Amstel

The Spin: Amstel Gold Race Preview

Amstel Gold Race

Giant crowds, 34 climbs and a brewery as race sponsor, what’s not to like about the Amstel Gold Race?

This is a different race to the ones we’ve seen in recent weeks. Born in 1966 it is the newest of the spring classics and one defined by suburban roads rather than medieval farm tracks. It marks a change in the season where stage race specialists compete alongside one day specialists. But some things remain constant: Peter Sagan is riding and it’s hard to look beyond him.

Here’s the preview with the riders, the route, the TV timings, beer, weather and more.

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Amstel Gold Race: The Moment The Race Was Won

A thrilling finale with tension all the way to the final metres. Philippe Gilbert has eased up and Oscar Freire has been caught. Now Jelle Vanendert and Peter Sagan sprint for the line but behind them Enrico Gasparotto of Astana starts to accelerate. The Italian tracked the leaders up the final climb and timed his sprint to perfection to surge past in the last 20 metres. This was the moment the race was won.

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Amstel Gold Race preview

Amstel Gold Race preview

Giant crowds, 25 different climbs and a brewery as race sponsor, what’s not to like about the Amstel Gold Race?

That said this is a different race to the events we’ve seen in recent weeks. It is the most modern of the spring classics thanks to its relative youth as an event on the calendar but also one defined by suburban roads rather than medieval farm tracks. It also marks a change in the season where grand tour contenders compete alongside one day specialists.

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Sunday shorts

First up, I’d want to say thanks to Competitive Cyclist for their continued support via the advertising. This is a blog and a lone effort but advertising is like having a good wheel to sit on, it makes it easier to keep plugging away. On the suggestion of a reader I deliberately limited the advertising to one square and if you want to do me a favour, click on the advert over there and see what they’ve got.

Giro poster

Next, the Giro d’Italia have an official poster for the race, click on the image above for the full version, it makes a nice desktop background for your computer. The image was by Jered Gruber who’s making a name for his great photography… and also making me mildly jealous of his travel and shooting skills. Obviously the poster has been tweaked with software but not that much. The rider is real, it’s Peter Stetina from Garmin-Cervélo and it was taken when the Giro tackled the Passo Giau (say “joo”) last May.

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The geography of the Amstel Gold Race

Amstel Gold Race crowds

The biggest one day bike race in the Netherlands takes place on Sunday. It’s always an exciting race and if you want a preview, well the Pavé guys will probably do it better soon. Instead I thought I’d take a side look at the race, to review the geography of the event. Plus a quick mention of what Amstel is, in case you don’t know.

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Amstel Gold – some thoughts

The RoadsToday’s race is one of the most manic competitions of the year. Whilst the Tour of Flanders has its bergs and Paris-Roubaix has the pavé, the Amstel has… street furniture. A collection of traffic calming measures, from sleeping policemen to chicane filter points to curb extensions to traffic islands, footage from this race should … Read more

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