Amstel Gold Race 2022 route

There are 33 climbs lying on the mazy 254km route around Maastricht and Valkenburg at Amstel Gold Race.

It's probably fair to say that Amstel Gold is among the less mythologised of the spring Classics, and even among the Ardennes Classics. As a result, there are few climbs among those 33 hills that evoke the same emotions as the likes of the Cipressa, Poggio, Muur van Geraardsbergen, Paterberg, Oude Kwaremont, La Redoute, or Mur de Huy.

There is the Cauberg, though. Once the finale to the race, but now one of several hills nestled in the finale 24km from the line. It also crops up after 53.8km and 162.7km. Many an Amstel Gold Race victory has been launched there but, much like the Muur in Flanders, a modern route change has seen it cast away from being a point on which the race hinges.

As climb 31, it faces the riders on their penultimate passage through the finish line, though a short final circuit bypasses Cauberg. That loop, which is tackled once, instead takes in Geulhemmerberg (19.3km out) and Bemelerberg (7.3km out) before the finish.

That spiced up final, moved past the top of Cauberg in 2013 and altered again to excise a fourth ascent of the hill in 2017, has seemed to change the race for the better, though. While previously, late surges up the climb would predictably secure the win (similar to La Flèche Wallonne, in that regard), nowadays it is small groups who contest the finish year after year.

Read more in our Amstel Gold 2022 Preview