Hi gang,

As the NC's are fully upon us and I'm still looking for ways to identify traditional cycling countries I made a list of the year in which different countries hosted their first men's NC road race. I couldn't find a year for all countries in my selection and I got all my information from (French) Wikipedia so I thought I'd throw it out here to see if you guys can help me fill in the gaps.

List and some musings on it after the flip.

First NC road race was held in the Netherlands. That's a surprise huh? I was surprised at least. On the other hand, I recently read some articles about the vibrant Dutch cycling culture before 1900. However, many complaints by the public led to an outright nationwide ban of cycling races on public roads and completely ruined all cycling tradition for decades to come.

But anyways, all questionmark countries have NC's obviously but Wiki only gave me the last 10 or so. Please shout out if you know more. Countries previously part of bigger countries (ex-yugoslavian, ex-Czech-Slovak, ex-USSR) get the year of the first NC in their former political entity.

I grouped the first 6 as the 'traditional six' earlier so this proves my point. But Germany is again very close.