The 69-meter high Amerongse Berg was conquered to loud cheers

White with blue dots is the jersey that Julius van den Berg can wear in the third stage from Breda to Breda. The 25-year-old Dutchman of EF Education-EasyPost can briefly call himself the mountain king of the Tour of Spain. And he did that by being the first to conquer the 69 meter high Amerongse Berg in the Utrechtse Heuvelrug. Van den Berg earned the first two points for the mountains classification with loud cheers from the audience. “A Dutch winner, that’s what we want most here,” says Berry van den Brink, of the Amerong cycling café De Proloog.

More than an hour after Van den Berg’s seizure of power, Mike Teunissen took over the red leader’s jersey from Robert Gesink in Utrecht. After the victory of Jumbo-Visma in the team time trial on the first day, the Dutch success is over La Vuelta unknown. In many places the public stood in rows along the route between Den Bosch and Utrecht. Although many international participants will not have noticed that the tricolor in villages such as Woudenberg, Leersum and Amerongen sometimes hung upside down in protest. “We support the farmers and we want to show that,” says timber merchant Jan Hendrik Versluis, who has hung large inverted flags along the course. “But we will not disturb the cycling party.”

peaceful protest

The party of La Vuelta was also not disturbed. Hundreds of farmers held a peaceful protest in Woudenberg. At the foot of the Amerongse mountain, cycling enthusiasts enjoyed the arrival of the Tour of Spain early in the morning. Thoughts went back to 2010 when the Giro d’Italia passed through the village. At the time, it was the German Paul Voss who was the first to reach the top. Thousands of cycling enthusiasts rode this ‘pimple’ over the past twelve years, before Van den Berg smashed the local records on Strava. “His time will stand for the time being,” says Van den Brink at De Proloog.

He drove up the Amerongse Berg himself countless times. With an official height of 69.2 meters above NAP, this is the highest point in the province of Utrecht. The Spaniards have named him the ‘Alto de Amerongen’.

The hill is the showpiece in one of the oldest forests on the Utrechtse Heuvelrug. It is 2.2 kilometers long, bridges 58 vertical meters with an average gradient of 2.7 percent. A climb of the fourth category. “This is a serious climb for us,” says Van den Brink with a laugh. “But for the pros it doesn’t mean much.”

That’s right. Although the group of riders who go up first seems to make a few mistakes in the top. That is in favor of Van den Berg, who does know where to earn the first points for the polka dot jersey. He will probably think about it later during the Vuelta a España when climbing ‘real mountains’ such as Alto del Purche, Puerto de Navacerrada and Collado Fancuaya. “Isn’t it wonderful that our mountain can now be mentioned in the same breath as those peaks?”, says cycling enthusiast Joost Doelman.

In the run-up to La Vuelta Holanda, Doelman, who works in daily life for a health insurer, organized various activities as founder of the GreenRace Foundation to enthuse others about cycling. For example, children aged five to twelve participate in a so-called ‘fat tire race’ over 600 meters on their own bicycles. In addition, the foundation considers it important that the course is ‘green’. “After the stage, Amerongen will be swept clean,” says Doelman. “Then we also clear up rubbish that was already there. This makes Amerongen even cleaner than it used to be.”

Soesterberg Airport

Before the riders arrived in Amerongen, Doelman had left his village “with a heavy heart”, because he had a better view of the race at pancake house Bergzicht in Woedenberg. The riders flashed past there twice before entering the former military airfield of Soesterberg via Leusden and Amersfoort for an intermediate sprint. The Dane Mads Pedersen was the first to cross the line there. He earned twenty points for the green jersey. But because he lost the sprint for the stage win in Utrecht to the Irishman Sam Bennett, the jersey for the best sprinter is not for him.

Pedersen had to make do with the title ‘fastest in Soesterberg’ for the time being. Amateur cyclist Eric van de Ven watched the sprint with awe after he himself cycled over the asphalt in the morning hours with hundreds of others. “It’s wonderful that La Vuelta is coming here,” says the 52-year-old cyclist of cycling association Tempo Soest. “We are always happy to be here. It used to be NATO’s off-limits territory. And now the airport is often closed as a breeding ground for the skylark.” And then laughing when the cyclists flash past: „The Vuelta opens all doors. Well, for a little while then.”