Vuelta a España 76th La Vuelta ciclista a España 2021 (August 14 - September 5)

[wheresmybrakes]

Roglic should win this with the bonus seconds and the extra bit in the ITT's. But I voted for Grandad for a laugh. It expected to be the only one to vote for him, Koronin included.

 

[Lequack]

Clearly Aru will win this, he's the freshest.

 

[BlueRoads]

Does anyone know more about what Ineos plans to do here, except throw in 2/3 of their best riders and let them fight out who's in which position in the train?
I thought they said Yates is the leader, but does that still stand? Did he crash in Burgos? Did the others hurt themselves? What about Pidcock's role, experience, free radicale, part of the train, train-training or possibility to go for GC...?

 

[repre]

Padun will win this race, Rogla and Landa crash out so no competition for Ukrainian superstar.

 

[ice&fire]

Also at this stage of a Grand Tour (a week before) people are at their most desperate to hype. In reality, anything happening on that stage is very unlikely.

I do note the finish there is one of @Libertine Seguros' 21 unknown Esp climbs La Vuelta should use.


Aaand they gave it a cat 1.

It's all down to riders attitude.
Velefique is very similar to La Rabassa. La Rabassa rarely hosted good racing as a MTF but when Tibopino and S.Yates ruled the climbs in 2018 it was great. Velefique coming between a flat stage and the first rest day with Venta Luisa for a total of >4500m of climbing has potential to be good if they ride like there is no tomorrow. But they'll probably ride like there's monster Gamoniteiro looming in the distance.

 

[Breh]

I love me some Vuelta.

Can't wait.

 

[Unterlenkerfahrend]

Vuelta sure loves their MTFs but they seriously fail to install many stages that are interesting before that. I mean is there any stage where the contenders won't arrive together at the last climb? People talk about stage 14, but as someone has said, that's 70km before the finish. Not ruling a situation like this years Basque country out but seems quite unlikely.
So yeah, not much space for creative tactics. If Roglic is in form the others need to make him crack big time for him to lose this with all the bonus seconds he'll be racking up on all these easy MTFs plus the Time trials.

Good thing about Vuelta is that it's reliable entertaining to watch in the last hour of work since nothing happens before that GC wise it's cool to just tune in at 430pm CET and watch the fireworks.

 

[Mayomaniac]

If he is able to replicate his spring form without any bad days or fading Adam Yates has to be up there.

 

[Red Rick]

It's all down to riders attitude.
Velefique is very similar to La Rabassa. La Rabassa rarely hosted good racing as a MTF but when Tibopino and S.Yates ruled the climbs in 2018 it was great. Velefique coming between a flat stage and the first rest day with Venta Luisa for a total of >4500m of climbing has potential to be good if they ride like there is no tomorrow. But they'll probably ride like there's monster Gamoniteiro looming in the distance.

Just look at the difference between week 2 and 3 of the Giro.

Ineos will come in with the best team by far. If they need to attack it can be a crazy Vuelta. But if they basically crack Rogl early and only need to defend it's gonna be boring as hell.

If he is able to replicate his spring form without any bad days or fading Adam Yates has to be up there.

I think even at his best Adam Yates really isn't a threat to Roglic. Tho tbh I'm also not sure about Carapaz in B2B GTs for GC.

 

[Earns1985]

Does anyone know more about what Ineos plans to do here, except throw in 2/3 of their best riders and let them fight out who's in which position in the train?
I thought they said Yates is the leader, but does that still stand? Did he crash in Burgos? Did the others hurt themselves? What about Pidcock's role, experience, free radicale, part of the train, train-training or possibility to go for GC...?

They still didn't announce their final squad, but this can only be a matter of days or hours..
Early in the season they said that Yates will focus on the vuelta, also Pidcock as his first GT in his career. Bernal then skipped the olympics and the tour, so that the vuelta will be his second highlight of the season.
Without the crashes in Burgos I would have expected Bernal leading together with Yates and Martinez. All of them crashed, but at least Yates and Bernal showed some form during the MTF´s.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Vuelta sure loves their MTFs but they seriously fail to install many stages that are interesting before that. I mean is there any stage where the contenders won't arrive together at the last climb? People talk about stage 14, but as someone has said, that's 70km before the finish. Not ruling a situation like this years Basque country out but seems quite unlikely.
So yeah, not much space for creative tactics. If Roglic is in form the others need to make him crack big time for him to lose this with all the bonus seconds he'll be racking up on all these easy MTFs plus the Time trials.

Good thing about Vuelta is that it's reliable entertaining to watch in the last hour of work since nothing happens before that GC wise it's cool to just tune in at 430pm CET and watch the fireworks.

They've at least tried to toughen things up with Los Lagos, but that run-in from Cangas de Onis to the Basilica can't be avoided unfortunately.

In the Velefique stage, Cálar Alto from Tijola is an animal. Kind of a Spanish Croix-de-Fer.

 

[Savant12]

Roglic to bonus second his way to victory.

 

[Blanco]

It's a shame Pogacar and to an extent Remco aren't here. Might still be too early for Remco but with Pogacar, we'd have all of the major GC guys here
As it is, I expect this to come down to Roglic Vs Ineos and maybe Landa if he can avoid crashing.

Yeah with Remco and Pogacar all major GC guys will be here, but the interesting part is that without Remco and with Pogacar present, all the main guys will be here nevertheless...

 

[Blanco]

Roglic should win this with the bonus seconds and the extra bit in the ITT's. But I voted for Grandad for a laugh. It expected to be the only one to vote for him, Koronin included.

Oh boy, how wrong are you..

 

[Mayomaniac]

Just look at the difference between week 2 and 3 of the Giro.

Ineos will come in with the best team by far. If they need to attack it can be a crazy Vuelta. But if they basically crack Rogl early and only need to defend it's gonna be boring as hell.


I think even at his best Adam Yates really isn't a threat to Roglic. Tho tbh I'm also not sure about Carapaz in B2B GTs for GC.

Without Pogacar there really isn't anyone who I'd pick to beat Roglic head to head on this kind of route, tbh.
A fresh Yates might be the best card that Ineos have. No idea how much Carapaz has left after Tour and Olympics (and how much partying happened after that Gold) and the mountain stages really don't scream Bernal either...

 

[Red Rick]

Without Pogacar there really isn't anyone who I'd pick to beat Roglic head to head on this kind of route, tbh.
A fresh Yates might be the best card that Ineos have. No idea how much Carapaz has left after Tour and Olympics (and how much partying happened after that Gold) and the mountain stages really don't scream Bernal either...

Tbh I don't think Bernals problem isn't the lack of altitude or that mountain stages aren't hard enough, I just flatout think he's not a better climber than Roglic.

 

[Red Rick]

I see stage 4 has a different profile on PCS vs the official profile, which has it a slight uphill finish in Molina de Aragon.

 

[Rackham]

The question (other than usual echelons, crashes etc.) which will define this race is what condition Roglic is in after the Tour problems.

For example if he's in the same/similar condition as last year's Vuelta, he might have some problems. But if he's in the same condition as Basque Country in April... it'll be very difficult for the others.

I had Roglic as joint favovrite for the Tour de France & I have no doubt he would have been much closer to Pogacar than Carapaz was in the end, so "if" Roglic has found his mojo again (even his form in Paris-Nice), get ready for some red jersey mountain sprints.

 

[steffr222]

Bahrain: Yukiya Arashiro, Damiano Caruso, Jan Tratnik, Jack Haig, Mikel Landa, Gino Mäder, Mark Padun, Wout Poels.
That is ridiculously strong as well.

 

[Serpentin]

Finally! The best and most exciting GT.

 

[Soranos]

Obviously Roglic will be the clear favorite, but I am still cautiously optimistic that this will be the closest GT of the year. Maybe not an instant classic like last year but tense until at least stage 17/18 nontheless. As brilliant as Roglic is, he is no Pogacar in that he dominates every climb of a GT. If his team is already a bit tired than he could prove vulnerable to multiple attacks plus he is not immune to having 1-2 days as well.

That being said my hopes hinge on Bernal's crash not being much of a concern ( and his back likewise) and Landa living up to his potential. I suspect that Carapaz will be spend from his efforts during the tour and Olympics and fade by week 3.


I am not sure about Ineos either. On paper I like the GC and mountain domestiques a lot more than the team for the tour. This is a very young and fresh team that should ride aggressively. That being said I am not sure about the support on the flats ( guess the final 2 spots will take care of that) and how the discipline will be when it comes to forming a "train". Will Carapaz/Sivakov/Yates really sacrifice their own aspirations for Bernal. What about Pidcock? I assume that they don't want to put too much burden on him but what can he be counted on during the last climb in a third week of his first GT? Despite all that potential, I feel that the team would be better off with a Kwiatkowski or Castillejo instead of Carapaz or Sivakow. Ganna would also be immense for them.

All that being said, don't get me wrong: this is Roglic's Vuelta to lose.

 

[Lequack]

I think Vlasov should also count as a choice, he was 4th in the Giro this year

 

[Lequack]

Finally! The best and most exciting GT.

Finally as race that is more about the GC riders than the sprinters.

 

[Gigs_98]

Looking forward to it. I can kinda see why Roglic is the favorite but I'm surprised by the margin of the poll. I barely followed cycling since the Tour but is there a reason people don't have trust in Bernal? He has his flaws but so does Roglic and Roglic's preparation was far from perfect (even though he was superb in Tokyo)

Concerning the route, on second view it's still alright but not great. It's funny how the vuelta has kept this reputation of being super hard and climbing heavy from when it actually was for a couple of years, despite the routes having regressed to a completely normal number of flat stages. Read the vuelta route thread on Reddit if you want a good laugh at people circlejerking about the "insane difficulty" of an incredibly ordinary GT route.
That being said, I like how many medium mountain stages this edition has. Just wish they had come at the expense of flat stages.

 

[Lequack]

Is Carapaz confirmed for this race?

You must mean Richard Antonio Carapaz Montenegro, Olympic champion, the designated Ineos leader, climber of hills, breaker of hearts, first of his name.