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5 Things You Need to Know about the UCI Road World Championships


The 2015 UCI Road World Championships begins Saturday, Sept. 19, in Richmond, Virginia, marking the first time in 29 years that cycling's governing body will hold the event on U.S. soil.

For those fair-weather cycling fans who watch the final (at times anti-climactic) stage of the Tour de France and quickly return to ESPN's year-round football coverage, the Road World Championships may seem like just another of the many professional races throughout the year. Long, boring and inconsequential.

Well, to put it lightly, these blockheaded ignoramuses are sorely mistaken. To put this in perspective, the UCI World Championships are, in many ways, the FIFA, FIBA or IRB World Cup of Cycling. It's a chance for cyclists to remove their corporate-colored kits adorned with pieces of sponsorship flair and replace it with their national colors.

Below, we've compiled a little who-what-when-where-why-and-how breakdown of one of cycling's paramount events. So, click through at your discretion and you just might find yourself chanting, soccer-style (football for everyone outside the U.S.), to the pedal strokes of your fellow countrymen.

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