Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Amstel Gold Race Part I

I did Amstel Gold Race last year (2006). I saw Frank Schleck win. I am
planning to see the race this year, too. Maastricht is not that far from
where I live. It is about 330km to drive.

It rained last year in the morning. It cleared later, though. This year,
it is going to be fine all day. It is comfortable for spectators to stand
along the course but maybe it will be a little too hot for the riders.

The area called Valkenburg, where Cauberg is located, is the center of
the race course. Close to Valkenburg, there are cities like Heerlen or
Landgraaf, where I visited in 2006 to see the ITT stage of Eneco Tour.
It was not until I planned the visit to Heerlen and Landgraaf when I
was surprised to realize that Valkenburg was so closely located. 

At that time (Eneco Tour 2006), I did not have a GPS navigation
system on board my car and I had to rely on paper maps. I knew the 
start of ITT was close to a place called "snowworld" but did not
know what it was until I actually was there. I learned that it was an 
indoor snow ski facility with artificial snow built on a hill overlooking 
a strange oval track, where the ITT was to start and end. People 
were coming to ski or snowboard (I saw only snowboarders). This
was August 20th 2006. I remember it rained rather hard in the
morning. It turned to be a fair day by the time the ITT began.

I went to Maastricht to see the start. It was raining and a bit chilly.
After the departure, I drove to Cauberg. It took me a while before
arriving at Cauberg. I think about an hour. It was not easy to get
there. After getting lost for more than 30 minutes or so, I suddenly
realized that Cauberg was in Valkenburg. I saw a road sign pointing to
Valkenburg and followed them and eventually I got there.

That day I got a sacoche from Michael Blaudzun. It is my treasure. 
That day I saw Frank Schleck climb the last stretch of Cauberg to a
victory.

Here, I wrote about a man who kept watching the live TV coverage
of AGR even when the ACTUAL race swept by a couple of meters away
from his back. I would like to revisit the house where he lived (and, I 
think, still lives) and see what he is doing. This time it would be actually
an act of peeking. Don't tell the police, please!

Anyway, I will bring my LCD TV set with DVB-T tuner. I intend to
look up from TV set when the race comes. I just checked the DVB
situation in Netherlands and learned they only have DVB. They
turned off the analog terrestrial broadcasting at all.

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