Amstel Gold Race Preview

30 thoughts on “Amstel Gold Race Preview”

1. Amstel beer taking strays! Ouch!

   • Amstel is a premium beer in the US, if it is flat and tasteless, how would one describe many US grocery store beers?

     • The usual expression used to describe is ‘like having sex in a canoe’, ie f***ing close to water.

   • Amstel’s fine, like the majority of European beers available in the US. Most widely available beers aren’t that great; the best ones usually don’t travel that far.

     • Yet most commercially available beers in Spain or Italy, although industrial and absolutely mediocre products as such, are still way more interesting than Amstel which is notorious around Europe. I can’t even imagine what the Belgians think of it. I guess there’s some market logic behind. The Heineken group produces locally the interesting Ichnusa (for a commercial beer), but their main product sold under their main brand is generally meh. So it’s obviouly a specific decision, not like they couldn’t do otherwise.

2. Thanks for the preview. Further Cofidis rejuvenation with Ion Izagirre maybe? Maybe not a win, but certainly riding strong at the moment.

   • Good to see him get a home win in the GP Miguel Indurain but he’s often been a brilliant rider on home roads but less so outside. I think Cofidis might sign now for a top-10 tomorrow but they’re doing well this season, relegation no longer a worry and lighter management.

3. No chainring for Laporte? He had great spring, and he should be a candidate for a sprint from a reduced (or even a not-so-reduced) group, I would have thought.

   • Was wondering this myself especially after his ride at Roubaix.

4. Held to promote a flat and tasteless beer …

   Which is precisely why the podium glasses are so large – for display only?

   • Bredewold seemed to enjoy hers last year if I have that right? Drank it with gusto is my memory

5. I am on team Brady Gilmore for this one. Wishful thinking I know but he came from nowhere in Barcelona.

6. If Remco does not win, it’ll be a surprise. He’s been talking about other things then cycling recently so maybe his mind will wander and end up in another shouting and arm waving fight with fellow riders.
   Apart from Remco, an old head who follows until the end might get the win. Where’s Rui Costa these days?!

   • Costa retired at the end of last year

     • I know. I was insinuating that he was the type of rider who pops up after sitting doing nothing all day.

       • Maybe his retirement is just a bluff, to avoid doing any turns…?

         • Well played

7. Seems to be a slight after the Lord Mayors Show feeling without Pogacar, Van der Poel and Van Aert for a race they have all won previously. No doubt they all deserve a rest after their exertions of the previous weeks. The pressure is slightly on Evenepoel to deliver in their absence. Hopefully someone/others will emerge with him to provide an entertaining race.

   • This is not an attack, as I vaguely agree – but it does seem a bit of an about turn to say racing is boring and repetitive when Pogacar is there and then an afterthought when he’s not?

     But anyway – I do know where you’re coming from and agree – as you know it is one of the overarching issues of the season for me, that great races and events get completely overshadowed and forgotten – let alone Amstel, what about O Gran Camino and Tour Du Jura? I bet people only know who won Gran Camino as he’s vaguely famous, without googling I’d expect at best 10% of readers of this niche hardcore fan cycling website can name the Du Jura winner…

     I realise many (and by many I mean Gabriele!) will argue neither of these races are at the top UCI level – but the same was said about Volta Algarve, where I think it’s justifiable that fans might be confused that a race is apparently lower tier when it’s being ridden by Ayuso, Almeida, Seixas and Onley, most being previous Grand Tour Top5 finishers…

     It’s a bizarre system which is a shame for the value of not only Amstel, which is a brilliant race, but so many other races, some of which have recently started also changing their names even more frequently than before, many becoming even more difficult to follow than they already were!

     I try and watch the vast majority and even I am totally lost between my Giro Trentino and Tour of the Alps, my Gent-Wevelgem and In Flanders Fields and the king of the name changes: Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes not Critérium du Dauphiné…

     It’s headspinning madness.

     At least though, despite only Remco at Amstel (congrats to him of course, great ride) I stand by my feeling this was the best cobbles season I can remember. Incredible racing, still bouncing about Roubaix and willing to take on all comers in the age old and meaningless/pointless debate of Flanders/Roubaix… clearly Roubaix is and will always be the standout one day event of the season. It blows me away every year.

     • Oh how I just love how bike races evolve organically and chaotically and without any overarching monopolistic telos that would end up making the “system”, calendar or whatever you wanna call it as boring, repetitive and predictable as all the other boring sports out there.

       It – and by “it” I also include the prevalence of people criticizing and not getting it and hopefully not even bothering watching it so that it can remain somewhat niche – is a large part of what makes the sport so brilliant.

       • Yep

         • ha, the use of the word telos made me laugh out loud!

           glad to have prompted such an eloquent response.

     • If PR *blew you away* in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2022, 2023 and 2024 (not that they weren’t decent races, just not *so very special*; they surely were no “standout” against other Monuments or Classics), it’s clearly about you having a strong favourable bias, which actually makes the debate meaningless given that… why should I take away from you something which helps enjoying more this specific race even in mediocre years? Even more so as such a bias doesn’t apparently hinder your broader enthusiasm towards the rest of the sport.

       (And in the above “blacklist” I’m not even including editions which were IMHO not top sport technically speaking, but at least had a great underdog narrative, like 2011, 2016 or 2021.)

       PR is hugely fascinant and a big favourite among generalist public, but it’s hard to be surprised if many hardcore fans see it as simply on par with others.

       However, it’s also worth underlining that in the last 15 yrs. most Monuments went through short stints of hard times when mediocre editions came too thick, especially in the first part of the 10s. It’s cycles. Luckily, being so diverse among them, normally when some of them fail to deliver for 2-3 years, some others may happen to be in a good moment.

     • Re: the names of the races, yep, I totally get your point, I’m stuck at Het Volk, Waregem, Harelbeke, but it’s soooo much about who pays for the race (2/3 of your examples above), so you can get why it’s like that…

       A different subject. Big names (athletes) competing in relatively minor events happen in so many sports, and those events get some eyeballs and media attention, thankfully, but it’s not like they suddenly become more important than the big ones, even if coincidentally they may have a better finale, think tennis, marathons, swimming, even national cups in football. What’s so hard to understand when it comes to cycling?

       Algarve was and is a very minor race because nobody of the big names wants so badly to win it. How many top names really come in very top form? Do they put at stake success in other races to compete here? Etc.

       O Gran Camiño had a good route and a couple of interesting stages but it was not something a vaster public really needed to watch, even less so, much less so, Jura or Doubs, which also offered poor to mediocre racing.
       Those races of course are *hugely important* to keep grassroots alive, to allow a bridge and a comparative terrain between lower level teams (or athletes) and higher-level ones, to “train” filming crew, police and volunteers in a context with some less pressure, to experiment with routes and rules, to “grew” organising structures which one day could provide resources dor new races or as a local committe for GT stages etc. etc. etc. i.e., don’t take me wrong, those races are the very blood in the capillars of cycling, no capillars no “heart of cycling”, either. It’s important that they can stay sustainable which generally implies (perhaps not necessarily so) Live TV or TV – Yet, they shouldn’t count on expectations of hundreds of thousands of spectators if they want to survive, because it just doesn’t make any sense at all. They’re by definition secundary, so most people will manage their available time against competing activities, competing leisure, competing sports… skipping those very minor events! And very reasonably so!
       Cycling isn’t a niche sport, say, in Italy, but being a crazy hardcore fan with a keen eye for whatever is racing a bike at whatever level, well, that’s niche, for sure.
       Not even most *top league* football matches get many eyeball. Every weekend, you get 3-4 matches out of 10 which gather good watching interest, but the vast majority doesn’t. They don’t live on TV attention but on other factors, first and foremost direct and indirect transference from the teams/events making money, then nearly as important or more public money. Then other ways of doing business leveraging on small but motivated local fandom – but this is small change compared to the first two.

       So, it’s very important that cycling as a whole finds a way to keep small races alive. Some of them might even grow bigger etc. But the idea of bringing there * lots * of TV eyeballs just makes very little sense, if the project is based on that, good luck!

     • I accept the accusation of hypocrisy whilst absolutely reserving the right to hypocrisy going forward.
       Amstel is one of those races that the Vans won probably before full modern unbeatable Pogacar had come into full effect. He might not even have been in those two races actually. And if he was in yesterday he probably would have won handsomely.
       I’ll hold my hands up and say, beyond it being bike race, I don’t know what O Gran Camino is! It sounds vaguely Spanish and is presumably a stage race?! I neither know nor care who won it or the race in the Jura! Very little about any less than 3 week stage race interests me! But thats just me.

       • Re: Pogi & Amstel, he lost it last year to these very same competitors
         ^____^
         … so winning handsomely? Probably, yes, as most races, but not that clear.

         You’d better catch on the two Amstel editions won by Vans, both are really memorable, like “winning a race you’ve lost” – but in two different manners. No Pogi but a valid competition indeed.

       • No – I agree with you Richard and think you’re totally right in pretty much everything you say in the above – (maybe aside from the obvious which Gabriele felt the need to point out but tbh I knew what you meant and don’t think there was a need to be so pedantic!)

         As with you, most fans are only interested in three week races and the big one day events, and that’s fine – plus we’re all allowed to be hypocritical at times, it’s also fine, I’m sure I am also – it just made me smile.

         I just feel if most people were honest with themselves, as you are – you/they have barely heard of, or are even less likely to follow Gran Camino (I was more in this camp) – and if so, then we can likely all agree that the current format leaves behind races like these and the sport is underserving these kinds of events and winners even when they’re of the calibre of Adam Yates.

         However chaotic and lovably incomprehensible the schedule is, I’m sad when great riders like Riccitello or Yates’ wins in the above races are overlooked, as the placement of them between the holy weeks of Flanders to Liege is hard to follow/understand for even the most ardent fans. Worse is when similar races have recently (and clearly unintentionally) put rider safety at risk (as with Étoile de Bessèges last year) as they struggle to make ends meet and continue to find place for themselves in the constantly evolving world of pro cycling.

         Of course I’m used to be shouted down on this, and there are a thousand caveats and reasons why it’s not a simple as what I’ve written above, so would involve starting from a similar discussion to what the UCI seem to have just began by asking for ideas from fans and those involved in the sport – but I don’t think the general thought is as crazy as MS might – it’s not a binary choice between big money monopolies and old school schedule chaos – both/all types of fans can be catered for. It’s just for fans like me who’d love a little clarity (for again thousands of reasons) we just have to get used to being billed as the foolish fair-weather cycling fans who don’t really get it, when all I want personally is a sport that’s more secure for everyone involved as well as potentially better able to grow and introduce new fans more easily – that doesn’t involve an F1 makeover as the doomers might imagine.

         But I’m used to it now and I’m glad Gabriele is always here to keep us all in check as the master of this comment section. I agree with your original point of Amstel feeling a little after the Lord Mayors show this year, it’s incredible that seemingly if only one of the big six or seven turn up the race is close to a done deal before it’s begun, these riders talent and durability is remarkable.

8. Great write-up as ususal, and a great race!
   An expected and well-deserved win for Remco, but what a ride by Skjelmose as well. He seems to be the kind of rider who tries hard but can’t quite make it in the Grand Tours or the monuments, yet is perfectly suited to the Ardennes.Strong performances by under-the-radar riders Verstrynge and Phillipsen, and kudos to Frigo for breaking into the top 10 even after his efforts in the break.

   This year’s classics have been amazing.

9. “Matteo Jorgenson … probably solo or bust. ” All too prophetic, given he’s reportedly bust a collarbone!

10. Good ride, glad that Remco won this one. Good work by his team to get him there.

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