Bicycle Racing News and Opinion,
Saturday, April 13, 2024
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2023 Tour de France | 2023 Giro d'Italia
I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say; I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger. - Harriet Tubman
Les Woodland's book Cycling Heroes: The Golden Years is available in the print, Kindle eBook & audiobook versions. To get your copy, just click on the Amazon link on the right.
Upcoming racing:
- April 14: Amstel Gold Race
- April 14: Tour du Doubs
- April 15 - 19: Tour of the Alps
- April 17: La Flèche Wallone
- April 21: Liège-Bastogne-Liège
Latest completed racing:
- April 10: De Brabantse Pijl
- April 7: Paris-Roubaix
- April 6: Women's Paris-Roubaix
- April 1 - 6: Tour of the Basque Country/Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco
- April 2 - 5: Region Pays de la Loire Tour
- April 3: Scheldeprijs
- March 31: Ronde van Vlaanderen (Tour of Flanders)
- March 30: Gran Premio Miguel Indurain
- March 30: Volta Limburg Classic
Here’s the team’s news:
Team Jayco AlUla is going all-in with Michael Matthews at this weekend’s Amstel Gold Race.
Matthews has been on a fantastic run of performances this spring, which includes a second-placed finish at Milan-San Remo. He has a good record at Amstel with five top-10 finishes over the years and a visit to the podium.
Michael Matthews before the start of this year's Tour of Flanders. Sirotti photo
The Australian will be backed by a team that is a mixture of youth and experience. Both Lawson Craddock and Luke Durbridge are set to ride the Dutch classic for the fifth time, while Anders Foldager and Felix Engelhardt are making their debuts.
Completing the roster for Sunday’s Amstel Gold Race are Mauro Schmid and Jan Maas, who are riding the one-day race for the second and third times respectively.
The Amstel Gold Race sees the riders snake their way around the Limburg region of the Netherlands, setting off from Maastricht before finishing in Valkenburg. There will be few sections of flat over the 253km race with a never-ending sequence of climbs and descents almost all the way to the line.
Team Jayco AlUla line-up:
Michael Matthews
Lawson Craddock
Luke Durbridge
Anders Foldager
Mauro Schmid
Jan Maas
Felix Engelhardt
Lawson Craddock:
“Amstel is always an iconic race on the calendar and I’m definitely excited to line up there again this year. We’ve seen a big shift in how these races are raced in the last couple of years and they’ve definitely got much more aggressive with the final starting much further out. I think we can expect a lot of the same for Amstel Gold Race on Sunday. The course is challenging all day and it definitely forces everyone to be on the front foot all day if they want any chance of success and that will be objective number one for us.
"We’re going in with Michael Matthews and he’s been on a tear lately with some of the big results that he’s got. There’s a lot of confidence in him knowing that he can deliver a good ride for us. I think we’ll just aim to be proactive all day and make it our ride instead of trying to race someone else’s race.”
Pieter Weening (Sport Director):
“Michael Matthews will be our leader. He’s in really good shape and he finished off his cobbled classics campaign in really good shape and with the team we’re going to fully focus on him. We also know that it is always a hard race and it’s always about positioning so getting into the right place before crucial points is the most important task for the other riders and getting Matthews into the right position. That’s the only goal the other riders have, positioning him and keeping him out of trouble.
"The whole parcours is situated in 30 square kilometres so there are a lot of climbs that we will do two or three times. I think in total it’s like 33 climbs and it will be a hard and taxing day. For us, the focus is on Matthews, delivering him into position in crucial points.”
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Here’s the team’s news:
On Sunday, the WorldTour heads to the Netherlands for the Amstel Gold Race.
Richard Carapaz, Owain Doull, Ben Healy, Mikkel Honoré, Lukas Nerurkar, James Shaw, and Marijn van den Berg will race the Dutch classic for EF Education-EasyPost.
Letizia Borghesi, Clara Emond, Veronica Ewers, Magdeleine Vallieres, Nina Kessler, and Clara Koppenburg will ride for EF Education-Cannondale.
The races start in Maastricht, a pretty, university city on the banks of the Meuse river, and head into the hills of South Limburg, which are blanketed by daffodils, magnolias, and apple blossoms in spring. Winding through red-brick towns, past traffic furniture, and into fields on perfect pavement, the race courses are as picturesque as they are violent. Up, down, this way and that—none of the climbs in the Amstel Gold Race is more than a few kilometers long, but most are very steep and they come one after the other. The men do 33 in their 255.2-kilometer race, while the women climb 17 during the 157.4-km Amstel Gold Race Ladies Edition.
“It is just constant left and right, climbing and descending,” says Ben Healy, who finished second last year and wants to go one better this time. “The race is just relentless all day, even if there might not be one climb that stands out.”
Unless you’re Dutch, that is. Marijn van den Berg knows the climbs in the Amstel Gold Race like the back of his hand. Marijn was born five meters below sea level. Most of his country is as flat as Ben’s back when he ducks into his aero tuck. Growing up in the Netherlands, Limburg was the place to go for weekend training-camps and the hardest junior races. Hills like the Keutenberg, Eyserbosweg, and Cauberg are national icons in the Netherlands, thanks to the Amstel Gold Race, which was founded in 1966 to give the Netherlands a race to compete with the older Belgian classics. It might not be a monument, but it is certainly the most important race in the cycling-mad Netherlands.
Marijn van den Berg wins stage one of this year's Region Pays de la Loire
“The whole country knows the Amstel Gold Race,” says our Dutch rider Nina Kessler. “When people hear that you are a cyclist, they will ask you, so do you do the Tour de France or Amstel Gold Race? Then, you can say, yep I do the Amstel Gold Race! It almost feels like the whole country comes to the south of the Netherlands that weekend. It is crazy. Dutch people are normally down to earth, but Amstel is a party. Everybody knows the race. Everybody is watching the race. In Belgium, they have Flanders, and we have the Amstel Gold Race.”
After his huge performance at Brabanste Pijl on Wednesday, where he was caught inside the final kilometer, and his win at the Région Pays de la Loire Tour earlier this month, Marijn is excited to make his debut in his country’s classic.
“I know all of the climbs and all of the roads,” Marijn says. “That is going to make the race really special. Most of them are short, steep, and they come one after the other. They hurt quite a lot if you go fast.”
“We are really good at finding the roads to make hard races,” Nina says. “I will do training camps in the south of the Netherlands and it is just so beautiful to ride around. The nature is really nice, but racing is something else. You have the feeling that you are doing a crit with hills. There is always something going on. Either you have left turns, right corners, small roads, wide roads and then of course the hills, which are short and punchy. You have to be a proper cyclist to do a good race here. It is not a typical climbers’ race because it is so explosive all of the time and that makes it pretty cool and also hard to predict how the race will go.”
Marijn van den Berg knows his dream scenario. He might not be a household name in his home country yet, but one big ride on Sunday could change that forever. With him and Ben, plus Richard Carapaz, on the start line, our squad will have three very strong riders in the game at Amstel. The race will be a matter of defending those three, so they can do their thing at the end.
“I don’t think it is up to us to make the race from the start and decide how the race is ridden until the finale,” Ben says. “Hopefully, it will be a reduced group with me and Richard and Marijn. If he is in contention, Marijn can take that sit-back-and-wait-for-the-sprint role, so Richie and I can be aggressive.”
Marijn knows on Sunday it will be important to be patient.
“It’s going to be a hard race, but I think that’s perfect for Ben,” Marijn says. “I want to be there if it comes back, so we could sprint with a smaller group, but Amstel is a really hard race to predict. I don’t know what to expect because it is my first time. A lot can happen here. On the climbs, it will be key not to go all out the first time up. Everyone in the peloton can do a few hard efforts on the climbs, but we’re doing almost 260 kilometers. When you see it on TV, it is always super busy and everybody is super hyped and excited so I am looking forward to seeing how that will be.”
Veronica Ewers is too. She is going to make her return to racing at Amstel after a tough spring. It will be a hard start for her, but she knows she will be encouraged by the Dutch fans.
“What I always find so special in this race is that once we hit the final circuits, all of the bergs are just covered in people cheering, especially on the Cauberg, the key climb near the finish,” Veronica says. “That just makes it really special. I am a bit anxious. I have not raced since mid-February so it is kind of like starting out on my season again. I wasn’t feeling too great after Valenciana, just mentally was not where I wanted to be, but I have reflected on that and am trying to give myself a bit of grace and I am really excited to get back into racing and be a part of the team. The beauty of the team at the moment is that we are not necessarily favorites to win and that gives us the privilege of being aggressive. We can shoot our shots and take risks and just give it everything we can.”
Expect to see pink jerseys flying off the front of the peloton Sunday. EF Pro Cycling is ready to set off some fireworks in the hills of Zuid-Limburg.
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Here’s the team’s news:
On Sunday, 14 April, Dutch cycling fans will get ready for the highlight of the national cycling calendar. Team Visma | Lease a Bike Women is heading to the south of our country with a strong squad. After physical setbacks, Fem van Empel hopes to play an important role for the Dutch team, which is aiming for the best possible result with former winner Marianne Vos.
Van Empel, only 21, has been unbeatable this winter. Nineteen times, she has been the strongest rider in a cyclocross race. After extending her world title and winning the Lille cross in early February, Van Empel headed to Tenerife to prepare for the big spring classics. A strong training camp was cut short by illness the day before her departure.
Fem van Empel winning this year's GP Sven Nys.
"Actually, everything went well. Unfortunately, I got sick the day before I was supposed to leave. As a result, I was not able to get fit in time for Gent-Wevelgem. It was a shame because that was our goal. That was what we were working towards", Van Empel explained. The Dutch rider from Team Visma | Lease a Bike has since raced Dwars door Vlaanderen and the Tour of Flanders.
She enjoyed her first racing kilometres on the road. "The Tour of Flanders was a great experience with all the spectators along the roadside. I wouldn't have missed it for the world." However, the following week did not go as well as hoped. "I was sick again and spent more time in bed than on the bike for a week. Fortunately, I felt much better this week. Hopefully, the setbacks are behind me now."
This Sunday, Van Empel will compete for the first time in the Amstel Gold Race, the most important Dutch one-day race. "I'm really looking forward to it. It is always fun to race in your own country; I know that from the cyclocross races. My family will be with me. The profile of the Amstel Gold Race is within my capabilities, but I am especially curious about my physical condition. We have a strong team, which makes different scenarios possible. I want to make my contribution to the team."
The Dutch team has a former Amstel Gold Race winner in Vos. She recently celebrated her 250th professional victory. Her form is excellent. Vos confirmed this again last Sunday at Paris-Roubaix, where she finished fourth. "Even so, it was disappointing. Yes, considering Marianne's background, the result was impressive, but she would have liked to have won. That's part of top-level sport: you win some, you lose some", Rutger Tijssen says.
Strong development
The technical director of the Visma | Lease a Bike Women's team has noticed that his team is developing well. "Before the start of the season, I was hoping for three victories and many places of honour. After the spring, we are on the right track for a good season. I'm not just looking at the results. All in all, we have grown as a team across the board."
For Tijssen, 20-year-old Rosita Reijnhout's WorldTour victory in Australia is a perfect example of the team's development. "Last year, we already had a lot of new riders. These young girls are now a year older and more used to the organisation and training required at the highest level of cycling."
"Rosita excelled in Australia, Nienke Veenhoven is riding strongly where she did not always succeed last year, and the newly arrived Mijntje Geurts is also making great improvements as she discovers what top-level sport is all about", says Tijssen, listing a few examples of the excellent development the riders are going through this season.
The women's team's organisation changed a lot last winter. Tijssen explains: "After the departure of our female race coaches, Jos van Emden and Jan Boven are now in charge. We had competent people on the team before, but you can see that Jos and Jan bring a lot of experience and calmness to the rest of the staff and the organisation. It seems to be paying off quickly."
On Sunday, the Dutch team will be looking to shine on home soil. "I would be lying if I said we were not going for the win. We are starting with a solid team. I'm sure we'll be fighting for victory. How great will it be to win the Amstel Gold Race again as a Dutch team?", Tijssen wonders.
Team Visma | Lease a Bike Women will try to achieve this with the following team: Marianne Vos, Fem van Empel, Riejanne Markus, Eva van Agt, Anna Henderson and Sophie von Berswordt Wallrabe.
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Roglič’s Team Bora-hansgrohe posted this update:
Primož Roglič will continue to focus on recovering from the injuries he sustained at Itzulia Basque Country in the coming days. He plans to resume training on the bike next week. The two race days at Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège have therefore been removed from his program.
Roglič after the first stage of this year's Tour of the Basque Country.
Dan Lorang, Head of Performance BORA - hansgrohe:
"Primož was with us the whole week to treat his extensive wounds and his knee. We want to give his body time to fully recover from these injuries, because our big goal is the Tour de France. That's why we've decided to focus on his training for the next week."
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