PacTri Amstel Gold Super Bun Ride

The Amstel Gold Super-Bun

 

One of my favourite races is the ‘modern classic’, the Amstel Gold Race. It’s a route designed to be televised, plenty for the fans to see and many places from which an attack can be launched – which comes down to a route crossing many short hills. This year's race had over 30 'significant' climbs on it

 To celebrate the Amstel Gold we (PacTri) rode an ‘Amstel Gold Super-Bun’ It ’t have 30+ hills; just 11.  They’re not big hills and, despite the 11 separate hills, the total ascent isn’t that big either – the Garmin activity log suggests about 1200m all-in-all.

The route is mapped from the car park behind the Woodborough public house in Winscombe(this is a public, free and unlimited time car-park). The pub is opposite the Co-op in the middle of the village, the car park is reached by going past the pub on either of the roads that runs to it’s immediate left and right. The route seeks out the smaller ridges of the Banwell, Wedmore, Cheddar area with links across some flat and fairly bits of moor. All this can be seen on the map… https://connect.garmin.com/modern/course/9289561

A coffee stop can be taken at Sweets at approx. 45km (28 miles) into the 72.5 km (45 mile) route, so nearly 2/3 of the way round.

 All the ‘bergs’ (short hills) on the Amstel Gold should have a name so, purely in fun, I propose the following…

Distance	Route feature	Distance	Route feature
6km	Loxtonberg	33km	Weareberg
11km	Rhodyateberg	39.5km	Wedmoreberg
16km	Huttonberg	45km	COFFEE
19km	Oldmixonberg	49km	Panboroughberg
23km	SMALL Bleadonberg	60km	SMALL Draycottberg
28km	Comptonberg	68km	ShuteShelfberg

 The two ‘bergs’ labeled 'small' are so annotated as to prevent confusion with their big brothers. We aren’t going up Bleadon Hill (the Small Bleadonberg is the road out towards Cross) and definitely not up Draycott Steep (evidence says I can’t get up that anyway). The ‘bergs’, which are all climbs of about 50m can be seen on the cross section on the Garmin link… The route even has its own windmill - about 36km in.

 

For the record – the Shuteshelfberg is by far the longest hill (but it's really pretty easy apart from the initial steep bit out of Axbridge), the Rhodyateberg (17%) feels steep, though the Oldmixonberg is steeper (20%). The Small Draycottberg is the steepest, maximum 25% right at the top (best done with a foot unclipped in case you need to stop for traffic where it comes out abruptly onto the A road that links Cheddar to Wells.  All the noted bergs apart from Panborough have hardest sections that are 13% or steeper.

For a link to the Amstel Gold Race proper follow http://www.touretappe.nl/amstel-gold-race/

…though you may need to hit the translate into English bit on Google – depending on how good your Dutch is..!

We found it a great ride. No one was crowned Kwiatkowski - but then we did it the day before the 2015 race.