52nd Amstel Gold Race - April 16 - 261km

[klintE]

Rojas should have helped Valverde/GVA to bridge to the Gilbert group. He took no pulls and only managed to get 5th.

But how? That wasn't him who controlled the tempo.
BTW, what happened to Soler?

 

[Velolover2]

Amstel became unpredictable like a cobbled classics.

At the start of the race:

At the end of the race:

 

[Son of Amsterhammer]

Is Sagan racing LBL?

 

[Breh]

Omloop, DDV, E3, GW, Ronde, Roubaix, Amstel.

Belgium is bossing it at the moment.

Perhaps more important, racing has been terrific this spring. There was no outlier like Roubaix 2016 this year but I'm still tempted to say this spring has been more exciting than last year.

I'm very much in love with my favorite sport. Great crowds, great racing.

 

[greenedge]

Re:

Haas is so strong today, love it.

Hopefully next year he can go even better! I was worried due to his poor Catalunya, but he proved me wrong and peaked for the race superbly.

 

[42x16ss]

Re: Re:

Haas is so strong today, love it.

Hopefully next year he can go even better! I was worried due to his poor Catalunya, but he proved me wrong and peaked for the race superbly.

Hopefully this is the start of him growing into his skin at WT level. This is Haas' second season away from Vaughters so maybe he can sneak in a decent win soon. After his early season form and now this it shouldn't be too long.

Also some promising form from young Jay McCarthy, despite the Cauberg crash. He's another rider starting to really find his place.

 

[movingtarget]

Re:

It feels like a whole new dawn for cycling now that Gerro is pretty much retired.

Because of a guy that won two monuments ? Gerrans was hardly revolutionary in any way. Only the disproportional dislike makes him special.

 

[Dan2016]

Re: Re:

It feels like a whole new dawn for cycling now that Gerro is pretty much retired.

Because of a guy that won two monuments ? Gerrans was hardly revolutionary in any way. Only the proportional dislike makes him special.

Fixed it for ya

(bomb lit: runs away quickly)

 

[Max Rockatansky]

Re:

Phenomenal race. Finally an exciting edition of AGR. I had high hopes for the new parcours and it indeed delivered. Well, the riders delivered. Thankfully they made the race.

50% of the credit has to go to the strong wind yesterday. Without the wind, it wouldn't have exploded like that. They should modify the parcours every 2-3 years now to keep the race alive.

 

[Dan2016]

Re: Re:

Phenomenal race. Finally an exciting edition of AGR. I had high hopes for the new parcours and it indeed delivered. Well, the riders delivered. Thankfully they made the race.

50% of the credit has to go to the strong wind yesterday. Without the wind, it wouldn't have exploded like that. They should modify the parcours every 2-3 years now to keep the race alive.

Here here...well done wind!

Sorry, kidding, it was a great race wasn't it, usually better with strong winds. The parcours obviously made a huge difference...surprising they didn't make this change years ago, in hindsight.

 

[RedheadDane]

Re:

Amstel became unpredictable like a cobbled classics.

At the start of the race:

At the end of the race:

In the first picture it looks like he's already practicing his victory celebration.
Of course he went with a different style, though... seems to be the style he usually uses.

 

[Gigs_98]

Re: Re:

Phenomenal race. Finally an exciting edition of AGR. I had high hopes for the new parcours and it indeed delivered. Well, the riders delivered. Thankfully they made the race.

50% of the credit has to go to the strong wind yesterday. Without the wind, it wouldn't have exploded like that. They should modify the parcours every 2-3 years now to keep the race alive.

Here here...well done wind!

Sorry, kidding, it was a great race wasn't it, usually better with strong winds. The parcours obviously made a huge difference...surprising they didn't make this change years ago, in hindsight.

I actually don't find it surprising. Many people in this forum, including me, were a bit skeptical about the new parcours, since the race could have been even worse than usually if the race just hadn't exploded with 40 km to go. Some people here even wrote the race is guaranteed to end in a bunch sprint. I think this route was a bit of a gamble for the organizer but since the racing was pretty bad in the last few years it was worth taking that risk and as we see now, it turned out to be a great decision.

 

[Red Rick]

Re: Re:

Phenomenal race. Finally an exciting edition of AGR. I had high hopes for the new parcours and it indeed delivered. Well, the riders delivered. Thankfully they made the race.

50% of the credit has to go to the strong wind yesterday. Without the wind, it wouldn't have exploded like that. They should modify the parcours every 2-3 years now to keep the race alive.

Here here...well done wind!

Sorry, kidding, it was a great race wasn't it, usually better with strong winds. The parcours obviously made a huge difference...surprising they didn't make this change years ago, in hindsight.

I actually don't find it surprising. Many people in this forum, including me, were a bit skeptical about the new parcours, since the race could have been even worse than usually if the race just hadn't exploded with 40 km to go. Some people here even wrote the race is guaranteed to end in a bunch sprint. I think this route was a bit of a gamble for the organizer but since the racing was pretty bad in the last few years it was worth taking that risk and as we see now, it turned out to be a great decision.

Pretty much. I think everyone recognize that the Bemeler isn't hard enough for the puncheurs to win against the sprinters. Forcing the riders who usually can wait for the Cauberg is a pretty decent move, as now there's 3 groups of riders who can realistically win, and the biggest favorites have to open up the race themselves or risk bringing the sprinters along.

Liege should do a similar thing. Drop the Ans finish. Have 10km or so relative flat after the Saint Nicolas. And then you can talk about making earlier bits of the race harder before the Redoute.

 

[RedheadDane]

Already talked about in the rider thread. But as if Gilber's win wasn't impressive enough already...

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/gilbert-out-of-remaining-ardennes-with-kidney-injury/

 

[yaco]

Re:

I'm rewatching it now.

Gilbert, Henao, Albasini and Haas took the most pulls.

Albasini always works hard in a break and Haas is still tactically naive - And once Kwiatkovski bridged over you have a hard-working break.

 

[Tricycle Rider]

Re: Re:

Amstel became unpredictable like a cobbled classics.

At the start of the race:

At the end of the race:

In the first picture it looks like he's already practicing his victory celebration.
Of course he went with a different style, though... seems to be the style he usually uses.

I hang my head in shame for laughing at this seeing as Gilbert has damaged his kidney by practicing his victory celebration in the first picture (gotta give him extra points for trying the much more difficult supine position), but... yeah, I'll just go and hang my head in shame somewhere in a corner now.

Hope he heals well and is back on the bike soon.

 

[jens_attacks]

Barguil said in today's l'equipe that ruin costa messed all the chase by the way
What a legend.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Watched yesterday's race today despite I knew Gilbert would win - still a pretty riveting race, the 4, steep climbs in a row is what Amstel is all about. Favourite moment when the 3 favourites Kwito, Valv and GVA tried to bridge to Gilbert, everyone were on the limit, when Kwito flew away and before you knew it had made contact alone.

These 4 riders have given so much this year, big respect for all of them (I've pretty much grown into a fan of them all as well). There really isn't no place for underdogs to sneak a lucky victory in these races when the big boys are out to play, its how it should be. Unfortunately, only two of them will ride on Sunday.

 

[Netserk]

Re:

Barguil said in today's l'equipe that ruin costa messed all the chase by the way
What a legend.

Lol, for real?

 

[Bolder]

Watched the replay today. Gilbert raced perfectly in the last 10k. Kwiat may be regretting using up so much energy in the attack that caused the final split. The leading group had enough time to force Gilbert to the front ... but he was probably strongest anyway.

Even so, Kwiat could have won with a bit of luck. He mistimed the sprint just a bit.

 

[Forever The Best]

This was a great race with action starting on Kruisberg. The new route delivered, as riders didn't wait for the easy final and went for it on the hard climbs.
Also really enjoyed PhilBear-Kwiatek battle in the final. What a boss Gilbert is, crashed and still won. Shame he missed Fleche and Liege though.
Also a great result for Haas that was.

 

[Velolover2]

Liege needs a change like this race. Can somebody come up with a nice route?