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(Dutch Beer Race) Amstel Gold Race 2021, 216.7k. Sunday.

Page 17 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.

Pick the winner.

  • Pidcock / Kwiatkowski

    Votes: 9 11.3%
  • Bagioli / Vansevenant / Alaphilippe

    Votes: 10 12.5%
  • Schachmann / Schelling

    Votes: 3 3.8%
  • van Aert / Roglic

    Votes: 33 41.3%
  • Valverde

    Votes: 5 6.3%
  • Hirschi

    Votes: 2 2.5%
  • Fuglsang

    Votes: 1 1.3%
  • Matthews

    Votes: 2 2.5%
  • Hindsgaul Madsen

    Votes: 3 3.8%
  • All these choices are ridiculous, I'm making my ballot invalid.

    Votes: 12 15.0%

  • Total voters
    80
  • Poll closed .
One freaking beer i had and i ended up watching what it looked like a Paris-Nice replay, Roglič on the side of the road. Finally, when i managed to tune in. There where van Aert and Pidcock sprinting.

After that it went all fuzzy.

Was it this beer, you had?
 
Someone was also watching

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Matthews was asleep at the wheel - he had to go with the leading three - A big failure on his behalf.
He looked cooked. He struggled to make it across to the first attack. Trouble with Matthews in these races is that there is always a couple of riders with better legs on the day. He has racked up quite a few podiums and top fives in the classics but the win seems to be as elusive as ever.
 
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Great win from Pidcock. Not acknowledging the other scenario. >_>

Will acknowledge the hilarity about Matthews winning if the bunch cooperated. If one thing is certain it's Bling failing to win meaningful races. He's not even the first result when you google him.
 
On another note, the trend continues that ever since they moved the Cauberg further from the finish the race seems to suit cobbles specialists a lot more. 4th race with the new finish and the 4th time the winner has won a cobbles classic the same year.
Gilbert won the Ronde in 2017
Valgren won Omloop in 2018
MvdP won DDV in 2019
Van Aert won Gen Wevelgem this year
Just for comparison, before 2017 that hadn't happen once in this millenium, so the route changed seemed to really have helped the cobbles riders. That said, this of course doesn't tell the entire story. This year the race just as well could have gone to Pidcock, in 2019 it would have gone to Alaphilippe or Fuglsang had they not started playing around, Gilbert won the race on 3 times before the circuit change and Valgren had been close to winning on the old route as well. Still, it's an interesting development.
 
Yea, you'd say that realistically rather than being part of Ardennes Week, it really belongs as a pair with Brabantse Pijl and then Flèche and La Doyenne are the Ardennes proper.

At the same time, we should be wary of extrapolating too much from this year's edition because of the route changes - while they went up the three obstacles of the race several times, it was significantly shorter than normal editions and also skipped a lot of the climbs that could be more preferable to the Ardennes specialists, like Keutenberg and Eyserbosweg, in favour of a circuit including some less selective ones (the love affair with the Bemelerberg must end, it adds nothing other than a number to the amount of climbs in the race, and is no more worthwhile than literally a bit further on flat roads). Also Gilbert winning cobbled classics is more of a late career development, he's always been competitive in them but the hilly classics have always been his bread and butter.
 
Yea, you'd say that realistically rather than being part of Ardennes Week, it really belongs as a pair with Brabantse Pijl and then Flèche and La Doyenne are the Ardennes proper.

At the same time, we should be wary of extrapolating too much from this year's edition because of the route changes - while they went up the three obstacles of the race several times, it was significantly shorter than normal editions and also skipped a lot of the climbs that could be more preferable to the Ardennes specialists, like Keutenberg and Eyserbosweg, in favour of a circuit including some less selective ones (the love affair with the Bemelerberg must end, it adds nothing other than a number to the amount of climbs in the race, and is no more worthwhile than literally a bit further on flat roads). Also Gilbert winning cobbled classics is more of a late career development, he's always been competitive in them but the hilly classics have always been his bread and butter.
Tbh Gilbert has a combined 2 wins in Fleche and Liege, both in his miracle year and after his miracle year he hasn't gotten close in either. I think Gilber falls squarely in AGR as the center of his power.
 
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