The most famous Grand Tour is certainly the Tour de France, the grandest of the Grand Tours, the theater for a century of cycling lore, and the beneficiary of the easy days of summer holiday season. But the tours of Spain and Italy bring their own special flavor to the Grand Tour sandwich. The Giro first, in May each year: the romantic’s favorite tour. All pale pastels, snowy mountain passes, and dolce vita. Then the Vuelta each August: impossibly difficult climbs, mercury-boiling days, and the quiet heroics of riders fortunate enough to have been born at altitude.

While each have their own flavors, distinctions, and mythology, Grand Tours cover more than three thousand kilometers over three weeks and 21 stages of racing. The routes change every year as the organizers try to keep the teams guessing, and each country aims to show the most beautiful, most unique, and most challenging parts of their homeland. The variability of the stages means that each team will have its own goals. In some cases, they may hunt stage victories with a powerful lead-out train and a generationally-fast sprinter. Others may target the highest mountains where the most waifish of the strongmen make their mark. Most of the bigger teams will enter with General Classification ambitions—they’re here to take the overall victory. But despite these races’ long histories, no team has ever succeeded in winning all three Grand Tours in a single season. Until 2023. It’s rare to know that you’re watching history be written in real time, but this year, there was no mistaking it.