Amstel Gold

The Ardennes kick off in the Netherlands

By: 

Stephen Farrand

"The Amstel Gold Race marks the start of the Ardennes Classics trilogy with the twisting country lanes of the southern Limburg region of the Netherlands, replacing the cobbled climbs of Flanders and the sectors of pave of Paris-Roubaix.

The Ardennes week attracts a different set of riders, with the climbers replacing the cobbled classics specialist. Only a rare few, including last year's Amstel Gold Race winner Philippe Gilbert, have the ability to win on both types of terrain, where the ability to absorb the constant accumulation of lactic acid from the climbs is more decisive than power and speed across the pave.

The Amstel Gold Race is the youngest of the spring classics having been created in 1966, and a move from the end of April to the first weekend of the Ardennes has made for a better race.

The race now finishes on the climb of the Cauberg, with the huge crowds enjoying the race after a few glasses of Amstel beer. It is perhaps only fair that one final climb decides the winner after 31 other climbs and 259km of racing through the twisting and turning lanes of Holland".....end

...the last Dutch winner, Eric Dekker...that looks like LA in second...before the finish was moved to the Cauberg

Velonews summarized the race in 2009 as follows:

This is the mack-daddy race on the Dutch calendar. It’s Holland’s most important event and Dutch [teams do their] best to try to dominate the demanding, 258.6km course... Held in the hilly Limburg region in southern Holland, Amstel Gold often gets bundled with next week’s Flèche and Liège races to create what pundits like to call “Ardennes week.” Though geographically distinct than the nearby Belgian Ardennes, the Limburg region serves up a similarly endless menu of steep, narrow climbs. Any race named after a beer should be a big party and tens of thousands of beer-guzzling Dutch fans turn up to line the endless string of bergs and clog outdoor beer gardens to cheer on the pack as they ply treacherously narrow roads. The course starts in the main square atMaastricht and, since 2003, ends atop the Cauberg climb just above Valkenburg (site of another huge party). The route map looks like a plate of spaghetti, with four loops tracing back and forth over deceptively steep climbs. An endless string of 31 climbs are wickedly steep, with Keutenberg featuring ramps as steep as 20 percent. Coupled with the narrow roads, strong winds and the danger of crashing, Amstel is one of the season’s most nerve-wracking races. The addition of the Cauberg finish dramatically altered the race dynamics. The finish used to be on the flats alongside the Maas River, giving teams a chance to regroup after the last climb and position their sprinters for a sometimes-large group sprint. [It now favors whippet-thin climbers and hilly course specialists.]^[1]

Attempting to explain the difficulty of the course Peter Easton recounts a mathematician's calculations:

...applying logic to overcome a sense of incomprehension is the key to understanding this race. And there is truth in numbers. Six of the climbs come in the first 92 kilometers - one every 15.2 kilometers. The remaining 25 come over the final 165 kilometers. That’s one every 6.6 kilometers. Breaking it down further, the final hour of racing has eight climbs in 42 kilometers. Now we’re down to one every 5.25 km. At 40 km/h, that’s one every 7 ½ minutes. Not overly funny, and definitely all business. ^[2]

Ode to Boogie

On the Cauberg, I remember Michael Boogard starting his uphill sprint too early and loosing the race (two years in a row, if I recall correctly).  I even wrote a poem about it..."Oh Michael, Oh Michael..." sent it to Job, way back in the 2002-2004 time frame.

Ode to Boogie

Oh Michael, Oh Michael, how could you loose. 

You’ve disappointed 30 million pretty wood shoes.

Oh Michael, Oh Michael, it was so very close,

If you waited a meter you’d have won by a nose

Now The Caupberg she is a stubborn steep climb – one you’ve conquered at least a hundred times

Was it your ego or your athletic adrenalin high? - That let you believe your jump was not too far to die

So, Oh Michael, Oh Michael how could you loose. 

We love you, we love you, we really still do - all of us Dutchman with two wooden shoes