Juan Antonio Flecha will put an end to a long and successful career in the Tour of Beijing which starts on Friday. Having been left without a contract following the demise of the Vacansoleil team, the Spaniard looks forward to a life without cycling.

Ever since it was announced that the Vacansoleil team would fold at the end of the season, the future of classics specialist Juan Antonio Flecha has been in doubt and different rumours have linked the Spaniard to a number of teams. Most recently, the manager of the new Wanty team Hilaire van der Schueren explained that Flecha had expressed his interest in riding for one more season, possibly on that team.

However, Flecha has now decided that it is time to put an end to his long and successful career that started in 2000 when he joined the Relax team. Since then he has raced successfully for teams like Banesto, Fassa Bortolo, Rabobank and Sky before ending his career with Vacansoleil.

"Recently, I suddenly saw everything clearly," he tells El Pais. "I saw what I wanted to do with my life and what I had to do."

Flecha has been an atypical Spaniard who was more focussed on the classics than on grand tours. He excelled in the cobbled classics in which he was one of the most consistent riders of the past decade. Since 2005 he has only missed out on the top 10 in one edition of Paris-Roubaix and finished on the podium no less than 3 times with the 2nd place in 2007 being his best performance.

In 2008 he finished 3nd in the Ronde van Vlaanderen and he finished 2nd in the 2005 Gent-Wevelgem in one of the most dramatic editions of the semi-classic where Nico Mattan was clearly paced by race cars and passed Flecha just before the line when the Spaniard had almost locked up his first big one-day win. Despite his impressive string of results in the classics, Flecha hasn't won an awful lot with a stage win in the 2003 Tour de France, the 2004 Züri-Metzgete, the overall victory in the 2008 Circuit Franco-Belge and the 2010 Omloop Het Nieuwsblad being his major triumphs.

Flecha finished his final European race today when he rode to a fine 13th in Il Lombardia after arriving at the finish with the group that sprinted for 6th place. He will now travel to China to end his career in the Tour of Beijing.

"I finished 13th",  he told El Pais after today's race. "I didn't know my group sprinted for a top 10 place, but 13th in the year 2013 is not bad in my last year as a professional cyclist, in my last monument".

"Now I say goodbye to cycling in the Tour of Beijing," he added. "I cannot wait to finish that race in mid-October and go to Maui in Hawaii with an open date on the return ticket. I will exchange the asphalt for waves and the bike for a surfboard and I will walk barefoot all day."

Flecha is the third big-name cyclist of the week to announce his retirement following the earlier confirmations that Marco Pinotti and David Zabriskie will also bring their careers to an end.