After the cobbles, the climbs: every year as soon as the curtain falls on Paris-Roubaix, attention swivels a couple of hours' drive east towards the hills of southern Limberg in Holland and Wallonie for the Ardennes Classics. With the key difference that if attempts to combine the pavés of northern France with the climbing Classics used to be rare, this season, that's very much not the case.
Amstel Gold Race gets the ball rolling, with its 59th edition for the men's race and 11th for the women, and Tadej Pogačar will attempt to become the first male rider since Erik Zabel in 2000 to podium in both Amstel Gold (which Zabel won) and Paris-Roubaix, where Zabel took third.
