This year’s new cobbled climb for the last part of Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Côte de la Rue Naniot, could shake up the race at a crucial juncture after several years where riders have seemed overly keen to play a waiting game and then battle it out in a small group sprint.
Kazakhstan’s Maxim Iglinsky was the last solo attacker to succeed in winning la Doyenne back in 2012, after catching and dropping Vincenzo Nibali on the grinding two kilometre steady ascent to the finish line at Ans in the suburbs of Liège.
This time around the run-in to the finish has been significantly altered. Following the Côte de San Nicolas and a fast descent in the Liège backstreets, the 2016 route barely has time to flatten out before a sharp right-hand bend takes the peloton onto the 600 metres of Côte de la Rue Naniot. Previously the San Nicolas was the last classified climb cresting 6.5 kilometres from the finish. The Rue Naniot summit is now just 2.5 kilometres from the line.
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As Cyclingnews discovered during a reconnaissance the climb is a residential city street, but unlike San Nicolas' series of near switchback turns, the Côte de la Rue Naniot consists of a single, ribbon-like straightaway, rising between two or three-storey houses - so the wind could be a factor. The climb has a virtually unchanging and relentless gradient of around 10.5 percent, although it’s slightly steeper in the middle 100 metres. The road’s cobbles are all in good shape and the streets is wide enough for riders not to be blocked in during attacks.
Once riders reach the summit of the Côte de la Rue Naniot and bear left, the route then descends in a series of semi-switchbacks to the broad, smoothly tarmacked Ans road. After 500 metres of downhill, the route then takes a sharp right-hander onto the Rue Walthere Jamere and the traditional kilometre-long grind up to the final left-hand turn to the finish begins.
In another annual tweak to the Liège-Bastogne-Liège route, the Côte de Stockeu, one of the hardest and most emblematic climbs of the entire course, is off the 2016 menu because of roadworks.
- 1992: New finish at Ans introduced
- 2008: Short sharp ascent Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons brought in to replace the draggy Côte du Sart-Tilman
- 2010: Côte de la Haut Levee removed because of roadworks
- 2011: Côte de la Haut Levee returns.
- 2013: Le Roche-aux-Faucons removed because of road works and replaced by much easier Col de Colonster.
- 2014: Colonster removed, Le Roche-aux-Faucons returns to race.
- 2015: Vecquée climb is removed, Rosier and Maquisard return.
- 2016: Stockeu removed, Côte de la Rue Naniot included.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
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