MFP Cycling Classics Challenge 2013
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Placeholder for later - ride completed - details to follow, but right now i'm on catering duties...
Ride Details - http://connect.garmin.com/activity/291205658
Distance: 113.20 km - Elevation Gain: 643 m (for over 80km of the route, the only 3 climbs are 2 railway bridges and a swing bridge over the River!) All solo - my winter "ride buddy" is now in serious training again, and there's no way I can keep with him on his serious schedule...
Snacks had to wait until I got home - nowhere open on easter sunday on this ride, but there's a waffles with belgian chocolate sauce shot "in the can" awaiting processing...
Edit: more waffle:
And - once again, the "recovery drink" will have to wait until the kitchen closes for the day - I really don't like cooking "under the influence of Duvel"
Edit2: Mmmmm Beer!
TBY EDIT: km logged, 1 bonus point for 643m climbing,1pt snack, 1pt recovery drink, 1pt solo0 -
Oh no FDS beat me by 20 meters :sad: :sad:
Just kidding... I think you are amazing to go solo to cover that many kilometers, and have to put up with the cold weather.
Anyway here is my ride (just finished watching Tour des Flandres - feeling like a pro :laugh: )
http://app.strava.com/activities/46580445
Distance: 97.3km
Elevation for In Ride Bonus: 1607m
Snacks Bonus (hmm this is just one of the many snacks I had today - still feeling hungry)
No other bonus - a trip to supermarket didn't spot any genuine Belgium "recovery drink" and rode with a small group of tri friends
I like waffle better than chocolate - yum
This is how we make waffle here - plain outside, while put in fillings usually of peanut butter, condensed milk, and a mixture of sugar & coconut shreds (am I posting in the Recipe forum?)
Thank you for watching/reading everyone :drinker:
TBY EDIT: km logged, 3 bonus point for 1607m climbing,1pt snack0 -
31/03/13 - 92.1km - http://app.strava.com/activities/46656990
There's snow in them there hills...
*haven't re-set the time to BST yet...
More snow drifts...
*haven't re-set the time to BST yet...
Fast (Max'd out at 68.6km/h 42.6mph) downhill ride...
http://youtu.be/o9t8GPxrffM
Nice car...
http://youtu.be/6Ej99fr3l8E
Vid's just uploading... They may be a couple of minutes!
I cut my ride short due to being savaged by a strong easterly that was really cutting into my speed :grumble:
Plus I was struggling; probably did too much on the Turbo yesterday :sick:
P.S. This was a billy-no-mates ride too! :sad:
TBY EDIT: km logged, 1 bonus point for 580m climbing, 1pt solo0 -
Here is my billy no mates ride. :drinker:
http://app.strava.com/activities/46685890
I have a picture of a belgian chocolate... just before I ate it, but not sure if that will count towards any bonus points. I did call into 2 off licenses for a bottle of leffe but without any luck. :noway:
TBY Edit: post it up mate...chocolates definitely count
TBY EDIT: km logged, 1 bonus point for 652m climbing,1pt solo - additional point on offer if we see the chocolate 0 -
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/291482223
Solo ride for me since I had to ride before I headed to church and Easter dinner 2 hours away.
TBY EDIT: km logged, 1 bonus point for solo0 -
SO here it is
MFP Ronde van Vlaanderen / Tour des Flandres (billy no mates)
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/291472759
Views from the road
Filbert trees
Lunch Break (mile 38)
its not waffles and chocolate...but it was good (kobe beef hotdog with Kobe chili and a stout)
AND post ride beverage at home...this should be close
***i still really dislike this board for posting images...grrr
TBY EDIT: km logged, 1pt recovery drink, 1pt solo - snack looked wonderful, but will have to be a reward in itself...0 -
http://app.strava.com/activities/46713040
Short ride but fun one today - this was the last of our Beginner series of rides (Ride #7) entitled the Easter Island Ride (you can tell from the map as to why we chose that name) - we drew 76 riders in total to run the route at 3 paces according to rider capabilities and desires. I saw the weather report from the BBC on the UK in general and from my bride's folks (Bournemouth). And you have my sympathies!
I imagine it should be worth a bonus point for this ride since I didn't point out in the narrative above that we ran the route starting at noon today in temps ranging from 68-72F with perfectly clear blue skies, views of Lake Washington (since we were riding just by it), clear sights of the Cascade range of mountains to the East and the Olympic range of Mountains to the West, with spectacular views of our two very large volcanoes of Mt Rainier to the south and Mt Baker to the North. Now that would be just too much like bragging! :>) [We've paid our dues earlier this winter!]
TBY EDIT: km logged, Sadly, no bonus points, but again, it sounds the ride was reward enough in itself
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I think I've finally figured out what I have to do now, and will finally get on the board
http://app.strava.com/activities/46724777
Short 14.5 mile ride to burn off Easter dinner, about 66 degrees and a good 5-6 MPH headwind. IPBike told me I climbed 551ft but Strava says its only 327 ft. No real big deal since neither value is high enough for a bonus point No waffles or Belgian chocolate (plenty of other chocolate though), and the bottle of Framboise I thought I had in the fridge was not there, so no bonus points for those. However, every ride is a "Billy No Mates" ride for me, so there's that
Hoping to have a less boring ride report for the next challenge
TBY EDIT: km logged, 1 bonus point for riding solo - and glad you finally figured out my labarinthine (sp?) entry system :laugh:0 -
Only a short 'billy no mates' ride for me! Still very happy to get out and not put a DNS on the board! Beautiful spring sunshine, shame about the wind and temperature!
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/291206236
No waffles or beer bonus for me this week!
Great riding once again everyone! :drinker:
TBY EDIT: km logged, 1 bonus point for 665m climbing,1pt solo0 -
Provisional Results for the Fourth section of the Classics Challenge are as Follows:
- Oh dear... this is rather embarassing. Me 
- Well done to katozdad - and congratulations on your first metric century into the bargain. Chapeau!
- Joint third - narak_lol and FatDadSlim - Same distance to within a few yards, and both posted monster climbs... impossible to split the performance - so I didn't!
And once again well done to everyone who got out there and did a ride - and to those who didn't make it - not to worry - one race doesn't make a classics campaign, plenty of time to catch up.
Sunday, we're in France for what is probably my favourite Classic - the mighty Paris Roubaix. See you all in Compiègne for the start, don't forget the extra layer of handlebar tape and the 28 section tyres 0 -
07.04.2013 Paris – Roubaix
Paris–Roubaix is one of the oldest races of professional road cycling. It was first run in 1896 and has stopped only for two world wars. The race was created by two Roubaix textile manufacturers, Théodore Vienne (born 28 July 1864) and Maurice Perez. They had been behind the building of a velodrome on 46,000 square metres at the corner of the rue Verte and the route d'Hempempont, which opened on 9 June 1895.
Vienne and Perez held several meetings on the track, one including the first appearance in France by the American sprinter Major Taylor, and then looked for further ideas. In February 1896 they hit upon the idea of holding a race from Paris to their track. This presented two problems. The first was that the biggest races started or ended in Paris and that Roubaix might be seen as too provincial a destination. The second was that they could organize the start or the finish but not both.
They spoke to Louis Minart, the editor of Le Vélo, the only French daily sports paper. Minart was enthusiastic but said the decision of whether the paper would organise the start and provide publicity belonged to the director, Paul Rousseau. Minart may also have suggested an indirect approach because the mill owners recommended their race not on its own merits, but as preparation for another. They wrote:
Dear M. Rousseau, Bordeaux–Paris is approaching and this great annual event which has done so much to promote cycling has given us an idea. What would you think of a training race which preceded Bordeaux–Paris by four weeks? The distance between Paris and Roubaix is roughly 280km, so it would be child's play for the future participants of Bordeaux–Paris. The finish would take place at the Roubaix vélodrome after several laps of the track. Everyone would be assured of an enthusiastic welcome as most of our citizens have never had the privilege of seeing the spectacle of a major road race and we count on enough friends to believe that Roubaix is truly a hospitable town. As prizes we already have subscribed to a first prize of 1,000 francs in the name of the Roubaix velodrome and we will be busy establishing a generous prize list which will be to the satisfaction of all. But for the moment, can we count on the patronage of Le Vélo and on your support for organising the start?
The proposed first prize represented seven months' wages for a miner at the time.
Rousseau was enthusiastic and sent his cycling editor, Victor Breyer, to find a route. Breyer travelled to Amiens in a Panhard driven by his colleague, Paul Meyan. The following morning Breyer - later deputy organiser of the Tour de France and a leading official of the Union Cycliste Internationale - continued by bike. The wind blew, the rain fell and the temperature dropped. Breyer reached Roubaix filthy and exhausted after a day of riding on cobbles (setts). He swore he would send a telegram to Minart urging him to drop the idea, saying it was dangerous to send a race the way he had just ridden. But that evening a meal and drinks with the team from Roubaix changed his mind.
The first race
News of Breyer's ride to Roubaix may have spread. Half those who entered did not turn up at the Brassérie de l'Espérance, the race headquarters at the start. Those who dropped out before the race began included Henri Desgrange, a prominent track rider who went on to organise the Tour de France. The starters did include Maurice Garin, who went on to win Desgrange's first Tour and was the local hope in Roubaix because he and two brothers had opened a cycle shop in the boulevard de Paris the previous year.
Garin came third, 15 minutes behind Josef Fischer, the only German to have won the race to date. Only four finished within an hour of the winner. Garin would have come second had he not been knocked over by a crash between two tandems, one of them ridden by his pacers. Garin "finished exhausted and Dr Butrille was obliged to attend the man who had been run over by two machines," said Sergent. He won the following year, beating Dutchman Mathieu Cordang in the last two kilometres of the velodrome at Roubaix.
Hell of the North
The race usually leaves riders caked in mud and grit, from the cobbled roads and rutted tracks of northern France's former coal-mining region. However, this is not how this race earned the name l'enfer du Nord, or Hell of the North. The term was used to describe the route of the race after World War I. Organisers and journalists set off from Paris in 1919 to see how much of the route had survived four years of shelling and trench warfare. Procycling reported:
They knew little of the permanent effects of the war. Nine million had died and France lost more than any. But, as elsewhere, news was scant. Who even knew if there was still a road to Roubaix? If Roubaix was still there? The car of organisers and journalists made its way along the route those first riders had gone. And at first all looked well. There was destruction and there was poverty and there was a strange shortage of men. But France had survived. But then, as they neared the north, the air began to reek of broken drains, raw sewage and the stench of rotting cattle. Trees which had begun to look forward to spring became instead blackened, ragged stumps, their twisted branches pushed to the sky like the crippled arms of a dying man. Everywhere was mud. Nobody knows who first described it as 'hell', but there was no better word. And that's how it appeared next day in the papers: that little party had seen 'the hell of the north.'
The words in L'Auto were:
We enter into the centre of the battlefield. There's not a tree, everything is flattened! Not a square metre that has not been hurled upside down. There's one shell hole after another. The only things that stand out in this churned earth are the crosses with their ribbons in blue, white and red. It is hell! '
History of the cobbles
Seeking the challenge of racing on cobbles is relatively recent. It began at the same time in Paris–Roubaix and the Ronde van Vlaanderen, when widespread improvements to roads after the second world war brought realisation that the character of both races were changing. Until then the race had been over cobbles not because they were bad but because that was how roads were made.
The coming of live television prompted mayors along the route to surface their cobbled roads for fear the rest of France would see them as backward and not invest in the region. Albert Bouvet, the organiser, said: "If things don't change, we'll soon be calling it Paris–Valenciennes," reference to a flat race on good roads that often ends in a mass sprint. L'Équipe said: "The riders don't deserve that." Its editor, Jacques Goddet, called Paris–Roubaix "the last great madness of cycling." Bouvet and Jean-Claude Vallaeys formed Les Amis de Paris Roubaix - Its president, Alain Bernard, led enthusiasts to look for and sometimes maintain obscure cobbled paths.
It was Alain Bernard who found one of the race's most significant cobbled stretches, the Carrefour de l'Arbre. He was out on a Sunday ride, turned off the main road to see what was there and found the last bad cobbles before the finish. It is a bleak area with just a bar by the crossroads.
The Course
Originally, the race was from Paris to Roubaix, but in 1966 the start moved to Chantilly, 50 km north, then in 1977 to Compiègne, 80 km north. From Compiègne it now follows a 260 km winding route north to Roubaix, hitting the first cobbles after 100 km. During the last 150 km the cobbles extend more than 50 km. The race culminates with 750m on the smooth concrete of the large outdoor velodrome in Roubaix. The route is adjusted from year to year as older roads are resurfaced and the organisers seek more cobbles to maintain the character of the race - in 2005, for example, the race included 54.7 km of cobbles.
For more info (including the bulk of the above) have a look at the fantastic Wikipedia page on this race at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris–Roubaix
I’ll leave you with one quote that sums up Paris Roubaix for me…
CBS covered Paris–Roubaix in the 1980s. Theo de Rooij, a Dutchman, had been in a promising position to win the 1985 race but had then crashed, losing his chance of winning. Covered in mud, he offered his thoughts on the race to CBS' John Tesh after the race:
“It's a bollocks, this race!” said de Rooij. “You're working like an animal, you don't have time to piss, you wet your pants. You're riding in mud like this, you're slipping ... it’s a pile of ****.”
When then asked if he would start the race again, de Rooij replied:
“Sure, it's the most beautiful race in the world!”0 -
Entries thread now open - it'll close 9pm (ish) BST on Monday 8th April. I may not be around much over the weekend (my Dad's not too well) so I'll wish everyone good luck and fair winds.0
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My Paris Roubaix!
67.9km http://app.strava.com/activities/47603053
Mileage is not that great... I am hopeless in riding "billy no mates" so picked a hillier terrain to break the boredom and then worn myself out real quick :blushing:
However I had a lot of fun exploring the place while try to get as many bonus point as possible haha
Cobbles (I hope this qualify as!)
Leffe as recovery drink
Baguette - homemade!
Also awarded myself an extra bonus point, a custard brioche but it got eaten before photo was taken as I was famished :bigsmile:
No windmill...
Can't wait for next week's Amstel Gold Race :laugh:
TBY Edit - distance checked and added, 1pt cobbles, 0pt Windmill, 1 pt Recovery Beer, 1pt french food0 -
Paris Roubaix
128.7 km http://app.strava.com/activities/47656795
The Only Cobbles i could find
Breakfast Baguette, this may become a regular...
Pain au Chocolat went down well 55mile into ride.
Recovery drink.. tescos finest but it is French
More Carbs, croque Monsiur & Cote du Rhone
Hard to be lieve its the 7th April, pic of the sperrin mountains at around 1100 ft today
No Windmills...
Happy Cycling
TBY Edit - distance checked and added, 1pt cobbles, 0pt Windmill, 1 pt Recovery Beer, 1pt french food0 -
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/294617047
Was hoping to get more miles in, but it was quite hilly towards the end and I just didn't have enough fuel in the tank...was a good ride though, if quite a lot of climbing...911ft seems a lot over 24 miles but perhaps it isn't - I'm not good spatially!
No cobbles (crazy as I live in old mining area - but couldn't find any for love nor money - and no windmills either)
Pre-ride croissant
Post ride biere
TBY Edit - distance checked and added, 0pt cobbles, 0pt Windmill, 1 pt Recovery Beer, 1pt french food0 -
07/04/13 - 94.5km - http://app.strava.com/activities/47724635
No Piccies, no bonuses (that I am aware of?)
Peeved, because Cyclemeter told me I'd ridden 100.13km @ 33.14km/h average :grumble:
TBY Edit - distance checked and added, 0pt cobbles, 0pt Windmill, 0pt Recovery Beer, 0pt french food0 -
07.04.13 - Paris – Roubaix
104.20km
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/294447061
Pre-ride Croissant
and post-ride recovery drink
No cobbles or windmills i'm afraid.
TBY Edit - distance checked and added, 0pt cobbles, 0pt Windmill, 1 pt Recovery Beer, 1pt french food0 -
I couldn’t find Kronenbourg so I settled for a Lienenkugel’s, no windmills. Found a sandwich shop about 6 miles from my house that I didn’t know existed. Finally figured out how to do the photos.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/294801299
73.8 miles, nice ride but my knees started to hurt. A bit windy.
TBY Edit - distance checked and added, 0pt cobbles, 0pt Windmill, 1 pt Recovery Beer, 1pt french food0 -
Here is my ride
http://app.strava.com/activities/47656991
My pre-ride croissant
The windmill (a long hard slog, nearly got lost a blew the whole ride)
And a bit of something that I cobbled together
A last a post-ride drink (not a big beer fan, so hope the glass of red from France will do). Same as Harksy, knew the guy had good taste.
TBY Edit - distance checked and added, 1pt cobbles(near enough), 1pt Windmill, 1 pt Recovery drink, 1pt french food0 -
well done everyone so far...
Sadly, I'll have to declare a DNS
I'm afraid I spent my own personal version of "a sunday in hell" :brokenheart:0 -
Nice day for a ride, high 60's,blue skies but a little windy. Here's the ride link :http://app.strava.com/activities/47747233
Stats: 31.6 miles, 1,447 ft elevation gain, 6.5 miles on dirt including 1.5 miles of hike-a-bike (very poor trail/road conditions), 1 broken seat rail. No croissants, windmills, cobbles or Kronebourg were harmed or filmed in the production of this ride.
Since I hear Paul and Phil in my head as I ride here's pics with commentary...
Phil: Pre-ride breakfast - coffee and biscotti, these hard men need to fuel up in order to conquer the bergs looming in front of them.
Paul: That's right Phil, it's a long trek to the feed zones and they need to make sure they're consuming enough calories to maintain their output.
TBY:pity they chose something quintesentially Italian...
Paul: The peleton is fast approaching the Muur-Redneckenberg, there is a chance here for some one to jump away near the top try to create a gap from the group.
Phil: With the steepest sections reaching 22% it is an early opportunity for some sorting to go on in the peleton.
Phil: there may not be cobbles in this part of Arizona, but when horses are ridden on wet, muddy trails it creates this post-holing effect and when it dries it creates this a very rough surface with divots reaching 6-8inches in depth.
Paul: Yes, I would much rather ride over the real cobbles in Northern France than these irregular rough sections of trail.
Phil: oh! and that's going to end this young man's day.
Paul: yes, the rough roads and conditions of this ride have claimed another victim,
Bob Roll: at least it's not like when George Hincapie's steerer tube broke in the 2006 edition of Paris-Roubaix...
Phil: and that is not a happy face as he hitches a ride in the team car today
Paul; I'm sure he was looking forward to riding all the way to the end, but with the shoestring budget of his team, a mechanical like a sheared seat rail is the end of his day.
Phil: enjoy the post-ride refreshments young man, you've earned it
Paul: and we'll be back next week to see if Team Rural Commuting can bounce back from the disappointment today...
TBY Edit - distance checked and added, 1pt horse-cobbles , 0pt Windmill, 1 pt Recovery Beer, 1pt italian food
I decided to be generous with the points, partly because of the paul/phil writeup, and partly for the broken saddle rail. Not an area on the bike you want to be Mcgyver-ing a solution is it really...0 -
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/294906821
Finally had a nice day to get a longer ride in. Did half the ride solo and then rode the other 2 hours with a friend.
This was probably the easiest spot point for me as the pavers are just a block from my house. I avoid them like the plague but was good and rode them just for the challenge! No windmills since good old water and wind turbines didn't count--have plenty of those but not a traditional one to be found.
TBY Edit - distance checked and added, 1pt cobbles, 0pt Windmill, 0pt Recovery Beer, 0pt french food0 -
I really,REALLLY love you people.... it's SOOOO cool that you've got into the spirit of this stuff...0
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Not much fuel in the tank...
18.6 miles; 1,183 ft elev gain
http://app.strava.com/activities/47769022
TBY Edit - distance checked and added, 0pt cobbles, 0pt Windmill, 0pt Recovery Beer, 0pt french food0 -
A few probs with this ride... But happy to be out...
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/294876251
Left the pic of my 1664 and my Pain Au Chocolat on another PC I'm not going to see for a couple of days, I'll forego those bonus points this week.
TBY:Added from other thread
TBY Edit - distance checked and added, (post the pictures to the discussion thread when you get a chance, and i'll add extra spot points then :laugh: )
FURTHER EDIT - 2 additional bonus points added in - I'll update the charts after next ride rather than re-editing now0 -
http://app.strava.com/activities/47790045
In the rain, rain, rain, rain,.....this was route scouting ride where we are reviewing courses for a mid-week training series (courses are designed to run about 2 hours after work for a strong workout) - we were going to do at two routes and I was considering a third to help improve my pathetic showing in the Classics Challenge so far. But.......after one route (the one reported here), we (my one co-leader and myself) decided that Monday's weather forecast was so much better than what we were experiencing that we would elect to take some sort of Rule #9 demerit and push the additional course riding out to Monday. So this is a short one for this week again...and we'll be riding Monday evening if the weather guys get it right for us! No Windmills - I considered trying to find a miniature golf place to take a photo of one but that wasn't to be yesterday either!
TBY Edit - distance checked and added, no bonuses, but allow me to say I just love reading your ride writeups, there always seems to be something in the ride where you're putting things back into the riding community and it always leaves me smiling0 -
And that's the challenge closed for this weekend... Results to follow soon.0
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Provisional Results for the Fifth section of the Classics Challenge are as Follows:
- A fantastic showing again from katozdad - yet another "longest ever ride" i'm thinking... Chapeau!! - A typically strong showing from Harkesy - Big hand for the man riding the appropriately named bike... Congratulations cyclenut64
And once again well done to everyone who got out there and did a ride - and to those who didn't make it - not to worry - one race doesn't make a classics campaign, plenty of time to catch up.
Sunday, we're Going Dutch for the Amstel Gold. As the race is named for a brand of beer, there's no prizes for guessing what one of the spots is going to be :laugh:
Hopefully I'll see you all at the start in Maastricht - pack your climbing legs, we've 2 ascents of the Cauberg before we reach the finish line in Valkenberg.0 -
And the Overall column...
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14.04.2013 Amstel Gold Race
A relative newcomer to the calendar, The first race, on April 30, 1966, was organised by two Dutch sports promoters, Ton Vissers and Herman Krott, who together ran a company called Inter Sport.
Vissers was a house decorator and hockey player from Rotterdam whose break in cycling came in 1963 when a friend asked him to manage a minor team in the Tour of Holland. Those who were there say he was as hopeless as his riders. Officials banished him after he did a U-turn and drove back towards the oncoming race after hearing that one of his riders had punctured. Three years later, in 1966, he became manager of the Willem II professional team that at one time included the classics winner, Rik van Looy of Belgium.
Krott's background in cycling was scarcely deeper. He ran a car-parts dealership called HeKro and, because he admired the Dutch rider Peter Post, worked as his personal assistant. He had also worked as a salesman for Amstel. Together, Krott and Vissers organised small races across the Netherlands. Krott also used his contacts at Amstel to start an Amstel professional team and then the sponsorship to run an international professional race bigger than the round-the-houses events Inter Sport had been promoting until then.
The first Amstel Gold Race was announced for April 30, 1966, the national day of the Netherlands. The plan was to start from Amsterdam and follow a 280 km loop round the east of the country before finishing in the south-east at Maastricht. There would be prizes of 10,000 guilders - about €5,000 - of which a fifth would go to the winner.
Things started going wrong from the beginning. Krott and Vissers had announced the start, the finish and the distance without taking into account the many rivers and the zigzags needed to cross them. The course would be far longer than 280 km. Further plans were made to start in Utrecht, then in Rotterdam. The finish was moved from Maastricht to the unknown village of Meerssen. Less than three weeks before the start, the organisers realised they had not obtained permission to cross the Moerdijk bridge, the only way out of Rotterdam to the south. The route had again to be redrawn and the start moved to Breda in the south.
The problems had not ended. Whatever the police thought of the constant changes they were asked to approve, they now had bigger concerns. The Provos, militant hippies, had declared Holland a state of anarchy. At the other end of the social scale, Dutchmen were also protesting against the marriage of the queen's daughter, Beatrix, to a German, Claus von Amsberg. The police feared that a race organised on the royal family's big day would bring uprisings and possibly attacks.
On April 26, Vissers and Krott called off their race. But still there was a twist. A press conference to break the news had just started when the Dutch roads ministry in The Hague called to say the race could be run after all - provided it was never again scheduled for Koninginnedag.
The race was run, there were no serious protests, and the conditions set by the roads minister lost their significance. The Amstel Gold Race has never started in Amsterdam, Rotterdam or Utrecht and it never again started in Breda. The finish was moved to Maastricht from 1992 and after 1998 the race also started there.
Inter Sport ceased trading in 1970 and Herman Krott ran the race by himself until 1995. It was then taken over by the former professional Leo van Vliet.
The course has changed many times over the years. In 2005 the race took place almost entirely within the boundaries of the province of Limburg, but there have also been editions that covered significant parts of Belgium. Before 2003 the finish used to be in Maastricht. From 2003 till 2012 the finish was at the top of the Cauberg hill, in the Valkenburg municipality. The final was redesigned for the 2013 edition and the finish was moved from the top of the Cauberg to Berg en Terblijt, 1,8 kilometers after the Cauberg. The new finish will mirror the finish that was used for the 2012 UCI Road World Championships.
The race is the Netherlands' largest professional race but is frequently criticised for the danger of its course. The Netherlands is a densely populated country and the race runs through many suburbs and villages. With pressure on land being so great, many Dutch houses do not have garages and cars are left parked in the street. There are also many traffic-calming obstacles such as pinches, chicanes and speed humps, and further obstacles such as roundabouts and traffic islands. Crashes are not uncommon in the race.
The course is tough and selective, mainly because of the 31 hills that have to be climbed, some with angles as steep as 20% (Keutenberg). The Amstel can be confusing for first time riders, because the course features a lot of turns, plus some spots are visited more than one time during the race.
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 at Maastricht 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.]
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.0
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