King of Spring: 23 March - 27 April

It lasts little more than a month, but the spring classics are a race of two halves. The first half is the cobbled classics that suit the power riders like Fabian Cancellara, Peter Sagan and Tom Boonen, as well as the Milan-San Remo to begin spring. The later half is the more hillier Ardennes classics that bring into play men like Alejandro Vanverde, Simon Gerrans and Michael Kwiatkowski. While Cancellara scored top ten finishes in four of the first five spring classics this season, Valverde took until the sixth race to get on the board. Meanwhile Cancellara failed to feature after Paris-Roubaix. Different horses for different courses.

But who was the best, or at least the most consistent over the spring classics? Out of interests sake I went about listing the eight classics and using the Formula One points system of 25 points for first down to 1 point for 10th to find a top ten overall. The eight classics scored were Milan-San Remo, E3 Harelbeke, Gent-Wevelgem, Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, Amstel Gold, La Flèche Wallonne and Liège–Bastogne–Liège and it was equal points for each race.

So below is the top ten best scorers over the eight spring classic races with their highlights in brackets and as you will see many of the names are predictable:

1. Niki Terpstra - 86 (1st Roubaix; 1st Dwars Door; 2nd E3)
2. Sep Vanmarcke - 76 (6x top 5s inc. 3rd Flanders; 4th Roubaix)
3. Alejandro Valverde - 70 (1st Flèche Wallonne; 2nd Liège; 3rd Strade)
4. Fabian Cancellara - 68 (1st Flanders; 2nd San Remo; 3rd Roubaix)
5. Peter Sagan - 67 (1st E3 Harelbeke; 2nd Strade; 3rd Gent-Wevelgem)
6. Michael Kwiatkowski - 65 (1st Strade; 3rd Flèche Wallonne; 3rd Liège)
7. Philippe Gilbert - 55 (1st Brabantse Pijl; 1st Amstel Gold)
8. John Dagenklob - 43 (1st Gent-Wevelgem; 2nd Roubaix)
9. Tom Boonen - 42 (1st Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne)
T10. Simon Gerrans - 40 (1st Liège–Bastogne–Liège; 3rd Amstel Gold)
T10. Tyler Farrar - 40 (2nd Dwars Door; 2nd Scheldeprijs)

Niki Terpstra it is then with his wins at Dwars Door Vlaanderen and Paris Rouabix, and his second place at E3 helping him along. He never raced in the hillier classics showing that his form in the cobbled classics was enough to keep him on top throughout despite a mighty showing in the Ardennes from Alejandro Valverde that took him up to third.

Only coming in 4th was Fabian Cancellara, though he would have finished higher if I had awarded more points for Monuments or kept it to World Tour classics only. What is staggering about Cancellara's classic form, isn't his consistency over the past two years but the fact that in the the last fourteen combined Milan-San Remo, Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix since 2010, he has finished on the podium a staggering 12 times.

And just for interests sake, the last man to win a cobbled classic and an Ardenne classic in the same year, showing a wide range of ability, was Moreno Argentin in 1990 when he won the Tour of Flanders and La Fleche Wallonne in the one season. That alone shows just how defined the two halves of the spring classics season really are. And for what it's worth, in 1995 Lauren Jalabert won the Milan-San Remo and Fleche Wallonne and later in 2000 Erik Zabel took Milan-San Remo and the Amstel Gold, but nobody since.

You have to go all the way back to 1984 to find the last man to win one of the monument cobble classics and the Ardennes' Liège-Bastogne-Liège monument, and that was Irishman Sean Kelly when he took the Paris-Rouabix to go with Liège. Before him it was Merckx who done that three times (Flanders-Liège in '69 and '75 and Roubaix-Liège in '73).

And while we're on the subjct of Merckx; just to highlight his genius, consider this about that Cobbles classic/Ardennes classic double in the same year not last achieved since 1990: Merckx done it on five different occasions. (He also won a Grand Tour and Monument classic in the same year six times, and often multiples of each in the same year).

So is there anyone in the peloton today capable of winning a Cobble and Ardennes classic in the same year anytime soon? It's hard to say. Perhaps Peter Sagan or Michael Kwiatkowski. Or Bradley Wiggins who having won the Tour in 2012 finished 10th in the first group behind the winner of the Paris-Roubaix and who looks set to once again focus on Paris-Roubaix next year.

An interesting little league table then and now spring is done and focus will turn towards the Grand Tour season and the sunshine of summer. I do love the diversity of the cycling season