The Amstel Gold Race is held in the ‘mountains’ of Limburg, the southernmost region of the Netherlands. It starts in the city of Maastricht before taking on 35 categorised ascents, for a total of 3,000m of climbing over 260km. One of the characteristics of this race is the small twisting and turning roads which cover the route. For that reason, positioning is key and only those who can maintain a position at the head of affairs and have a solid team around them can fight for a high placing. Splits happen easily and it can be hard to get back to the front if you get caught out.
With climbs of between 500m and 2.5km in length — which take the riders from 45 seconds to 3:30 to complete — the Amstel Gold Race demands repeated VO2-type efforts from those that want to be competitive. More important than just having a high VO2 capability is having an excellent recovery ability from such efforts — generally it can be the wearing down of doing such repetitive efforts that can make or break a race. This is clear to see in the power data we’ve analysed from the 2017 Amstel Gold race.
Read our full article at the CyclingTips Website
