 1949 Giro d’Italia.

They say 666 is the number of the beast. Not that many riders to have taken on the monstrous climb to the Basilica San Luca in northern Italy need reminding. It’s a road that has staged some stand-out moments in the history of the Giro d’Italia – from Fiorenzo Magni’s grimacing heroics in 1956 to Simon Gerrans dropping Chris Froome in 2009.

In the second episode of Re-Cycle, we look back at the freezing 1980 edition of Liège-Bastogne-Liège in which Bernard Hinault braved blizzards and snow to win by almost 10 minutes from a field of just 21 finishers.

How did it come to be that the official list of Paris-Roubaix winners exceeds the number of races by one? We revisit the controversy that saw Frenchman André Mahé and Italy's Serse Coppi both win – at least officially – the 47th edition of the Hell of the North.