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- Oct 12, 2013
- 2,430
- 31
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TOUR DE FRANCE
(Thu) stage 12: Aix en Provence - Lac de Sainte Croix, 209 km
Lots of riders will have looked forward to this stage, as it will probably be won by a breakaway. There is too much climbing for a bunch sprint to happen, but not enough to interest the gc guys (who will try to conserve energy before the important weekend stages).
Aix
The first 20 km are mostly uphill and will no doubt be raced at frantic speed. Col de Portes could help to establish the break of the day, but that might take even longer.
The terrain then is rolling until km 78 in Aups, where the climb to Plateau de la Rimade begins.
Next is Camp de Canjuers at km 120. Again the gradients are not so difficult.
After some 140 km we are entering the Gorges du Verdon, one of the biggest canyons in Europe and considered to be the most beautiful (gorgeous gorge - this must be the soundtrack to the stage).
On both the north and south side of the canyon roads have been built, we are taking the road on the south side, called Corniche Sublime. After 4 km of climbing we reach the Tunnel du Fayet at km 148. Openings have been cut into the tunnel to allow great views of the gorge.
We continue westwards and reach Cirque de Vaumale, the most spectacular part of Corniche Sublime.
The climb is called Source de Vaumale (6 km at 5,7%).
The descent leads us first to Col d'Illoire (which is wrongly identified at quäldich as the pass of this road), then towards Lac de Sainte Croix...
... past Château d'Aiguines...
... over the bridge...
... to Moustiers Sainte Marie, one of the most beautiful villages of France.
Right after Moustiers the final difficulty waits for the riders, the short but steep Côte de Jaumarde (2 km at 9,5%).
This could be a decisive point for the stage win, but it is a long 25 km after the climb. These final kilometers are often along the shore of the lake.
The finish is in Bauduen
.
(Thu) stage 12: Aix en Provence - Lac de Sainte Croix, 209 km
Lots of riders will have looked forward to this stage, as it will probably be won by a breakaway. There is too much climbing for a bunch sprint to happen, but not enough to interest the gc guys (who will try to conserve energy before the important weekend stages).
Aix
The first 20 km are mostly uphill and will no doubt be raced at frantic speed. Col de Portes could help to establish the break of the day, but that might take even longer.
The terrain then is rolling until km 78 in Aups, where the climb to Plateau de la Rimade begins.
Next is Camp de Canjuers at km 120. Again the gradients are not so difficult.
After some 140 km we are entering the Gorges du Verdon, one of the biggest canyons in Europe and considered to be the most beautiful (gorgeous gorge - this must be the soundtrack to the stage).
On both the north and south side of the canyon roads have been built, we are taking the road on the south side, called Corniche Sublime. After 4 km of climbing we reach the Tunnel du Fayet at km 148. Openings have been cut into the tunnel to allow great views of the gorge.
We continue westwards and reach Cirque de Vaumale, the most spectacular part of Corniche Sublime.
The climb is called Source de Vaumale (6 km at 5,7%).
The descent leads us first to Col d'Illoire (which is wrongly identified at quäldich as the pass of this road), then towards Lac de Sainte Croix...
... past Château d'Aiguines...
... over the bridge...
... to Moustiers Sainte Marie, one of the most beautiful villages of France.
Right after Moustiers the final difficulty waits for the riders, the short but steep Côte de Jaumarde (2 km at 9,5%).
This could be a decisive point for the stage win, but it is a long 25 km after the climb. These final kilometers are often along the shore of the lake.
The finish is in Bauduen
- Feb 20, 2010
- 32,650
- 14,602
- 28,180
Stage 2: Santiago de Compostela - Mirador de Lobeira, 134km
GPM:
Alto do Apedrado (cat.3) 7,1km @ 4,5%
Monte Castrove do Meis (cat.2) 6,4km @ 7,3%
Alto das Sobreiras (cat.2) 5,0km @ 7,0%
Mirador de Lobeira (cat.3) 4,7km @ 5,0%
The second stage of the Vuelta is also the second shortest road stage, and a - for me - very uncharacteristic sub-140km trek through the Galician coastal areas. I have a bit of a fractured relationship with cycling's current fad for ever-shorter stages, but late on in a GT these short mountain stages have had success where the GC has allowed riders the opportunity to make the most of them. The idea of this stage is however more that the short length will enable a blistering pace to be set meaning that the last 20km ought to see the best duking it out in their first real bids to lay down a GC marker, because the finale gives them plenty of opportunity to do that, with a scaled-down, miniature version of that hard climb-easy climb combo that serves us so well. It's also the first uphill finish of the race, a typical Vuelta tradition in recent years of course, although it's a fairly benign one. In some ways it is a bit influenced by the La Spezia stage in the 2015 Giro, although thanks to some erroneous memory as that stage was actually slightly longer than I remembered.
The stage begins in one of Spain's most scenic and revered cities, Santiago de Compostela. Galicia's primary magnet for tourists, the city plays host to around 100.000 people and millions of tourists annually, both attracted by the city's UNESCO-inscribed medieval centre, the stunning architecture, the access to the scenic Galician coast, and of course the many Catholic pilgrims travelling along the Camino de Santiago annually to visit the shrine of St. James. Although the 2016 Vuelta spent a whole week in the Galician region, it strangely bypassed the city, however in 2014 the city played host to the epilogue time trial, perhaps to make up for them also missing out on the race when the 2013 Vuelta started in the region. Adriano Malori won the stage, bookending the race with Movistar time trial wins after the TTT, while the distance was such that Contador's lead over Froome was never in serious doubt.
The first half of the stage is mostly heading directly southwards, and as we're slightly inland, it's the less scenic part of the course. At the same time, on the plateau there are some stretches which are open and exposed to the wind coming in off the Atlantic, especially around Moraña, so if we're lucky this could play a factor; it may be unlikely given the stage to come, however. And the distance is comparatively short before we're up on our first of four categorized climbs of the day, a cat.3 ascent of the Alto do Apedrado. This isn't a particularly threatening climb, consisting of a few kilometres of false flat followed by 3km at around 7% to finish, but it's sustained enough to be categorized and leads into a fast and sweeping descent which leads us into the provincial capital of Pontevedra.
Pontevedra hosted the Vuelta three years in succession at the start of the decade, hosting a sprint finish won by Peter Sagan in 2011, the end of a hilly time trial in 2012 which was won by Fredrik Kessiakoff in a somewhat unexpected result, and the start of the Monte da Groba stage in 2013 which was won by Nicolas Roche - being on stage two and leading into a tough stage with some climbing and an uphill finish this stage has more in common with my route today, although I hope for mine to be more interesting as that was a rather tame Unipuerto design.
It was also responsible for a stage in 2014 which proved very interesting and which is the next port of call for the riders in my route - for we now ascend the cat.2 climb to Monte Castrove, which was seen in a double pass and MTF in that 2014 edition, the final climb of which you can revisit here. Then, Fabio Aru was able to take the victory while Chris Froome took some potentially vital seconds from Contador's lead, however the three amigos who had made up the 2012 podium came in together just 12" behind the Sky leader to limit losses and set up the Ancares finale. Here, the climb is not likely to be particularly decisive - there are 60km remaining to the line - however with the second half averaging 8,5% and ramps of up to 14% an upping of the pace here could shell a few domestiques who will be missed later on.
After a gradual descent, we have a fairly lengthy flat stretch of riding that will be familiar to riders from the 2013 Vuelta, as they take in the roads around attractive coastal towns like Vilanova de Arousa and Cambados, although unlike then we don't take a detour around the peninsula with O Grove or across to the Illa de Arousa. Instead we head directly to the city which the climactic parts of the stage are built around, Vilagarcia de Arousa (also called Villagarcía de Arosa in Castellano, although the Galego name is the accepted toponym). The city's most prominant cycling icon is former Volta a Catalunya winner Gustavo César Veloso, who also won a memorable Vuelta stage in 2009 on Xorret del Catí after Rein Taaramäe, the nailed-on stage winner from the break, had one of the most epic bonks of all time, going from a lead of several minutes to being sprawled out in agony as the leaders rolled by him as he was literally standing still. After the demise of the Xacobeo-Galicia team, Gustavo has made a second career for himself in his mid-30s as a destroyer in the Portuguese domestic scene, dominating and rather unfortunately developing a selfish streak and ego that was never present in his heyday... although then again, when you can put 20" into strong riders in less than a minute as Gustavo does from 23:00 to 24:00 here, maybe you would get a bit full of yourself, I don't know. Anyway, since he turns 37 in January and unsurprisingly the top level teams are wary of dominant older riders on Portuguese teams, I wouldn't expect to see him here unless he's retired.
We actually pass through the city twice in the stage, the first time from southwest to northeast along the coast road. A few kilometres later we turn inland and the stage gets nasty. Monte Xiabre is a sharp mountain that stands guard over this section of the Galician coast, and has several roads that lead up its angry face, which all join together at the Alto das Sobreiras, a sort of pass on the shoulder of the mountain, with its scenic, sweeping roads exposed to the elements, which could mean a tail- or crosswind from over the riders' right shoulders, or blazing sunshine depending on the conditions.
The climb consists of the first 5km of this profile which as you can see is a two stepped ascent (the third 'step', from Sobreiras to the summit, is skipped) consisting of around 1250m at 8,5% before a brief flattening out through a village, then it jumps up to almost 10% for 2,5km, and then after a few hundred metres false flat a couple of final ramps take us up to the summit. At the GPM, around 16km remain, so the steepest stuff is from 19-17km out, easily close enough to the finish to permit moves to be made by at least secondary contenders who fancy a day or two in red, especially as the first seven are fairly benign and fast descent into Vilagarcia de Arousa on a road which, although quite narrow, has few technical challenges. A couple of flat kilometres take us to the intermediate sprint; the bonus seconds available add an extra incentive to the early move on the Alto das Sobreiras. And then, with 5km to go, the road turns uphill again, this time less aggressively and at much more acceptable gradients, but this time when it goes uphill, it goes uphill for good.
The Mirador de Lobeira is probably the easiest of the uphill finishes in this Vuelta, with only 1 steepish kilometre approaching 7,5-8%, and most of it being fairly gradual uphill. The length - almost 5km - is more than your usual puncheur finish, but the low gradients means that this is hardly going to be one for Purito either. Indeed, the one and only time the Vuelta has clambered over its slopes, behind stage winner (and eventual shock Vuelta winner) Chris Horner, a group of 12 riders including all of the biggest contenders finished together; 10" elapsed time back saw another group of over 20 on the same time.
You can revisit that stage here - the video starts a kilometre into the climb, but the gradient is such that the front of the bunch are practically sprinting while breathing through their noses, Poggio-style, so you can see that it's not a killer. Horner attacked on the steeper section, while the others were anticipating the uphill sprint and were a bit taken by surprise when it flattened out somewhat and they were somehow unable to claw back the time to the ancient relic they thought was stagehunting. Of course, that Vuelta may have been Horner's finest hour, but it was also him signing his own death warrant as a top level star; wanting to be treated like the GT winner he was whilst also being impossible for any team to take seriously as a long-term investment due to his age and injury history meant that no team was willing to take on his salary demands and although he's still around, he's now relegated to minor races, likely forevermore.
Also worthy of note is the fact that that stage was utterly pan flat until the final climb which meant a fully-intact pack arrived in Vilagarcia to contest the finish, whereas in my stage I anticipate some well trimmed-down groups making it to the base of the final climb; given the comparative ease of this climb I hope it will tempt some more action, if not from GC contenders then at least from some decent stagehunters and secondary contenders - depending on the World Championships route, one day specialists focusing on a hilly Worlds route could also see this kind of back-to-back obstacle racing as a good test of form. After all, it's a short stage, so riders should have some fresh legs. And if not, then a strong pace on As Sobreiras will likely rid the bunch of a lot of chaff from a climbing perspective, meaning a lot of domestiques are absent on the final climb and meaning moves on that steeper section are harder to police.
Either way, this should give us a solid final 20k of action at least.
GPM:
Alto do Apedrado (cat.3) 7,1km @ 4,5%
Monte Castrove do Meis (cat.2) 6,4km @ 7,3%
Alto das Sobreiras (cat.2) 5,0km @ 7,0%
Mirador de Lobeira (cat.3) 4,7km @ 5,0%
The second stage of the Vuelta is also the second shortest road stage, and a - for me - very uncharacteristic sub-140km trek through the Galician coastal areas. I have a bit of a fractured relationship with cycling's current fad for ever-shorter stages, but late on in a GT these short mountain stages have had success where the GC has allowed riders the opportunity to make the most of them. The idea of this stage is however more that the short length will enable a blistering pace to be set meaning that the last 20km ought to see the best duking it out in their first real bids to lay down a GC marker, because the finale gives them plenty of opportunity to do that, with a scaled-down, miniature version of that hard climb-easy climb combo that serves us so well. It's also the first uphill finish of the race, a typical Vuelta tradition in recent years of course, although it's a fairly benign one. In some ways it is a bit influenced by the La Spezia stage in the 2015 Giro, although thanks to some erroneous memory as that stage was actually slightly longer than I remembered.
The stage begins in one of Spain's most scenic and revered cities, Santiago de Compostela. Galicia's primary magnet for tourists, the city plays host to around 100.000 people and millions of tourists annually, both attracted by the city's UNESCO-inscribed medieval centre, the stunning architecture, the access to the scenic Galician coast, and of course the many Catholic pilgrims travelling along the Camino de Santiago annually to visit the shrine of St. James. Although the 2016 Vuelta spent a whole week in the Galician region, it strangely bypassed the city, however in 2014 the city played host to the epilogue time trial, perhaps to make up for them also missing out on the race when the 2013 Vuelta started in the region. Adriano Malori won the stage, bookending the race with Movistar time trial wins after the TTT, while the distance was such that Contador's lead over Froome was never in serious doubt.
The first half of the stage is mostly heading directly southwards, and as we're slightly inland, it's the less scenic part of the course. At the same time, on the plateau there are some stretches which are open and exposed to the wind coming in off the Atlantic, especially around Moraña, so if we're lucky this could play a factor; it may be unlikely given the stage to come, however. And the distance is comparatively short before we're up on our first of four categorized climbs of the day, a cat.3 ascent of the Alto do Apedrado. This isn't a particularly threatening climb, consisting of a few kilometres of false flat followed by 3km at around 7% to finish, but it's sustained enough to be categorized and leads into a fast and sweeping descent which leads us into the provincial capital of Pontevedra.
Pontevedra hosted the Vuelta three years in succession at the start of the decade, hosting a sprint finish won by Peter Sagan in 2011, the end of a hilly time trial in 2012 which was won by Fredrik Kessiakoff in a somewhat unexpected result, and the start of the Monte da Groba stage in 2013 which was won by Nicolas Roche - being on stage two and leading into a tough stage with some climbing and an uphill finish this stage has more in common with my route today, although I hope for mine to be more interesting as that was a rather tame Unipuerto design.
It was also responsible for a stage in 2014 which proved very interesting and which is the next port of call for the riders in my route - for we now ascend the cat.2 climb to Monte Castrove, which was seen in a double pass and MTF in that 2014 edition, the final climb of which you can revisit here. Then, Fabio Aru was able to take the victory while Chris Froome took some potentially vital seconds from Contador's lead, however the three amigos who had made up the 2012 podium came in together just 12" behind the Sky leader to limit losses and set up the Ancares finale. Here, the climb is not likely to be particularly decisive - there are 60km remaining to the line - however with the second half averaging 8,5% and ramps of up to 14% an upping of the pace here could shell a few domestiques who will be missed later on.
After a gradual descent, we have a fairly lengthy flat stretch of riding that will be familiar to riders from the 2013 Vuelta, as they take in the roads around attractive coastal towns like Vilanova de Arousa and Cambados, although unlike then we don't take a detour around the peninsula with O Grove or across to the Illa de Arousa. Instead we head directly to the city which the climactic parts of the stage are built around, Vilagarcia de Arousa (also called Villagarcía de Arosa in Castellano, although the Galego name is the accepted toponym). The city's most prominant cycling icon is former Volta a Catalunya winner Gustavo César Veloso, who also won a memorable Vuelta stage in 2009 on Xorret del Catí after Rein Taaramäe, the nailed-on stage winner from the break, had one of the most epic bonks of all time, going from a lead of several minutes to being sprawled out in agony as the leaders rolled by him as he was literally standing still. After the demise of the Xacobeo-Galicia team, Gustavo has made a second career for himself in his mid-30s as a destroyer in the Portuguese domestic scene, dominating and rather unfortunately developing a selfish streak and ego that was never present in his heyday... although then again, when you can put 20" into strong riders in less than a minute as Gustavo does from 23:00 to 24:00 here, maybe you would get a bit full of yourself, I don't know. Anyway, since he turns 37 in January and unsurprisingly the top level teams are wary of dominant older riders on Portuguese teams, I wouldn't expect to see him here unless he's retired.
We actually pass through the city twice in the stage, the first time from southwest to northeast along the coast road. A few kilometres later we turn inland and the stage gets nasty. Monte Xiabre is a sharp mountain that stands guard over this section of the Galician coast, and has several roads that lead up its angry face, which all join together at the Alto das Sobreiras, a sort of pass on the shoulder of the mountain, with its scenic, sweeping roads exposed to the elements, which could mean a tail- or crosswind from over the riders' right shoulders, or blazing sunshine depending on the conditions.
The climb consists of the first 5km of this profile which as you can see is a two stepped ascent (the third 'step', from Sobreiras to the summit, is skipped) consisting of around 1250m at 8,5% before a brief flattening out through a village, then it jumps up to almost 10% for 2,5km, and then after a few hundred metres false flat a couple of final ramps take us up to the summit. At the GPM, around 16km remain, so the steepest stuff is from 19-17km out, easily close enough to the finish to permit moves to be made by at least secondary contenders who fancy a day or two in red, especially as the first seven are fairly benign and fast descent into Vilagarcia de Arousa on a road which, although quite narrow, has few technical challenges. A couple of flat kilometres take us to the intermediate sprint; the bonus seconds available add an extra incentive to the early move on the Alto das Sobreiras. And then, with 5km to go, the road turns uphill again, this time less aggressively and at much more acceptable gradients, but this time when it goes uphill, it goes uphill for good.
The Mirador de Lobeira is probably the easiest of the uphill finishes in this Vuelta, with only 1 steepish kilometre approaching 7,5-8%, and most of it being fairly gradual uphill. The length - almost 5km - is more than your usual puncheur finish, but the low gradients means that this is hardly going to be one for Purito either. Indeed, the one and only time the Vuelta has clambered over its slopes, behind stage winner (and eventual shock Vuelta winner) Chris Horner, a group of 12 riders including all of the biggest contenders finished together; 10" elapsed time back saw another group of over 20 on the same time.
You can revisit that stage here - the video starts a kilometre into the climb, but the gradient is such that the front of the bunch are practically sprinting while breathing through their noses, Poggio-style, so you can see that it's not a killer. Horner attacked on the steeper section, while the others were anticipating the uphill sprint and were a bit taken by surprise when it flattened out somewhat and they were somehow unable to claw back the time to the ancient relic they thought was stagehunting. Of course, that Vuelta may have been Horner's finest hour, but it was also him signing his own death warrant as a top level star; wanting to be treated like the GT winner he was whilst also being impossible for any team to take seriously as a long-term investment due to his age and injury history meant that no team was willing to take on his salary demands and although he's still around, he's now relegated to minor races, likely forevermore.
Also worthy of note is the fact that that stage was utterly pan flat until the final climb which meant a fully-intact pack arrived in Vilagarcia to contest the finish, whereas in my stage I anticipate some well trimmed-down groups making it to the base of the final climb; given the comparative ease of this climb I hope it will tempt some more action, if not from GC contenders then at least from some decent stagehunters and secondary contenders - depending on the World Championships route, one day specialists focusing on a hilly Worlds route could also see this kind of back-to-back obstacle racing as a good test of form. After all, it's a short stage, so riders should have some fresh legs. And if not, then a strong pace on As Sobreiras will likely rid the bunch of a lot of chaff from a climbing perspective, meaning a lot of domestiques are absent on the final climb and meaning moves on that steeper section are harder to police.
Either way, this should give us a solid final 20k of action at least.
Tonton said:The purists in action, I see.That's why the only routes worth a 10 are on this thread, on CN. OlavEH, your design is definitely a 9 IMO. Brilliant. I liked the flow, the succession, the different looks, very good stuff
Thx. Pretty satisfied with this route. Of my race designs, I put it second only to my first version of the Giro, viewtopic.php?p=1989949#p1989949.
Now I'm contemplating on what do to next. I already have a general layout ready for a version of the Vuelta and the Tour, but perhaps I'll do a one week race first.
- Feb 20, 2010
- 32,650
- 14,602
- 28,180
Stage 3: Ourense - Lago de Sanabria, 171km
GPM:
Puerto de Allariz (cat.3) 6,8km @ 4,4%
Alto de Fumaces (cat.3) 12,0km @ 4,3%
Alto de Padornelo (cat.3) 6,4km @ 3,7%
This is what you would anticipate to be a pure transitional stage; if anything it's the first stage for the sprinters, but the fast men will have to work hard to earn the right. This is exactly the kind of stage in recent Vueltas that the péloton has been unhappy about; it's classified as a flat stage, yet there are 3000 vertical metres in it, and while it starts close to sea level it ends nearly 1000m above it.
Indeed, my stage bears more than a striking resemblance to stage 7 of this year's Vuelta, which was won by Jonas Vangenechten after some drama in the final kilometre involving a crash for Alberto Contador. Given that there was some dissatisfaction with the finish in the small town of Puebla de Sanabria, with the roads not really giving much scope by way of opportunity to set up a safe sprint finish, however, I've elected instead to ape the finish of the Lago de Sanabria stage in 2013 which was won by Michael Matthews.
Before we get to that, however, we set off from Ourense, which until this year had rather been bypassed by the Vuelta's recent fad for racing in Galicia. It rather made up for it this year by hosting the start of the race, both the TTT and the départ for stage 2 being in and around the city, as well as the finish of stage 6 and start of stage 7 being very close by. Inhabited since Roman times, as shown by the city's main attraction, the reconstructed Roman bridge Ponte Vella, this inland city of just over 100.000 is usually the hottest of the major Galician cities so the temperature is liable to be markedly higher than in the first two days of racing.
The first part of the stage is marked by two climbs back to back, the second of which is categorized (both climbs together are worthy of points, one alone may not be in the circumstances and also bearing in mind how inconsistent the GPM at the Vuelta can be, sometimes reaching massively in terms of categories (Cordal a cat.1 and Ventana south a cat.2 for example) and other times being very stingy indeed (Aristébano and Fumaces cat.3, for example). There really isn't too much of the Puerto de Allariz though, although the climbing early on in the stage may at least mean a strong breakaway that makes the chase by the sprinters' teams a bit tougher.
After a plateau and another uncategorized climb we have the first meta volante of the day, by the Monterrei castle in Verín, which gives its name (in Castellano, as Monterrey) to a denominated wine region around the area which borders Portugal. This leads us to the toughest climb of the day, the relatively long but generally uncomplicated Alto de Fumaces. This is where the most climbing-adept sprinters will have their chance to push on and make their less rugged nemeses like Kittel struggle, because the climb drags on for a not inconsiderable 12 kilometres.
We're still only halfway through the day, but there's still a lot of trouble for those sprinters as there isn't really much of a descent off of Fumaces for them to win the time lost on the climb back; we're staying at the high plateau and if anything continuing to rise although mostly over false flat until we hit the uncategorized Portillo de A Canda; from this side it's not particularly tricky although there is a tougher southern side from Castromil which is often used in the amateur Vuelta a Zamora to lead into an MTF at the Alto de Lubián. Today we don't bother with that steep and nasty climb, but it's been seen a couple of times in the Vuelta a Castilla y León recently, won by David Belda in 2014 and Pierre Rolland in 2015.
After this we have the final categorized climb of the day, the gradual but sapping Alto de Padornelo, which is mostly at around the 4,5 - 5% mark but eases up near the summit. In the Vuelta this year an attempted break including the likes of Matvey Mamykin tried to make a move on this climb but the bunch was able to shut it down. Finishing with 32km remaining today it's less likely to cause action, but at the same time the run-in today includes a few uncategorized bumps that could potentially cause some late darts for victory as seen in the 2013 stage which had the same finish as this stage; that is to say, instead of the stage finish, Puebla de Sanabria instead just hosts an intermediate sprint with 12km remaining, and then it's rolling uphill to the line, with the final corner coming at around the 500m to go mark. This will be one for the more durable sprinters because, even though the actual run to the line is hardly challenging, just being there is a challenge enough that some of the more limited sprinters won't be able to answer; this is more one for the likes of Matthews, Coquard, Lobato and co.; the likes of Sagan will obviously be a contender if they're present, plus also possibly that type of rider who is not really a sprinter but has enough of a kick to compete in a finish like this given many of the elite sprinters will have been burnt off - Felline, Visconti, Gilbert, Barbero, maybe even Valverde depending on the position of the GC are potential shouts. Bouhanni if he has the form he's taken to the Vuelta in past years is a potential shout as well as if he can get to the top 5 on Parque Cabarceno he can make it to the line here, and we know he's a fast finisher.
And I do love a nice mountain lake for scenery, so the helicam coverage will be nice if the racing isn't, at least.
GPM:
Puerto de Allariz (cat.3) 6,8km @ 4,4%
Alto de Fumaces (cat.3) 12,0km @ 4,3%
Alto de Padornelo (cat.3) 6,4km @ 3,7%
This is what you would anticipate to be a pure transitional stage; if anything it's the first stage for the sprinters, but the fast men will have to work hard to earn the right. This is exactly the kind of stage in recent Vueltas that the péloton has been unhappy about; it's classified as a flat stage, yet there are 3000 vertical metres in it, and while it starts close to sea level it ends nearly 1000m above it.
Indeed, my stage bears more than a striking resemblance to stage 7 of this year's Vuelta, which was won by Jonas Vangenechten after some drama in the final kilometre involving a crash for Alberto Contador. Given that there was some dissatisfaction with the finish in the small town of Puebla de Sanabria, with the roads not really giving much scope by way of opportunity to set up a safe sprint finish, however, I've elected instead to ape the finish of the Lago de Sanabria stage in 2013 which was won by Michael Matthews.
Before we get to that, however, we set off from Ourense, which until this year had rather been bypassed by the Vuelta's recent fad for racing in Galicia. It rather made up for it this year by hosting the start of the race, both the TTT and the départ for stage 2 being in and around the city, as well as the finish of stage 6 and start of stage 7 being very close by. Inhabited since Roman times, as shown by the city's main attraction, the reconstructed Roman bridge Ponte Vella, this inland city of just over 100.000 is usually the hottest of the major Galician cities so the temperature is liable to be markedly higher than in the first two days of racing.
The first part of the stage is marked by two climbs back to back, the second of which is categorized (both climbs together are worthy of points, one alone may not be in the circumstances and also bearing in mind how inconsistent the GPM at the Vuelta can be, sometimes reaching massively in terms of categories (Cordal a cat.1 and Ventana south a cat.2 for example) and other times being very stingy indeed (Aristébano and Fumaces cat.3, for example). There really isn't too much of the Puerto de Allariz though, although the climbing early on in the stage may at least mean a strong breakaway that makes the chase by the sprinters' teams a bit tougher.
After a plateau and another uncategorized climb we have the first meta volante of the day, by the Monterrei castle in Verín, which gives its name (in Castellano, as Monterrey) to a denominated wine region around the area which borders Portugal. This leads us to the toughest climb of the day, the relatively long but generally uncomplicated Alto de Fumaces. This is where the most climbing-adept sprinters will have their chance to push on and make their less rugged nemeses like Kittel struggle, because the climb drags on for a not inconsiderable 12 kilometres.
We're still only halfway through the day, but there's still a lot of trouble for those sprinters as there isn't really much of a descent off of Fumaces for them to win the time lost on the climb back; we're staying at the high plateau and if anything continuing to rise although mostly over false flat until we hit the uncategorized Portillo de A Canda; from this side it's not particularly tricky although there is a tougher southern side from Castromil which is often used in the amateur Vuelta a Zamora to lead into an MTF at the Alto de Lubián. Today we don't bother with that steep and nasty climb, but it's been seen a couple of times in the Vuelta a Castilla y León recently, won by David Belda in 2014 and Pierre Rolland in 2015.
After this we have the final categorized climb of the day, the gradual but sapping Alto de Padornelo, which is mostly at around the 4,5 - 5% mark but eases up near the summit. In the Vuelta this year an attempted break including the likes of Matvey Mamykin tried to make a move on this climb but the bunch was able to shut it down. Finishing with 32km remaining today it's less likely to cause action, but at the same time the run-in today includes a few uncategorized bumps that could potentially cause some late darts for victory as seen in the 2013 stage which had the same finish as this stage; that is to say, instead of the stage finish, Puebla de Sanabria instead just hosts an intermediate sprint with 12km remaining, and then it's rolling uphill to the line, with the final corner coming at around the 500m to go mark. This will be one for the more durable sprinters because, even though the actual run to the line is hardly challenging, just being there is a challenge enough that some of the more limited sprinters won't be able to answer; this is more one for the likes of Matthews, Coquard, Lobato and co.; the likes of Sagan will obviously be a contender if they're present, plus also possibly that type of rider who is not really a sprinter but has enough of a kick to compete in a finish like this given many of the elite sprinters will have been burnt off - Felline, Visconti, Gilbert, Barbero, maybe even Valverde depending on the position of the GC are potential shouts. Bouhanni if he has the form he's taken to the Vuelta in past years is a potential shout as well as if he can get to the top 5 on Parque Cabarceno he can make it to the line here, and we know he's a fast finisher.
And I do love a nice mountain lake for scenery, so the helicam coverage will be nice if the racing isn't, at least.
- Feb 20, 2010
- 32,650
- 14,602
- 28,180
Stage 4: Zamora - Zamora, 19,9km (CRI)
The fourth stage of the Vuelta, after two potentially GC-relevant stages and what I expect to be a selective sprint, is the first of three tests against the clock in the race, with an early short-mid length test which is a format I don't think we see enough of - perhaps best compared to the 2008 Tour where the Cholet TT set the bar early, but was only of the same kind of length as the closing Marseille TT in the 2017 Tour... oh.
Anyway, there are some time triallists who come into their own in the longer chronos who aren't really factors in short ones (hello, Kiryienka) and others who are capable prologue riders but struggle over longer distances. Here, we're looking at an ideal length for those riders like Adriano Malori who are at their best over the middle distance.
The city of Zamora hosts the time trial, as the capital of the province we finished in yesterday. With 60-70.000 inhabitants and the largest number of Romanesque churches in the world, it's a scenic city in its centre, and therefore it would be a shame to miss out on a chance to use this, therefore the time trial will begin with a technical test with some tricky corners around the old town, and finish with a short and exciting drag up to the castle.
The start and finish of the time trial might seem a little familiar actually, because back in 2011 the Vuelta a Castilla y León held a similar test against the clock in the city, the video of which lets you see the spectacular setting of the end of the stage that I have copied, with that sharp hairpin left then right through the castle gates. This should look great bedecked in the Vuelta's red colour scheme and packed with fans. My time trial is somewhat longer - around twice the length - than that Castilla y León stage, however, and while they headed on a direct out and back to the northwest of the city, my route similarly goes for a pure power test of an out-and-back, but instead heads due north then turns right onto the city's ring road, following this around to the south of the city before doubling back on itself just as they did on the other side of the city in 2011. Back then, of course, Richie Porte took the win, about the only bright spot on a very disappointing follow-up to his amazing rookie season; he narrowly pipped Movistar's Xavier Tondó by two seconds, but after the previous day's mountain stage to Laguna de los Peces, Xavi was placed to take the leader's jersey, finishing with the GC win in what turned out to be the ill-fated star's last ever race. It was also worthy of note because of the top 10 of unheralded Chris Froome, the future destroyer managing to complete 11,2 pan-flat kilometres a mere 19" shy of the mighty successor to Miguel Indurain that is Igor Antón.
Since then, Zamora has shown that the city and province continue to love cycling, but for the larger part the city has served as the launching pad for the mountain stages to the Alto de Lubián; the last time a professional race finished in Zamora, it was witness to a true collector's item: a victory for José Joaquín Rojas. You have to go back to 2008 to find the last time the national tour paid a visit to Zamora, although it was of some interest; firstly Tom Boonen won a sprint stage from Ponferrada to Zamora that strangely opened with a cat.2 climb to Foncebadón, and then the following day, a flat stage from Zamora to Valladolid deep into week 3's transitional stages, became the second biggest victory of Wouter Weylandt's tragically shortened career (after the Giro stage to Middelburg, which will be forever remembered as part of the greatest GT of recent years even without the connection to the later tragedy) - your mileage may vary regarding its status in comparison to Nokere-Koerse and Le Samyn but I think a Vuelta stage has more prominence, at least in 2008 when there were still sprinters turning up to race.
The city's most famous cycling heritage, however, is as the hometown of Marino Alonso, winner of two Vuelta stages and the Subida al Naranco, but best known as one of Miguel Indurain's strongest and most loyal domestiques during his reign of Tour de France terror in the early 90s.
The purpose of this stage is to, as you expect from a contrarreloj, open up some time gaps, but also by being around 20k in length make sure these are a reasonable size given that two of the three stages so far can be expected to have been selective in and of themselves nonetheless. And to showcase some marvellous city centre architecture at the same time as conducting a real, pure power test of a time trial.
The fourth stage of the Vuelta, after two potentially GC-relevant stages and what I expect to be a selective sprint, is the first of three tests against the clock in the race, with an early short-mid length test which is a format I don't think we see enough of - perhaps best compared to the 2008 Tour where the Cholet TT set the bar early, but was only of the same kind of length as the closing Marseille TT in the 2017 Tour... oh.
Anyway, there are some time triallists who come into their own in the longer chronos who aren't really factors in short ones (hello, Kiryienka) and others who are capable prologue riders but struggle over longer distances. Here, we're looking at an ideal length for those riders like Adriano Malori who are at their best over the middle distance.
The city of Zamora hosts the time trial, as the capital of the province we finished in yesterday. With 60-70.000 inhabitants and the largest number of Romanesque churches in the world, it's a scenic city in its centre, and therefore it would be a shame to miss out on a chance to use this, therefore the time trial will begin with a technical test with some tricky corners around the old town, and finish with a short and exciting drag up to the castle.
The start and finish of the time trial might seem a little familiar actually, because back in 2011 the Vuelta a Castilla y León held a similar test against the clock in the city, the video of which lets you see the spectacular setting of the end of the stage that I have copied, with that sharp hairpin left then right through the castle gates. This should look great bedecked in the Vuelta's red colour scheme and packed with fans. My time trial is somewhat longer - around twice the length - than that Castilla y León stage, however, and while they headed on a direct out and back to the northwest of the city, my route similarly goes for a pure power test of an out-and-back, but instead heads due north then turns right onto the city's ring road, following this around to the south of the city before doubling back on itself just as they did on the other side of the city in 2011. Back then, of course, Richie Porte took the win, about the only bright spot on a very disappointing follow-up to his amazing rookie season; he narrowly pipped Movistar's Xavier Tondó by two seconds, but after the previous day's mountain stage to Laguna de los Peces, Xavi was placed to take the leader's jersey, finishing with the GC win in what turned out to be the ill-fated star's last ever race. It was also worthy of note because of the top 10 of unheralded Chris Froome, the future destroyer managing to complete 11,2 pan-flat kilometres a mere 19" shy of the mighty successor to Miguel Indurain that is Igor Antón.
Since then, Zamora has shown that the city and province continue to love cycling, but for the larger part the city has served as the launching pad for the mountain stages to the Alto de Lubián; the last time a professional race finished in Zamora, it was witness to a true collector's item: a victory for José Joaquín Rojas. You have to go back to 2008 to find the last time the national tour paid a visit to Zamora, although it was of some interest; firstly Tom Boonen won a sprint stage from Ponferrada to Zamora that strangely opened with a cat.2 climb to Foncebadón, and then the following day, a flat stage from Zamora to Valladolid deep into week 3's transitional stages, became the second biggest victory of Wouter Weylandt's tragically shortened career (after the Giro stage to Middelburg, which will be forever remembered as part of the greatest GT of recent years even without the connection to the later tragedy) - your mileage may vary regarding its status in comparison to Nokere-Koerse and Le Samyn but I think a Vuelta stage has more prominence, at least in 2008 when there were still sprinters turning up to race.
The city's most famous cycling heritage, however, is as the hometown of Marino Alonso, winner of two Vuelta stages and the Subida al Naranco, but best known as one of Miguel Indurain's strongest and most loyal domestiques during his reign of Tour de France terror in the early 90s.
The purpose of this stage is to, as you expect from a contrarreloj, open up some time gaps, but also by being around 20k in length make sure these are a reasonable size given that two of the three stages so far can be expected to have been selective in and of themselves nonetheless. And to showcase some marvellous city centre architecture at the same time as conducting a real, pure power test of a time trial.
- Oct 12, 2013
- 2,430
- 31
- 6,530
TOUR DE FRANCE
(Fri) stage 13: Sisteron - Digne les Bains, 60 km ITT
This is the second and final time trial of the race, and it's a hard one. 60 km including 1.200 meters of climbing should provide big gaps. After handling a few corners in Sisteron riders will take the bridge over the Durance (spectacular rocks on both sides of that bridge) and begin climbing, 5 km at 6,4%.
Col de Fontbelle (1.305m) is quite an irregular climb, long parts of false flat are followed by steep sections. The landscape is scenic, with the rocks of Rocher de Dromont dominating the scene.
The descent is quite a challenge with a time trial machine. Over 4 km the gradient is 7% to 8%, there are some tricky corners and the road is relatively narrow.
The final obstacle is Pas de Bonnet. It's a big ring climb and will hurt.
The final 7 km are flat, first the long straight towards Digne (which is actually part of Route Napoléon), then the finishing straight.
Sisteron
Digne les Bains
(Fri) stage 13: Sisteron - Digne les Bains, 60 km ITT
This is the second and final time trial of the race, and it's a hard one. 60 km including 1.200 meters of climbing should provide big gaps. After handling a few corners in Sisteron riders will take the bridge over the Durance (spectacular rocks on both sides of that bridge) and begin climbing, 5 km at 6,4%.
Col de Fontbelle (1.305m) is quite an irregular climb, long parts of false flat are followed by steep sections. The landscape is scenic, with the rocks of Rocher de Dromont dominating the scene.
The descent is quite a challenge with a time trial machine. Over 4 km the gradient is 7% to 8%, there are some tricky corners and the road is relatively narrow.
The final obstacle is Pas de Bonnet. It's a big ring climb and will hurt.
The final 7 km are flat, first the long straight towards Digne (which is actually part of Route Napoléon), then the finishing straight.
Sisteron
Digne les Bains
- Oct 12, 2013
- 2,430
- 31
- 6,530
TOUR DE FRANCE
I forgot to mention that the total amount of individual time trialing in this Tour is 107 km. ASO had 122 km combined in the last three years.
(Sat) stage 14: Digne les Bains - Isola 2000, 168 km
Col de Corobin right from the start should guarantee that the group of the day consists of climbers. They have a good chance of winning this stage, i think.
The next 70 km are fairly easy.
Then comes Valberg, a solid climb.
This is followed by the easy west side of Col de la Couillole, and a long (16 km) descent.
Isola 2000 was used as a mountain top finish in 1993. Rominger won the stage, Indurain the Tour. It was a much harder stage than today, actually it was one of the best stage designs the Tour has ever done (Briançon-Izoard-Vars-Bonette-Isola2000).
Isola 2000 is 16 km at 7%. The first 3 km are the steepest, the final 3 km average 6%.
I forgot to mention that the total amount of individual time trialing in this Tour is 107 km. ASO had 122 km combined in the last three years.
(Sat) stage 14: Digne les Bains - Isola 2000, 168 km
Col de Corobin right from the start should guarantee that the group of the day consists of climbers. They have a good chance of winning this stage, i think.
The next 70 km are fairly easy.
Then comes Valberg, a solid climb.
This is followed by the easy west side of Col de la Couillole, and a long (16 km) descent.
Isola 2000 was used as a mountain top finish in 1993. Rominger won the stage, Indurain the Tour. It was a much harder stage than today, actually it was one of the best stage designs the Tour has ever done (Briançon-Izoard-Vars-Bonette-Isola2000).
Isola 2000 is 16 km at 7%. The first 3 km are the steepest, the final 3 km average 6%.
- Jun 30, 2014
- 7,060
- 2
- 0
Ok, I once designed a fantasy Tour that had exactly the same stage right after an over 50km long ITT and it was also stage 14 and it wouldn't surprise me if your stage 15 will also feature the Col de la Bonette.
Edit: Will your stage 16 also finish in Val-d'Isère?
Edit: Will your stage 16 also finish in Val-d'Isère?
- Oct 12, 2013
- 2,430
- 31
- 6,530
No Bonette, no Val-d'Isère.
TOUR DE FRANCE
(Sun) stage 15: Isola 2000 - Queyras / Le Clôt La Chalp, 164 km
The queen stage. We start right away with the final 5 km of Col de la Lombarde.
I don't think i have to intruduce the next climb. The Demonte side is not quite as hard as the Pradleves side, but it is a monster nonetheless.
Next is Sampeyre, even steeper than Fauniera, but shorter.
Then we have 20 not so difficult km through Valle Varaita before the brutal final 8 km of Colle dell'Agnello at an average gradient of 10%.
From the highest point of this Tour the riders will descend to the finish. The descent is not as easy as it looks, just ask Kruijswijk and Zakarin. Le Clôt La Chalp is a ski resort in the Queyras natural park.
Monday is a rest day.
Week 2:
TOUR DE FRANCE
(Sun) stage 15: Isola 2000 - Queyras / Le Clôt La Chalp, 164 km
The queen stage. We start right away with the final 5 km of Col de la Lombarde.
I don't think i have to intruduce the next climb. The Demonte side is not quite as hard as the Pradleves side, but it is a monster nonetheless.
Next is Sampeyre, even steeper than Fauniera, but shorter.
Then we have 20 not so difficult km through Valle Varaita before the brutal final 8 km of Colle dell'Agnello at an average gradient of 10%.
From the highest point of this Tour the riders will descend to the finish. The descent is not as easy as it looks, just ask Kruijswijk and Zakarin. Le Clôt La Chalp is a ski resort in the Queyras natural park.
Monday is a rest day.
Week 2:
- Jun 30, 2014
- 7,060
- 2
- 0
Death and destruction, one hell of a stage.
I've always thought that a stage like this could finish in Saint-Véran, there should be enough space and parking lots and it would be an awesome finish, a bit like Sant'Anna di Vinadio after Col de la Lombarde.
I've always thought that a stage like this could finish in Saint-Véran, there should be enough space and parking lots and it would be an awesome finish, a bit like Sant'Anna di Vinadio after Col de la Lombarde.
- Oct 12, 2013
- 2,430
- 31
- 6,530
I have changed stage 8. I didn't like to do this, but it was simply necessary, as the Tour was too hard. I replaced the Cirque de Troumouse stage (4.500 meters of climbing) with a much easier stage to Cauterets. The balance is fine now, and i also like the flow of the Pyrenean stages much better now (first the aperitif, then the real thing).
- Feb 20, 2010
- 32,650
- 14,602
- 28,180
The tinypic images seem to be back now so they must have just had a temporary blip, the site suggests maintenance is going on.
Stage 5: Salamanca - Valverde del Fresno, 196km
GPM:
Portillo de las Batuecas (cat.3) 3,5km @ 5,6%
Alto de Gata (cat.3) 4,5km @ 5,1%
Puerto de Hoyos (cat,3) 5,0km @ 5,6%
Alto de Vilamiel (cat.2) 6,6km @ 6,1%
With the early GC running hopefully set up after two tricky, potentially selective stages in Galicia before yesterday's 20km contrarreloj, here we have a transitional stage as we move out of Castilla y León and into one of the Vuelta's most neglected regions, Extremadura. This relatively barren region in the west of the country typically features only in transitional stages, often less interesting than this one too, or in passing during stages into the Sierra de Béjar or the Sierra de Gredos, so this is a relatively rare chance for some potentially GC-relevant racing to be done on Extremaduran soil.
The same cannot be said, of course, of Salamanca, one of Spain's most historic cities, occupied since the Celtic era, and resplendent with its Roman landmarks, the oldest university in Spain (established 1218) and the third oldest in Europe in respect of continuous operation, and its UNESCO-inscribed old town, this bustling city built on several small hills on the Castilian plains has become one of the country's more cultured tourist hotspots, as well as the student scene and academic history making it one of the most popular spots for learning Spanish as a foreign language. As one of the largest cities in the region and perfectly located for a transitional stage between the Sistema Ibérico and the mountains of the north in Asturias and the Macizo Galaico, it has become a regular host of the Vuelta since its first inclusion all the way back in 1936, the second Vuelta, when it was the end of the very first stage of the race, with Belgian Joseph Huts winning the stage, before the ensuing stage from Salamanca to Cáceres enabled Gustaaf Deloor to take the jersey that he never relinquished. In fact, during the period of transition of the Vuelta from the El Correo-El Pueblo Vasco organization era when the race traditionally finished in País Vasco to the point at which Unipublic successfully managed to establish the Madrid finale and the grand finale didn't have a permanent home, Salamanca once was that finale, in fact in one of the most notorious Vuelta endings ever, and a landmark stage - Vladimir Malakov became the first Soviet to win a Grand Tour stage, but nobody really paid much attention to it after the previous day's controversy, when stagehunter José Recio somehow managed to escape with Pedro Delgado in an intermediate stage, and the ensuing story about teams' reticence to assist the chase, Spanish alliances, lies about time gaps and failures to broker deals for help led to Robert Millar losing an almost certain victory in an event still discussed and debated to this day. The last time the Vuelta rocked into town was 2011, when Tony Martin won a 46km test against the clock that was most notable for the then almost unknown Chris Froome beating his team leader Wiggins the day after towing him almost all the way up La Covatilla, to pull on his first red jersey. The last road stage was the year before, a transitional stage on the way out of the mountains, which was won by Cav while Mosquera and Nibali bided their time awaiting their duel on Bola del Mundo. It has however hosted the Spanish nationals in the interim, in 2012, although this rolling course was not especially selective and led to a victory for Fran Ventoso ahead of Koldo Fernández and Paco Pacheco.
I personally have included Salamanca in a number of my routes, even as a grand départ, however here it's just the beginning for a stage which is liable to be for the break but also could be a potential GC banana skin.
The first part of the stage is benign, and though there is precious little truly flat terrain, there aren't any challenges in the first third of the stage as this is just rolling terrain. There's then an ascent from La Alberca of the last part of the easier northern face of the Portillo de las Batuecas; it's the last 3,5km of this from the junction to El Cabaco. Fairly straightforward, but it leads into a much more tricky descent which lasts around 10 steeper kilometres and a further 5 downhill false flat, with many technical switchbacks and scenic curves.
From here, we head deep into the Sistema Central, having moved from the high plateau of Castilla y León to the lower plateau of Extremadura. Terrain remains problematic, with a number of short, leg-breaking ascents that aren't worthy of categorization in and of themselves, but could mount up as the day goes on. This means that it may not be the strongest sprinters in the breakaway who are favoured when the stage reaches the intermediate sprint in Caminomorisco. This takes us through one of Spain's historically most isolated areas, Las Hurdes, where until very recently issues with accessibility, a lack of infrastructure and general poverty in the region meant that literacy was low, health was poor, disease was rife and even church presence was limited. The reputation of the region was not helped by filmmaker Luis Buñuel's documentary Tierra Sin Pan, and the area also suffered serious depopulation during the Franco era. Due to the quiet isolation of the region and low population, however, it has become a known beauty spot, so riding through the region will be eerie but scenic for the bunch before they head into the Sierra de Gata, a more easterly part of the Sistema Central, where the decisive parts of the stage take place.
Once in the Sierra de Gata, there are three categorized climbs cresting in the last 50km. The first is a small climb that, on the descent, goes through the village of Gata itself. It's 4,5km in length at middling gradients, starting off by building to its steepest kilometre in the middle, being at 7,5%, before the last 1,5km at 6% bring it to an end. This is only just inside the 50k to go so isn't going to be decisive, but the last two climbs, which are directly back to back, might be.
The first, which crests 29km from the stripe, is the Puerto de Hoyos. It's the hardest climb of the day thus far, though still a cat.3 climb. The first kilometre is at 8% (steepest ramp 12%), before an easier second kilometre, then a more steady 3km at just under 6%. This has a very fast and straight descent before the final climb, the potentially tricky Alto de Villamiel.
The climb up to the small town on the shoulder of the Sierra de Gata is the toughest of the day and, although still far from a beast of an ascent - 6,6km @ 6,1% with a steepest kilometre at 7,3% - the fact that it crests just 17km from the line should be enough to make it a more than reasonable opportunity to make a move. The steepest stuff is at the bottom of the climb and so if this goes to the breakaway, they can't afford time to waste, and if it's going to be from the bunch, the pace needs to be ferocious at the beginning of the climb to make the most of this stage. The other alternative, of course, is that somebody takes risks on the frantic descent towards the finish, reminiscent of the 2011 Vuelta stage to Córdoba where Liquigas, with a willing companion in Pablo Lastras, challenged the whole race with their technical skills downhill. The second half of the descent is very fast and straight with only unchallenging broad radius curves, however the first half requires some technical nous. After this the last 4-5km are gradually turning back uphill again, with the final kilometre reaching almost 5% - so not enough to be a puncheur finish in its own regard but certainly favouring a more adaptable sprinter if it comes to this. However, I don't expect this to be a stage for the Nacer Bouhannis of this world unless it's really been raced tamely over Hoyos and Villamiel or he's got himself into the break.
The finishing town of Valverde del Fresno, aside from potentially having a finish that favours the town's namesake, has passing interest value for linguists due to the preservation of a local tongue which belongs to the Galician-Portuguese subgroup of Romance languages. It sits at the foot of the decently long but gradual Puerto Viejo, but we aren't going to be climbing that beyond the town today; as this region is very neglected by the national Tour I can't trace that the Vuelta has in fact ever visited, even during the brief period in the late 90s when the Béjar to Ciudad Rodrigo stages would introduce the Extremaduran mountains' northern tips to the race. Therefore this should be something new that the riders aren't used to - which can always open up unexpected possibilities as riders don't know how to ride the new climbs or sort out how to deal with the slow turning up of the final few kilometres. And even if the GC men call a truce, we should get an interesting fight for the stage win.
Stage 5: Salamanca - Valverde del Fresno, 196km
GPM:
Portillo de las Batuecas (cat.3) 3,5km @ 5,6%
Alto de Gata (cat.3) 4,5km @ 5,1%
Puerto de Hoyos (cat,3) 5,0km @ 5,6%
Alto de Vilamiel (cat.2) 6,6km @ 6,1%
With the early GC running hopefully set up after two tricky, potentially selective stages in Galicia before yesterday's 20km contrarreloj, here we have a transitional stage as we move out of Castilla y León and into one of the Vuelta's most neglected regions, Extremadura. This relatively barren region in the west of the country typically features only in transitional stages, often less interesting than this one too, or in passing during stages into the Sierra de Béjar or the Sierra de Gredos, so this is a relatively rare chance for some potentially GC-relevant racing to be done on Extremaduran soil.
The same cannot be said, of course, of Salamanca, one of Spain's most historic cities, occupied since the Celtic era, and resplendent with its Roman landmarks, the oldest university in Spain (established 1218) and the third oldest in Europe in respect of continuous operation, and its UNESCO-inscribed old town, this bustling city built on several small hills on the Castilian plains has become one of the country's more cultured tourist hotspots, as well as the student scene and academic history making it one of the most popular spots for learning Spanish as a foreign language. As one of the largest cities in the region and perfectly located for a transitional stage between the Sistema Ibérico and the mountains of the north in Asturias and the Macizo Galaico, it has become a regular host of the Vuelta since its first inclusion all the way back in 1936, the second Vuelta, when it was the end of the very first stage of the race, with Belgian Joseph Huts winning the stage, before the ensuing stage from Salamanca to Cáceres enabled Gustaaf Deloor to take the jersey that he never relinquished. In fact, during the period of transition of the Vuelta from the El Correo-El Pueblo Vasco organization era when the race traditionally finished in País Vasco to the point at which Unipublic successfully managed to establish the Madrid finale and the grand finale didn't have a permanent home, Salamanca once was that finale, in fact in one of the most notorious Vuelta endings ever, and a landmark stage - Vladimir Malakov became the first Soviet to win a Grand Tour stage, but nobody really paid much attention to it after the previous day's controversy, when stagehunter José Recio somehow managed to escape with Pedro Delgado in an intermediate stage, and the ensuing story about teams' reticence to assist the chase, Spanish alliances, lies about time gaps and failures to broker deals for help led to Robert Millar losing an almost certain victory in an event still discussed and debated to this day. The last time the Vuelta rocked into town was 2011, when Tony Martin won a 46km test against the clock that was most notable for the then almost unknown Chris Froome beating his team leader Wiggins the day after towing him almost all the way up La Covatilla, to pull on his first red jersey. The last road stage was the year before, a transitional stage on the way out of the mountains, which was won by Cav while Mosquera and Nibali bided their time awaiting their duel on Bola del Mundo. It has however hosted the Spanish nationals in the interim, in 2012, although this rolling course was not especially selective and led to a victory for Fran Ventoso ahead of Koldo Fernández and Paco Pacheco.
I personally have included Salamanca in a number of my routes, even as a grand départ, however here it's just the beginning for a stage which is liable to be for the break but also could be a potential GC banana skin.
The first part of the stage is benign, and though there is precious little truly flat terrain, there aren't any challenges in the first third of the stage as this is just rolling terrain. There's then an ascent from La Alberca of the last part of the easier northern face of the Portillo de las Batuecas; it's the last 3,5km of this from the junction to El Cabaco. Fairly straightforward, but it leads into a much more tricky descent which lasts around 10 steeper kilometres and a further 5 downhill false flat, with many technical switchbacks and scenic curves.
From here, we head deep into the Sistema Central, having moved from the high plateau of Castilla y León to the lower plateau of Extremadura. Terrain remains problematic, with a number of short, leg-breaking ascents that aren't worthy of categorization in and of themselves, but could mount up as the day goes on. This means that it may not be the strongest sprinters in the breakaway who are favoured when the stage reaches the intermediate sprint in Caminomorisco. This takes us through one of Spain's historically most isolated areas, Las Hurdes, where until very recently issues with accessibility, a lack of infrastructure and general poverty in the region meant that literacy was low, health was poor, disease was rife and even church presence was limited. The reputation of the region was not helped by filmmaker Luis Buñuel's documentary Tierra Sin Pan, and the area also suffered serious depopulation during the Franco era. Due to the quiet isolation of the region and low population, however, it has become a known beauty spot, so riding through the region will be eerie but scenic for the bunch before they head into the Sierra de Gata, a more easterly part of the Sistema Central, where the decisive parts of the stage take place.
Once in the Sierra de Gata, there are three categorized climbs cresting in the last 50km. The first is a small climb that, on the descent, goes through the village of Gata itself. It's 4,5km in length at middling gradients, starting off by building to its steepest kilometre in the middle, being at 7,5%, before the last 1,5km at 6% bring it to an end. This is only just inside the 50k to go so isn't going to be decisive, but the last two climbs, which are directly back to back, might be.
The first, which crests 29km from the stripe, is the Puerto de Hoyos. It's the hardest climb of the day thus far, though still a cat.3 climb. The first kilometre is at 8% (steepest ramp 12%), before an easier second kilometre, then a more steady 3km at just under 6%. This has a very fast and straight descent before the final climb, the potentially tricky Alto de Villamiel.
The climb up to the small town on the shoulder of the Sierra de Gata is the toughest of the day and, although still far from a beast of an ascent - 6,6km @ 6,1% with a steepest kilometre at 7,3% - the fact that it crests just 17km from the line should be enough to make it a more than reasonable opportunity to make a move. The steepest stuff is at the bottom of the climb and so if this goes to the breakaway, they can't afford time to waste, and if it's going to be from the bunch, the pace needs to be ferocious at the beginning of the climb to make the most of this stage. The other alternative, of course, is that somebody takes risks on the frantic descent towards the finish, reminiscent of the 2011 Vuelta stage to Córdoba where Liquigas, with a willing companion in Pablo Lastras, challenged the whole race with their technical skills downhill. The second half of the descent is very fast and straight with only unchallenging broad radius curves, however the first half requires some technical nous. After this the last 4-5km are gradually turning back uphill again, with the final kilometre reaching almost 5% - so not enough to be a puncheur finish in its own regard but certainly favouring a more adaptable sprinter if it comes to this. However, I don't expect this to be a stage for the Nacer Bouhannis of this world unless it's really been raced tamely over Hoyos and Villamiel or he's got himself into the break.
The finishing town of Valverde del Fresno, aside from potentially having a finish that favours the town's namesake, has passing interest value for linguists due to the preservation of a local tongue which belongs to the Galician-Portuguese subgroup of Romance languages. It sits at the foot of the decently long but gradual Puerto Viejo, but we aren't going to be climbing that beyond the town today; as this region is very neglected by the national Tour I can't trace that the Vuelta has in fact ever visited, even during the brief period in the late 90s when the Béjar to Ciudad Rodrigo stages would introduce the Extremaduran mountains' northern tips to the race. Therefore this should be something new that the riders aren't used to - which can always open up unexpected possibilities as riders don't know how to ride the new climbs or sort out how to deal with the slow turning up of the final few kilometres. And even if the GC men call a truce, we should get an interesting fight for the stage win.
- Feb 20, 2010
- 32,650
- 14,602
- 28,180
Stage 6: Plasencia - Ciudad Real, 266km
Here's a real rarity: I'm sticking a super long flat stage into my race. Normally the flat stages are sprinkled through the race but I try not to make them "that" type of stage, where an inevitable long breakaway by a local Pro Continental team is slowly drawn back over a couple of hours before an inevitable sprint. I've always maintained that there are two things that need to be done about sprint stages in stage races where the time bonuses in the flat stages aren't going to be GC-relevant at the end of the race - such stages need to be either much shorter, so that the time spent on dull transitional routes with little action of consequence is limited and riders are fresher for attacking in the run-in, or alternatively such stages should be made much longer so that fatigue plays a role, controlling the race with several domestiques until the lead-out becomes much harder as ensuring that there are fresh legs for this may entail giving more freedom to the break than you might want. It's the kind of stage where Óscar Freire, by far Spain's most successful ever sprinter, came into his own, thanks to his ability to have more in the tank for a sprint after longer distances than many who might outpace him normally in a shorter stage.
Here, I have taken the proposition to a relatively extreme level, producing what would be the first UCI-baiting Vuelta stage length since the sixth stage in 1995, when Italian sprinter Nicola Minali won the second of his three stage wins that year in a 264km slog from Ourense to Zamora. Although there were some other stages in the 240-250km range in the time between it and the aforementioned stage won by Minali, the last time the Vuelta produced a stage longer than the one I present here, it was the absurd 292km stage from Sevilla to Jaén on stage 4 in 1991, which saw race leader Herminio Díaz Zabala dropped and his teammate, unheralded Catalan chrono specialist Melcior Mauri, to inherit a jersey he would defend against all comers for the next two weeks, including taking apart a man called Indurain in the chrono not once, not twice, but three times (twice flat and once uphill) and forcing him to attack in the mountains, setting the template that Indurain would copy and perfect in the coming years in both France and Italy; Mauri never scaled the same heights again, losing over half an hour in awful weather in the following year's queen stage, and though he would manage three more GT top 10s (8th in the 1993 Vuelta, and 6th in the 1995 Tour followed by 4th in the ensuing Vuelta) he was never truly able to shake off the reputation as a one-hit wonder who had come out of nowhere (at the time of his victory his best GT finish before that was 71st the previous year).
My stage is very much one of "those" flat stages though, so drama like in 1991 is only likely if the wind blows or the heat is extreme, and as we transition from Extremadura into the flat land of La Mancha, it is highly likely that those fans watching will see why this stage is on a weekday. Before we get to the nitty gritty of the stage, however, the riders set off from the pristine Roman city of Plasencia, with its preserved city walls. Like many of the larger cities in this part of Spain the fortifications have survived intact and provide a scenic backdrop for the stage départ.
The first part of the stage is fairly benign after the first 2km are uphill at least, so unless we get one of those "agree to let the group that goes at km 0 go" days (which would be a shame, but also understandable given how thankless a task the break has in store today) we could at least get a brief skirmish in the opening few kilometres to establish a break. Alternatively, with this being one of the flattest stages of the race, sprinters' teams may be keen to keep the group together for most of the first hour, with the first intermediate sprint coming very early, 55km into the stage in Navalmoral de la Mata.
Although I describe the stage as being flat, it's worth noting that this is no Po floodplain Giro stage; the middle third of the stage is full of little ascents and rolling terrain. The length of the stage means that the profile foreshortens the digs and makes them look more severe than they are, nevertheless expect there to be a cumulative effect if the riders go hard here. The scenery however should be quite dramatic as we're heading through a national park occasionally referred to as the Spanish Serengeti - the Parque Nacional de Cabañeros.
These vast flats surrounded by rolling hills of the lower edges of the Montes de Toledo are regularly dotted with traditional dehesas, and are home to large numbers of wildlife that is endangered or absent elsewhere in the country. It's a sparsely populated area, but the nature of the stage does mean that when we go on air we'll likely get to see some wonderful helicam footage as establishing shots to let us know how the situation on the course has developed.
Exiting the national park leads us to Porzuna, where the second intermediate sprint takes place, with 31km remaining and with the riders liable to have spent around six hours in the saddle at this point. The remaining terrain has no categorized climbing, but it does include some false flat broken up by some uphill ramps and the highest point reached in the stage.
As we head into the Campo de Calatrava historic region, of which Ciudad Real, today's stage town, is the nominal capital (and of course, the capital of the present-day province of Ciudad Real within Castilla-La Mancha), riders will be able to smell the finish line, which after 6 hours in heat which is likely to be in excess of 30º will be a welcome relief. It's not Qatar hot here but there are temperatures in excess of 40º recorded. The average high in August is 33º and in September 28º so depending on when the Vuelta starts this should give an idea of what to expect - low 30s is a reasonable guess. If there is a flat or rolling World Championships this year, you can guarantee that the leading sprinters will want to make a mark here.
Although Ciudad Real had a real fad for hosting the Vuelta for a while, it is surprisingly not a traditional host given its convenient location, with the race typically preferring to drop into Toledo in its trips through the region, and with the historic Vuelta's time spent south of Madrid being primarily close to the coastal resorts it hasn't had the same history as you might expect for a city of its size within touching distance of Madrid. It did have a spate of Vuelta stages in the 2000s though, hosting three stage starts, two stage finishes and one time trial based entirely around the city:
- a sprint stage in 2005 left the city and was won in Argamasilla de la Sierra by Ale-Jet;
- a late-race transitional stage in 2006 was won by José Luís Arrieta from the break;
- a sprint stage in 2007 left the city and was won by Daniele Bennati in Talavera de la Reina;
- Levi Leipheimer won the 42km test against the clock here in 2008;
- the ensuing stage to Toledo, ahead of the early first rest day, was won on a short repecho by Paolo Bettini;
- in 2009 a clone of the 2007 stage took place in week 3, only Anthony Roux surprised and outfoxed the sprinters, being caught right on the line à la Tony Martin, only being able to hold on from André Greipel by the narrowest of margins.
Surprisingly no stages have approached the city from this side, although the stages departing for Talavera de la Reina have gone through the same terrain I'm closing us off in. I have personally used the city as a stage finish before, usually in races transitioning northwards from the south coast in week 2; as a result the same finish outside the Don Quixote Museum is used.
This stage probably won't be all that exciting, but the effect of 260+ kilometres in the heat should have its cumulative effect, and if some terral winds are blowing, this could be the equivalent of the traditional "trial by wind" stages around Albacete in the days when the Vuelta was in April. If not, well, it should be a good Worlds preparation for the fast men given the distance and that the rolling and undulating terrain means that it isn't necessarily solely a pure power man's game.
Here's a real rarity: I'm sticking a super long flat stage into my race. Normally the flat stages are sprinkled through the race but I try not to make them "that" type of stage, where an inevitable long breakaway by a local Pro Continental team is slowly drawn back over a couple of hours before an inevitable sprint. I've always maintained that there are two things that need to be done about sprint stages in stage races where the time bonuses in the flat stages aren't going to be GC-relevant at the end of the race - such stages need to be either much shorter, so that the time spent on dull transitional routes with little action of consequence is limited and riders are fresher for attacking in the run-in, or alternatively such stages should be made much longer so that fatigue plays a role, controlling the race with several domestiques until the lead-out becomes much harder as ensuring that there are fresh legs for this may entail giving more freedom to the break than you might want. It's the kind of stage where Óscar Freire, by far Spain's most successful ever sprinter, came into his own, thanks to his ability to have more in the tank for a sprint after longer distances than many who might outpace him normally in a shorter stage.
Here, I have taken the proposition to a relatively extreme level, producing what would be the first UCI-baiting Vuelta stage length since the sixth stage in 1995, when Italian sprinter Nicola Minali won the second of his three stage wins that year in a 264km slog from Ourense to Zamora. Although there were some other stages in the 240-250km range in the time between it and the aforementioned stage won by Minali, the last time the Vuelta produced a stage longer than the one I present here, it was the absurd 292km stage from Sevilla to Jaén on stage 4 in 1991, which saw race leader Herminio Díaz Zabala dropped and his teammate, unheralded Catalan chrono specialist Melcior Mauri, to inherit a jersey he would defend against all comers for the next two weeks, including taking apart a man called Indurain in the chrono not once, not twice, but three times (twice flat and once uphill) and forcing him to attack in the mountains, setting the template that Indurain would copy and perfect in the coming years in both France and Italy; Mauri never scaled the same heights again, losing over half an hour in awful weather in the following year's queen stage, and though he would manage three more GT top 10s (8th in the 1993 Vuelta, and 6th in the 1995 Tour followed by 4th in the ensuing Vuelta) he was never truly able to shake off the reputation as a one-hit wonder who had come out of nowhere (at the time of his victory his best GT finish before that was 71st the previous year).
My stage is very much one of "those" flat stages though, so drama like in 1991 is only likely if the wind blows or the heat is extreme, and as we transition from Extremadura into the flat land of La Mancha, it is highly likely that those fans watching will see why this stage is on a weekday. Before we get to the nitty gritty of the stage, however, the riders set off from the pristine Roman city of Plasencia, with its preserved city walls. Like many of the larger cities in this part of Spain the fortifications have survived intact and provide a scenic backdrop for the stage départ.
The first part of the stage is fairly benign after the first 2km are uphill at least, so unless we get one of those "agree to let the group that goes at km 0 go" days (which would be a shame, but also understandable given how thankless a task the break has in store today) we could at least get a brief skirmish in the opening few kilometres to establish a break. Alternatively, with this being one of the flattest stages of the race, sprinters' teams may be keen to keep the group together for most of the first hour, with the first intermediate sprint coming very early, 55km into the stage in Navalmoral de la Mata.
Although I describe the stage as being flat, it's worth noting that this is no Po floodplain Giro stage; the middle third of the stage is full of little ascents and rolling terrain. The length of the stage means that the profile foreshortens the digs and makes them look more severe than they are, nevertheless expect there to be a cumulative effect if the riders go hard here. The scenery however should be quite dramatic as we're heading through a national park occasionally referred to as the Spanish Serengeti - the Parque Nacional de Cabañeros.
These vast flats surrounded by rolling hills of the lower edges of the Montes de Toledo are regularly dotted with traditional dehesas, and are home to large numbers of wildlife that is endangered or absent elsewhere in the country. It's a sparsely populated area, but the nature of the stage does mean that when we go on air we'll likely get to see some wonderful helicam footage as establishing shots to let us know how the situation on the course has developed.
Exiting the national park leads us to Porzuna, where the second intermediate sprint takes place, with 31km remaining and with the riders liable to have spent around six hours in the saddle at this point. The remaining terrain has no categorized climbing, but it does include some false flat broken up by some uphill ramps and the highest point reached in the stage.
As we head into the Campo de Calatrava historic region, of which Ciudad Real, today's stage town, is the nominal capital (and of course, the capital of the present-day province of Ciudad Real within Castilla-La Mancha), riders will be able to smell the finish line, which after 6 hours in heat which is likely to be in excess of 30º will be a welcome relief. It's not Qatar hot here but there are temperatures in excess of 40º recorded. The average high in August is 33º and in September 28º so depending on when the Vuelta starts this should give an idea of what to expect - low 30s is a reasonable guess. If there is a flat or rolling World Championships this year, you can guarantee that the leading sprinters will want to make a mark here.
Although Ciudad Real had a real fad for hosting the Vuelta for a while, it is surprisingly not a traditional host given its convenient location, with the race typically preferring to drop into Toledo in its trips through the region, and with the historic Vuelta's time spent south of Madrid being primarily close to the coastal resorts it hasn't had the same history as you might expect for a city of its size within touching distance of Madrid. It did have a spate of Vuelta stages in the 2000s though, hosting three stage starts, two stage finishes and one time trial based entirely around the city:
- a sprint stage in 2005 left the city and was won in Argamasilla de la Sierra by Ale-Jet;
- a late-race transitional stage in 2006 was won by José Luís Arrieta from the break;
- a sprint stage in 2007 left the city and was won by Daniele Bennati in Talavera de la Reina;
- Levi Leipheimer won the 42km test against the clock here in 2008;
- the ensuing stage to Toledo, ahead of the early first rest day, was won on a short repecho by Paolo Bettini;
- in 2009 a clone of the 2007 stage took place in week 3, only Anthony Roux surprised and outfoxed the sprinters, being caught right on the line à la Tony Martin, only being able to hold on from André Greipel by the narrowest of margins.
Surprisingly no stages have approached the city from this side, although the stages departing for Talavera de la Reina have gone through the same terrain I'm closing us off in. I have personally used the city as a stage finish before, usually in races transitioning northwards from the south coast in week 2; as a result the same finish outside the Don Quixote Museum is used.
This stage probably won't be all that exciting, but the effect of 260+ kilometres in the heat should have its cumulative effect, and if some terral winds are blowing, this could be the equivalent of the traditional "trial by wind" stages around Albacete in the days when the Vuelta was in April. If not, well, it should be a good Worlds preparation for the fast men given the distance and that the rolling and undulating terrain means that it isn't necessarily solely a pure power man's game.
- Feb 20, 2010
- 32,650
- 14,602
- 28,180
Stage 7: Ciudad Real - Andújar, 153km
GPM:
Puerto de los Rehoyos (cat.3) 14,8km @ 3,0%
Puerto de Madrona (cat.2) 7,5km @ 6,2%
Alto de los Pinos (cat.3) 6,4km @ 4,5%
Because I'm not quite as sadistic as some may think, following the 266km odyssey of yesterday's stage, the riders are given precisely zero transfer before today's following stage; in addition it's a shortish stage, over 100km less than the preceding day's racing, but the sting in the tail is that it's much more mountainous, with three categorized climbs although the stage isn't classed as anything above hilly. With some horrible stages in store at the weekend I don't expect the GC men wanting to make this tough, and instead anticipate one of those days when the break takes the spoils, akin to the Rat Peñat stage in 2009, the stages won by Caisse d'Epargne in 2010, or a stage where a reduced bunch takes the spoils with most of the sprinters, who had their fun yesterday, struggling to stay with the all-rounders here, although the likes of Pello Bilbao, Carlos Barbero, Juanjo Lobato (hey look, it's all the Spanish sprinters) who are at their best in a stage which has thinned out the bunch with enough climbing to get rid of the fastest men may see an opportunity here.
Although heading through the plains of La Mancha and into Andalucía there are long stretches of the stage without sizable urban centres to break them up, the stage is not without its places of note. One of the first is one of the most notorious casualties of the economic downturn in Spain, Aeropuerto Central Ciudad Real (Ciudad Real Central Airport). Opened as Don Quijote International Airport to much fanfare in 2009, hoping to benefit from increased traffic to Madrid and connect to AVE to provide a high speed connection to both Madrid and the south coast, the one-runway airport was built to highest standards with one of the longest runways in Europe, capable of taking on large sized passenger and freight aircraft, at the cost of over €1bn. However, following problems arising from the financial crisis, the high speed connections were never completed, and the passenger interest in the region was never enough to justify the airport, as internally the nearest cities are connected to AVE and to other established airports, while there was a lack of international interest in flying passenger craft to the airport as most of the intended carriers already carried to nearby airports. After cessation of operations in 2012 and a protracted sale period, a consortium purchased the airport in April for €65m and are aiming to return the airport to operation, initially as a cargo-carrying concern. The abandoned airport has, however, seen some international attention, once when the crew of British TV show Top Gear ran a series of challenges around it, and perhaps more remarkably as the location chosen for Volvo's truck advert featuring Jean-Claude van Damme's ultimate splits.
After this we pass through Puertollano, a city sitting in the space between two narrow mountain ridges that signal the northernmost tips of the Sierra Morena (and its subdivisions, the Sierras de Madrona and de Andújar, which we race into), signalling the transitional geography that divides the mountainous Andalucían terrain from La Mancha. The city's name's origin is debated due to the dual meaning of "puerto"; "llano" means flat, leading to competing meanings - the most common is that its position on a gap between two mountain ridges lends it the appearance of a mountain pass in the sense of a col between two peaks (the "puerto") only without climbing to get there (hence "llano"), as the city is neither flat nor at either a pass or a port in the river or sea sense. Like Ciudad Real, it had a period of being in vogue at the Vuelta in the 2000s, hosting stage finishes (usually from Córdoba) in 2005 (won by Ale-Jet in a bunch sprint in week 1), 2007 (won by Leonardo Duque from a 17-man breakaway in week 3), 2008 (won by Daniele Bennati in a bunch sprint in week 1) and finally 2009 (won by André Greipel in a sprint in week 3).
Here, however, Puertollano hosts only an intermediate rather than a stage-settling sprint, before we head into the hills. The first rise is uncategorized, but after rolling back downhill to the Embalse de Montoro, the first categorized climb begins. The Puerto de los Rehoyos is perhaps the best known climb in the region, however, that is more for its tougher southern side. From the north it is around 15km at 3%, divided into only a few tougher ramps among the flat and false flat, hence only giving out the points for a cat.3 climb. A tricky descent leads into the main climbing challenge of the day, the cat.2 Puerto de Madrona. At 7,5km at a little over 6% it's a solid second category climb which has few really tough ramps but also few respites; at over 60km from the line it won't tell us who wins the stage but it will eliminate a few who aren't feeling it today from contention. With few signs of habitation in the area, the Sierra de Madrona lends the look of a somewhat pristine mountain landscape so the TV coverage will hopefully be a bit more interesting than we often get from "those" stages through Castilla-La Mancha and Andalucía.
The bottom of the descent signals our transfer into Spain's southernmost mainland region, and a long plateau takes us through the scenic Parque Natural Sierra de Andújar, with its rivers and gorges providing a lush and surprisingly verdant landscape through which the riders wind their way before passing the Santuário Virgén de la Cabeza, scene of a year-long siege during the Spanish Civil War, and descending to the river Jándula which brings us to our final obstacle.
The Alto de los Pinos is hardly a challenge in many stages; 6km at 4,5% is not going to break most pros this side of Andrea Guardini. However, with the stage being, to my mind at least, likely to be settled among the breakaway, it is long enough to provide a platform to attack for the escape given that it crests just under 17km from the line. After a first kilometre of little more than false flat the next 3km are all fairly consistent around 4%, before a steeper stretch of 1,7km at 7% including ramps of up to 11%. A short flat then leads into a final 400m at 8% hitting a max of 12% right at the top, so this latter half of the climb is where the moves will be made. From the group behind, if the péloton is in contention for the stage win, this is where the teams of those sprinters who are able to get over the climbs will want to push the pace, to both ensure that the less versatile sprinters are unable to catch back on, and to deter and neutralize attempts to escape. This will likely not be welcomed by the GC men, who would be hoping after a marathon flat stage yesterday to be able to preserve some energy ahead of a difficult weekend to come.
After cresting the climb, we have a very fast but fairly shallow descent with only a small number of technical tests; the descent only finishes with around 5km left into the stage town of Andújar, so escapes don't have too long to survive. If a small group can come together from a larger escape on the climb, we will likely see them start to play games on this run-in, but the finale is not particularly technical so they will have to be wary of the chasers getting them in sight if they aren't working together until late on, so we should get a tactical battle here.
Andújar, today's stage town, was passed through in a stage to Jaén in an earlier Vuelta of mine, but here hosts a finish for the first time. A bridge town on the Guadalquivír, it is famous for its earthware jugs of clay that are excellent at keeping water cool in the hot temperatures, and perhaps due to its proximity to the more cycling-friendly city of Jaén has never hosted the Vuelta, which we rectify at last. It has, however, been passed through a few times, most recently in the 2007 stage from Jaén to Puertollano mentioned above; this also shows you much of today's stage in reverse, the last time that most of these sites were visited by the national Tour. It's now been a decade - certainly enough time for a comeback.
GPM:
Puerto de los Rehoyos (cat.3) 14,8km @ 3,0%
Puerto de Madrona (cat.2) 7,5km @ 6,2%
Alto de los Pinos (cat.3) 6,4km @ 4,5%
Because I'm not quite as sadistic as some may think, following the 266km odyssey of yesterday's stage, the riders are given precisely zero transfer before today's following stage; in addition it's a shortish stage, over 100km less than the preceding day's racing, but the sting in the tail is that it's much more mountainous, with three categorized climbs although the stage isn't classed as anything above hilly. With some horrible stages in store at the weekend I don't expect the GC men wanting to make this tough, and instead anticipate one of those days when the break takes the spoils, akin to the Rat Peñat stage in 2009, the stages won by Caisse d'Epargne in 2010, or a stage where a reduced bunch takes the spoils with most of the sprinters, who had their fun yesterday, struggling to stay with the all-rounders here, although the likes of Pello Bilbao, Carlos Barbero, Juanjo Lobato (hey look, it's all the Spanish sprinters) who are at their best in a stage which has thinned out the bunch with enough climbing to get rid of the fastest men may see an opportunity here.
Although heading through the plains of La Mancha and into Andalucía there are long stretches of the stage without sizable urban centres to break them up, the stage is not without its places of note. One of the first is one of the most notorious casualties of the economic downturn in Spain, Aeropuerto Central Ciudad Real (Ciudad Real Central Airport). Opened as Don Quijote International Airport to much fanfare in 2009, hoping to benefit from increased traffic to Madrid and connect to AVE to provide a high speed connection to both Madrid and the south coast, the one-runway airport was built to highest standards with one of the longest runways in Europe, capable of taking on large sized passenger and freight aircraft, at the cost of over €1bn. However, following problems arising from the financial crisis, the high speed connections were never completed, and the passenger interest in the region was never enough to justify the airport, as internally the nearest cities are connected to AVE and to other established airports, while there was a lack of international interest in flying passenger craft to the airport as most of the intended carriers already carried to nearby airports. After cessation of operations in 2012 and a protracted sale period, a consortium purchased the airport in April for €65m and are aiming to return the airport to operation, initially as a cargo-carrying concern. The abandoned airport has, however, seen some international attention, once when the crew of British TV show Top Gear ran a series of challenges around it, and perhaps more remarkably as the location chosen for Volvo's truck advert featuring Jean-Claude van Damme's ultimate splits.
After this we pass through Puertollano, a city sitting in the space between two narrow mountain ridges that signal the northernmost tips of the Sierra Morena (and its subdivisions, the Sierras de Madrona and de Andújar, which we race into), signalling the transitional geography that divides the mountainous Andalucían terrain from La Mancha. The city's name's origin is debated due to the dual meaning of "puerto"; "llano" means flat, leading to competing meanings - the most common is that its position on a gap between two mountain ridges lends it the appearance of a mountain pass in the sense of a col between two peaks (the "puerto") only without climbing to get there (hence "llano"), as the city is neither flat nor at either a pass or a port in the river or sea sense. Like Ciudad Real, it had a period of being in vogue at the Vuelta in the 2000s, hosting stage finishes (usually from Córdoba) in 2005 (won by Ale-Jet in a bunch sprint in week 1), 2007 (won by Leonardo Duque from a 17-man breakaway in week 3), 2008 (won by Daniele Bennati in a bunch sprint in week 1) and finally 2009 (won by André Greipel in a sprint in week 3).
Here, however, Puertollano hosts only an intermediate rather than a stage-settling sprint, before we head into the hills. The first rise is uncategorized, but after rolling back downhill to the Embalse de Montoro, the first categorized climb begins. The Puerto de los Rehoyos is perhaps the best known climb in the region, however, that is more for its tougher southern side. From the north it is around 15km at 3%, divided into only a few tougher ramps among the flat and false flat, hence only giving out the points for a cat.3 climb. A tricky descent leads into the main climbing challenge of the day, the cat.2 Puerto de Madrona. At 7,5km at a little over 6% it's a solid second category climb which has few really tough ramps but also few respites; at over 60km from the line it won't tell us who wins the stage but it will eliminate a few who aren't feeling it today from contention. With few signs of habitation in the area, the Sierra de Madrona lends the look of a somewhat pristine mountain landscape so the TV coverage will hopefully be a bit more interesting than we often get from "those" stages through Castilla-La Mancha and Andalucía.
The bottom of the descent signals our transfer into Spain's southernmost mainland region, and a long plateau takes us through the scenic Parque Natural Sierra de Andújar, with its rivers and gorges providing a lush and surprisingly verdant landscape through which the riders wind their way before passing the Santuário Virgén de la Cabeza, scene of a year-long siege during the Spanish Civil War, and descending to the river Jándula which brings us to our final obstacle.
The Alto de los Pinos is hardly a challenge in many stages; 6km at 4,5% is not going to break most pros this side of Andrea Guardini. However, with the stage being, to my mind at least, likely to be settled among the breakaway, it is long enough to provide a platform to attack for the escape given that it crests just under 17km from the line. After a first kilometre of little more than false flat the next 3km are all fairly consistent around 4%, before a steeper stretch of 1,7km at 7% including ramps of up to 11%. A short flat then leads into a final 400m at 8% hitting a max of 12% right at the top, so this latter half of the climb is where the moves will be made. From the group behind, if the péloton is in contention for the stage win, this is where the teams of those sprinters who are able to get over the climbs will want to push the pace, to both ensure that the less versatile sprinters are unable to catch back on, and to deter and neutralize attempts to escape. This will likely not be welcomed by the GC men, who would be hoping after a marathon flat stage yesterday to be able to preserve some energy ahead of a difficult weekend to come.
After cresting the climb, we have a very fast but fairly shallow descent with only a small number of technical tests; the descent only finishes with around 5km left into the stage town of Andújar, so escapes don't have too long to survive. If a small group can come together from a larger escape on the climb, we will likely see them start to play games on this run-in, but the finale is not particularly technical so they will have to be wary of the chasers getting them in sight if they aren't working together until late on, so we should get a tactical battle here.
Andújar, today's stage town, was passed through in a stage to Jaén in an earlier Vuelta of mine, but here hosts a finish for the first time. A bridge town on the Guadalquivír, it is famous for its earthware jugs of clay that are excellent at keeping water cool in the hot temperatures, and perhaps due to its proximity to the more cycling-friendly city of Jaén has never hosted the Vuelta, which we rectify at last. It has, however, been passed through a few times, most recently in the 2007 stage from Jaén to Puertollano mentioned above; this also shows you much of today's stage in reverse, the last time that most of these sites were visited by the national Tour. It's now been a decade - certainly enough time for a comeback.
Counterclockwise Vuelta II
Counterclockwise Vuelta II
1. 169,5 km Huelva-Sevilla - Flat Stage
Stage description: The first stage is neither tough or hard - but will be warm as our riders turn inland from Huelva before they divert east to Sevilla, where the sprinters will look forward to a 1,5 km straight finish in the heart of the town. The fast guys will sense a huge chance to wear red on the first sunday of the race. We also have a symbolic uphill drag sprint in order to give away the mountain jersey.
Elevation Gain/Loss in m: 1555/1555
Sprints: 73,5 km Minas De Riotinto
Mountains/hills: 0 (1 categorzied - due to KOM)
unnamed (south). 90,2 km 3. KAT 4,0 km - 3,6%
Other considerations: Huelva, is an old (from pre-roman) town of 150.000 inhabitants, with historic ties to Chirstopher Columbus through the Rábida Monastery. La Rábida is where Columbus sought the aid of the Franciscan brothers in advancing his project of discovery. Our stage finish does not need an introduction - a metropol with 1,5 mil citizens and featured in the first Vuelta in 1935 as start & finish town.
1. stage 169,5 km Huelva-Sevilla: Flat
Counterclockwise Vuelta II
1. 169,5 km Huelva-Sevilla - Flat Stage
Stage description: The first stage is neither tough or hard - but will be warm as our riders turn inland from Huelva before they divert east to Sevilla, where the sprinters will look forward to a 1,5 km straight finish in the heart of the town. The fast guys will sense a huge chance to wear red on the first sunday of the race. We also have a symbolic uphill drag sprint in order to give away the mountain jersey.
Elevation Gain/Loss in m: 1555/1555
Sprints: 73,5 km Minas De Riotinto
Mountains/hills: 0 (1 categorzied - due to KOM)
unnamed (south). 90,2 km 3. KAT 4,0 km - 3,6%
Other considerations: Huelva, is an old (from pre-roman) town of 150.000 inhabitants, with historic ties to Chirstopher Columbus through the Rábida Monastery. La Rábida is where Columbus sought the aid of the Franciscan brothers in advancing his project of discovery. Our stage finish does not need an introduction - a metropol with 1,5 mil citizens and featured in the first Vuelta in 1935 as start & finish town.
1. stage 169,5 km Huelva-Sevilla: Flat
- Feb 20, 2010
- 32,650
- 14,602
- 28,180
Stage 8: Jaén - El Dornajo (Alto de Hazallanas), 172km
GPM:
Alto de la Fuente Grande (cat.2) 10,0km @ 5,1%
Alto de Monachíl (cat.1) 12,2km @ 6,2%
Alto de Hazallanas (cat.ESP) 17,0km @ 6,1%
At the end of the first week - in fact the Saturday of the second weekend, we see the first mountaintop finish of the Vuelta, as we move into the Andalucian mountains and the Sierra Nevada, also continuing the 2013 vibe to the race with the Galician start and a couple of shared finishes (Mirador de Lobeira, Lago de Sanabria) - this stage is indeed similar to another stage which was won by Chris Horner in that particular edition, however this stage is just the lead-in to a particularly brutal Sunday stage. But more of that when we get to it.
Sat at the foot of the Santa Catalina mountains, the city of Jaén is home to 120.000 people and is a provincial capital not far from yesterday's stage town of Andújar. A hot city which sits at the base of a number of intermediate climbs, it has a long history with cycling as do many towns in the vicinity (most notably Torredonjimeno which hosts an illustrious amateur one-day race), although it was not introduced as a stage town in the Vuelta a España until 1976, when Theo Smit won a sprint and Sporza commentator José de Cauwer was wearing the leader's jersey. The last time the Vuelta headed into town for a finish was 2008, when in a slightly uphill finish Alejandro Valverde took the win with a couple of seconds' margin over Davide Rebellin and impending world champion Alessandro Ballan, since which point it has been rather overshadowed as a stage town by nearby Valdepeñas de Jaén with its brutal uphill ramp. The Ruta del Sol has used the city, however, most recently in 2014 with a puncheur finish to the castle in the above photo; this same finish was used by me in a previous Vuelta design, and the real race was won, again, by Alejandro Valverde, ahead of Bauke Mollema and - again - Davide Rebellin.
The Vuelta did, however, use the city as the start of a transitional stage in 2009, which was won in Córdoba by Lars Boom. Here, we use it once more as a stage start, but avoid the city's neighbouring mountain range in favour of heading for more brutal climes. Beyond the races, the city has heritage in cycling as the hometown of the infamous Manuel "Triki" Beltrán, key domestique for Armstrong who tested positive at the 2008 Tour de France, and Javier Moreno, experienced mountain helper for Movistar who has now moved on to Bahrain-Merida for 2017..
The first half of the stage is subsequently chocked full of that great frustration for all riders on Spanish terrain - the "no puntable" climb. Here, the first of these is the Alto de Pegalajar, from its northern side a frustrating uphill false flat that eventually yields to some short but noticeable ramps. In fact, apart from the descent from Pegalajar, the whole of the first 60km of the stage is false flat uphill or some short genuine climbs as we wind our way between the Sierra Mágina and the Sierra de Santa Catalina.
The other notable "no puntable" climb is the Puerto del Zegri, another similar two stepped climb with a bit of genuine climbing and some false and/or genuine flat in the middle. After this the road turns downhill and we head through some luscious, verdant scenery around the Parque del Cubillas.
Leaving the natural park, however, leads us to a final 70km of ever-increasing difficulty as the climbs ramp up to pure brutality at the end. As a result, we have to start with some solide but not too mind-blowing climbing, which we undertake via the Alto de la Fuente Grande, which amounts to the first 10km of this profile. Situated in that section of foothills of the Sierra Nevada, separated from its higher-altitude, tougher climbing brethren among Sierra Nevada climbs by the valley through which the Puerto de los Blancares is situated, this won't be decisive given the climbs to come, but it should help ensure riders have some suffering in their legs when the big climbs come.
The descent is [http://cyclingcols.com/profiles/SierraDeHuetorW.gif]similar in character[/url] to the ascent, basically matching that profile as far as the village of Viznár. This then takes us into Granada, one of the Vuelta's most historic cities, featuring on the route all the way back in 1935 in the first ever Vuelta, when Austrian Max Bulla took the stage win. Since the introduction of the Sierra Nevada, in the wake of the quest to find new classic mountains after the Basque Country was taken off the agenda in the wake of the threat from ETA back in the late 70s, however, the city has become less frequent a host, with Unipublic preferring to put the finishes in the mountains around the city, although we do see the occasional finish in the city, and the 2008 edition of the race held its opening TTT in the city. Its most notable recent history came in 2006, when race leader Alejandro Valverde, after crashing out of the Tour, grew uncharacteristically cautious in a descent and this enabled Alexander Vinokourov to get to his rival and put into him the kind of time that he needed to take home Kazakhstan's first and, todate, only, Grand Tour triumph.
You can see over an hour's coverage of Vino's Vuelta-winning daredevil antics here - it's also worth noting that the Alto del Monachíl, also known to tracers as (less commonyl) the Collado Muerto or (more commonly) El Purche, was the final climb of that stage; here it is the penultimate climb and crests inside 30km from the line. Its stats - 12km, 6% - are fairly straightforward, but they don't showcase how frighteningly inconsistent this climb is, being more like a Basque climb in its stop-start ramps and central section of 6,5km averaging over 9%. While the final climb of the day is so tough that we can expect the stage to become a final climb shootout, this one will be difficult enough that it should prevent most of those from having too many helpers with them.
El Purche was introduced to the Vuelta in one of the many Sierra Nevada time trials we've seen over the years, as a stop-off on the way. It has been used memorably in this format also in 2009, in the stage won by David Moncoutié and where Cadel Evans suffered a puncture from the lead group and, after a very slow wheel change courtesy of a neutral service car mechanic, rejoined the Samu group behind the front men before blowing up spectacularly, an action which cost him the race. Here we use it as it was in 2006, as a pass of its own accord, but also like 2013 when it led in to the same finale like so. That's because we're lifting that 2013 finish wholesale.
The reason for this is fairly simple: I have got a really brutal stage tomorrow, and therefore the only way to ensure action today with riders not saving themselves for tomorrow and/or stages to come later in the race, is to make this one a mountaintop finish, and the fact that this mountaintop is so brutal that drafting ceasing to be of great importance doesn't half assist in that respect, as the hellacious gradients of the climb to the Alto de Hazallanas will ensure at least some semblance of time gaps on this stage. The climb is known to most traceurs, because proper use of the Sierra Nevada is something that almost all traceurs wish Javier Guillén could do. The climb is of course this monstrosity, only we only climb the first 17km, until the junction marked El Dornajo.
The reason for not climbing the full length of the climb us two-fold. Firstly, by having the steepest gradients closer to the finish it means gaps do not have time to be negated, and also because it means that attacks on those steeper gradients are incentivized because there's less chance of losing them again after the steepest part. And secondly, because it means I still have the Sierra Nevada on the cards by all of its different routes for future Vueltas.
In the 9km or so from Güéjar Sierra to the Alto de Hazallanas, gradients are brutal and the overall 17km at 6% doesn't really tell the story because of the short descent. There are 5km averaging 11% in the middle of this, which were recently resurfaced allowing the Vuelta to investigate the area in 2013, leading to the brutal stage won by Horner mentioned above. The climb was brought back in 2015, surprisingly in the pre-season warmup race the Ruta del Sol; it seems a surprisingly brutal ascent for a February race, but nevertheless it saw some exciting action as Alberto Contador triumphed over Froome before Froome wrestled control of the race back from his Spanish adversary on the Alto de Allanadas outside La Guardia de Jaén. It's also a favoured off-season rollerski training climb for Spanish biathlete and cross country skier Victoria Padial Hernández, who is clearly more of a masochist than most, although in fairness being based out of Granada makes it pretty accessible. Not having to go all the way to the top is also helpful as of course you can take the traditional side via the A-380 to descend back to the city
This stage is almost certainly going to be all about that final 10km on the first ESP-category climb of the Vuelta. Also here it comes at the beginning of a block of mountains whereas in 2013 it came at the end (after Peñas Blancas and the punchy finish at Valdepeñas de Jaen), so the dynamic of the race is likely to be different coming in too. The GC leaders will want to save something for tomorrow, but they won't want to waste their opportunities today, aand so I envisage this being raced hard on the final climb.
GPM:
Alto de la Fuente Grande (cat.2) 10,0km @ 5,1%
Alto de Monachíl (cat.1) 12,2km @ 6,2%
Alto de Hazallanas (cat.ESP) 17,0km @ 6,1%
At the end of the first week - in fact the Saturday of the second weekend, we see the first mountaintop finish of the Vuelta, as we move into the Andalucian mountains and the Sierra Nevada, also continuing the 2013 vibe to the race with the Galician start and a couple of shared finishes (Mirador de Lobeira, Lago de Sanabria) - this stage is indeed similar to another stage which was won by Chris Horner in that particular edition, however this stage is just the lead-in to a particularly brutal Sunday stage. But more of that when we get to it.
Sat at the foot of the Santa Catalina mountains, the city of Jaén is home to 120.000 people and is a provincial capital not far from yesterday's stage town of Andújar. A hot city which sits at the base of a number of intermediate climbs, it has a long history with cycling as do many towns in the vicinity (most notably Torredonjimeno which hosts an illustrious amateur one-day race), although it was not introduced as a stage town in the Vuelta a España until 1976, when Theo Smit won a sprint and Sporza commentator José de Cauwer was wearing the leader's jersey. The last time the Vuelta headed into town for a finish was 2008, when in a slightly uphill finish Alejandro Valverde took the win with a couple of seconds' margin over Davide Rebellin and impending world champion Alessandro Ballan, since which point it has been rather overshadowed as a stage town by nearby Valdepeñas de Jaén with its brutal uphill ramp. The Ruta del Sol has used the city, however, most recently in 2014 with a puncheur finish to the castle in the above photo; this same finish was used by me in a previous Vuelta design, and the real race was won, again, by Alejandro Valverde, ahead of Bauke Mollema and - again - Davide Rebellin.
The Vuelta did, however, use the city as the start of a transitional stage in 2009, which was won in Córdoba by Lars Boom. Here, we use it once more as a stage start, but avoid the city's neighbouring mountain range in favour of heading for more brutal climes. Beyond the races, the city has heritage in cycling as the hometown of the infamous Manuel "Triki" Beltrán, key domestique for Armstrong who tested positive at the 2008 Tour de France, and Javier Moreno, experienced mountain helper for Movistar who has now moved on to Bahrain-Merida for 2017..
The first half of the stage is subsequently chocked full of that great frustration for all riders on Spanish terrain - the "no puntable" climb. Here, the first of these is the Alto de Pegalajar, from its northern side a frustrating uphill false flat that eventually yields to some short but noticeable ramps. In fact, apart from the descent from Pegalajar, the whole of the first 60km of the stage is false flat uphill or some short genuine climbs as we wind our way between the Sierra Mágina and the Sierra de Santa Catalina.
The other notable "no puntable" climb is the Puerto del Zegri, another similar two stepped climb with a bit of genuine climbing and some false and/or genuine flat in the middle. After this the road turns downhill and we head through some luscious, verdant scenery around the Parque del Cubillas.
Leaving the natural park, however, leads us to a final 70km of ever-increasing difficulty as the climbs ramp up to pure brutality at the end. As a result, we have to start with some solide but not too mind-blowing climbing, which we undertake via the Alto de la Fuente Grande, which amounts to the first 10km of this profile. Situated in that section of foothills of the Sierra Nevada, separated from its higher-altitude, tougher climbing brethren among Sierra Nevada climbs by the valley through which the Puerto de los Blancares is situated, this won't be decisive given the climbs to come, but it should help ensure riders have some suffering in their legs when the big climbs come.
The descent is [http://cyclingcols.com/profiles/SierraDeHuetorW.gif]similar in character[/url] to the ascent, basically matching that profile as far as the village of Viznár. This then takes us into Granada, one of the Vuelta's most historic cities, featuring on the route all the way back in 1935 in the first ever Vuelta, when Austrian Max Bulla took the stage win. Since the introduction of the Sierra Nevada, in the wake of the quest to find new classic mountains after the Basque Country was taken off the agenda in the wake of the threat from ETA back in the late 70s, however, the city has become less frequent a host, with Unipublic preferring to put the finishes in the mountains around the city, although we do see the occasional finish in the city, and the 2008 edition of the race held its opening TTT in the city. Its most notable recent history came in 2006, when race leader Alejandro Valverde, after crashing out of the Tour, grew uncharacteristically cautious in a descent and this enabled Alexander Vinokourov to get to his rival and put into him the kind of time that he needed to take home Kazakhstan's first and, todate, only, Grand Tour triumph.
You can see over an hour's coverage of Vino's Vuelta-winning daredevil antics here - it's also worth noting that the Alto del Monachíl, also known to tracers as (less commonyl) the Collado Muerto or (more commonly) El Purche, was the final climb of that stage; here it is the penultimate climb and crests inside 30km from the line. Its stats - 12km, 6% - are fairly straightforward, but they don't showcase how frighteningly inconsistent this climb is, being more like a Basque climb in its stop-start ramps and central section of 6,5km averaging over 9%. While the final climb of the day is so tough that we can expect the stage to become a final climb shootout, this one will be difficult enough that it should prevent most of those from having too many helpers with them.
El Purche was introduced to the Vuelta in one of the many Sierra Nevada time trials we've seen over the years, as a stop-off on the way. It has been used memorably in this format also in 2009, in the stage won by David Moncoutié and where Cadel Evans suffered a puncture from the lead group and, after a very slow wheel change courtesy of a neutral service car mechanic, rejoined the Samu group behind the front men before blowing up spectacularly, an action which cost him the race. Here we use it as it was in 2006, as a pass of its own accord, but also like 2013 when it led in to the same finale like so. That's because we're lifting that 2013 finish wholesale.
The reason for this is fairly simple: I have got a really brutal stage tomorrow, and therefore the only way to ensure action today with riders not saving themselves for tomorrow and/or stages to come later in the race, is to make this one a mountaintop finish, and the fact that this mountaintop is so brutal that drafting ceasing to be of great importance doesn't half assist in that respect, as the hellacious gradients of the climb to the Alto de Hazallanas will ensure at least some semblance of time gaps on this stage. The climb is known to most traceurs, because proper use of the Sierra Nevada is something that almost all traceurs wish Javier Guillén could do. The climb is of course this monstrosity, only we only climb the first 17km, until the junction marked El Dornajo.
The reason for not climbing the full length of the climb us two-fold. Firstly, by having the steepest gradients closer to the finish it means gaps do not have time to be negated, and also because it means that attacks on those steeper gradients are incentivized because there's less chance of losing them again after the steepest part. And secondly, because it means I still have the Sierra Nevada on the cards by all of its different routes for future Vueltas.
In the 9km or so from Güéjar Sierra to the Alto de Hazallanas, gradients are brutal and the overall 17km at 6% doesn't really tell the story because of the short descent. There are 5km averaging 11% in the middle of this, which were recently resurfaced allowing the Vuelta to investigate the area in 2013, leading to the brutal stage won by Horner mentioned above. The climb was brought back in 2015, surprisingly in the pre-season warmup race the Ruta del Sol; it seems a surprisingly brutal ascent for a February race, but nevertheless it saw some exciting action as Alberto Contador triumphed over Froome before Froome wrestled control of the race back from his Spanish adversary on the Alto de Allanadas outside La Guardia de Jaén. It's also a favoured off-season rollerski training climb for Spanish biathlete and cross country skier Victoria Padial Hernández, who is clearly more of a masochist than most, although in fairness being based out of Granada makes it pretty accessible. Not having to go all the way to the top is also helpful as of course you can take the traditional side via the A-380 to descend back to the city
This stage is almost certainly going to be all about that final 10km on the first ESP-category climb of the Vuelta. Also here it comes at the beginning of a block of mountains whereas in 2013 it came at the end (after Peñas Blancas and the punchy finish at Valdepeñas de Jaen), so the dynamic of the race is likely to be different coming in too. The GC leaders will want to save something for tomorrow, but they won't want to waste their opportunities today, aand so I envisage this being raced hard on the final climb.
- Feb 20, 2010
- 32,650
- 14,602
- 28,180
Stage 9: Berja - Observatório Astronómico de Cálar Alto, 238km
GPM:
Puerto de Santillana (cat.1) 18,0km @ 4,8%
Puerto de Escúllar (cat.1) 27,1km @ 4,5%
Observatório Astronómico de Cálar Alto por Tijola (cat.ESP) 31,8km @ 4,6%
Observatório Astronómico de Cálar Alto por Gergál (cat.ESP) 22,8km @ 6,3%
The reason for such a steep mountaintop finish on stage 8 is revealed, as we have an early queen stage in the Vuelta, and probably the hardest stage I've included in any of my Vuelta routes (a possible exception for the Teide stage in the second, but that only had three major climbs - just that those were Izaña and Teide, both of which are over 40km long). I've had harder stages perhaps - the Aosta stage in my second Tour route, for example - but this is perhaps the most brutal Vuelta stage I've put forward that is also realistically achievable given the consideration of the race when it comes to entering into the organizational headache that is a trip to the Canary Islands; the race indeed has only done it once, back in 1988, with two stages on Tenerife and one on Gran Canaria and, as it was the first three stages of the race, limited use of the terrain available. Thoughts have been put forward for around the last decade to bring the race back, probably for the race finish, which have picked up steam since the 2014 Vuelta elected not to finish in Madrid as has become traditional, and 2017 was mooted, although those rumours have gone quiet again, presumably as they may wish to start in Madrid if ending so far afield and with the capital missing out in 2014 and the 2017 start in Nîmes already confirmed, the oft-delayed plans are put back once more.
Anyway, I digress. This stage is a brute, a 200+km multi-mountain odyssey with HC climbs of a character seldom seen in the Vuelta - long, grinding and also including some high altitude (indeed, the Cima Alberto Fernández is in this stage as Cálar Alto is the highest point the riders will reach - I will give out that prize, with its additional mountains points as well, for the FIRST passage of Cálar Alto in order to incentivize aggression). These climbs in the Cordillera Penibética are perhaps the closest in character that Spain has to the great Alpine passes; obviously the Pyrenean passes are Pyrenean (although the Catalan side features many more gradual ascents, there are plenty of passes and summits like the Coll de Pal, Cerler and some of the Andorran ascents that reflect the character of the classic Pyrenean ascents from the Tour) but the climbs of the Sierra de Madrid are comparatively limited in scale and connectivity, while the mountains of Asturias, Cantabria and Galicia are lower in altitude and build their difficulty primarily in steepness and inconsistency, while the even lower Basque mountains are a whole other level in steepness and inconsistency themselves. Therefore, this kind of long, drawn out, rhythmic climbing is something that the Vuelta doesn't see too often these days. Not that these climbs are super consistent, as we will see.
Today's stage start town, Berja, is on the western tip of the Provincia de Almería, and has just under 15.000 inhabitants. Nearly abandoned after the Morisco revolt, it was a relatively isolated village on the edges of the Sierra de Gádor until the 19th century, when the arrival of lead mining in the town resulted in expansion, and while the lead mines have since closed, the opening of a solar plant has kept the town developing. It hosted the Vuelta in 2009, when it served the same purpose as today, the start of a brutal mountain stage - then the queen stage to Sierra Nevada via El Purche won by David Moncoutié as mentioned in the last stage in a stage which had perhaps the single biggest responsibility for the overall GC, with Evans and Sánchez dropped, the former in unfortunate circumstances but then blowing himself up in the chase. Had he not won the 2011 Tour, this would probably still be discussed to this day, in that, because Samu was dropped and they didn't want to let him back, the other heads of state did not offer Cadel the courtesy of waiting, and Evans in his panic worked far too hard in the chase, pulling Samu who was doing a Sastre job, so that when Evans broke, Samu was able to actually pull time back to the Mosquera-Gesink-Basso-Valverde group but Cuddles lost significant time. In that stage, ignore the categorization, the Puerto de la Ragua from the south is a clear ESP (25km @ 6%!). Also, because the Vuelta is inconsistent with its mountains classification and has grown more so, being very stingy in some mountain stages with uncategorized ascents, and very generous in others (granting climbs like Cumbre del Sol and the Alto del Cordal cat.1 status) I have elected to use the Alto de Alcolea (erroneously called the Alto de Berja in that 2009 stage) but not categorize it, because unlike in 2009 when they undercategorized La Ragua as a result, it doesn't cover up for the lack of mountain points elsewhere; plus also I wanted to offer a potentially dangerous opening to the stage that will enable a very strong breakaway to form, because this is probably the toughest "no puntable" climb in the race - we start with the final 8km of this - yes, that's 8km at just under 5% going uncategorized. Not as crazy as some of the uncategorized climbs in the Giro, but still.
The idea of this early part of the stage is a strong breakaway despite the lack of incentive in the form of mountain points for this particular climb; the fact is, however, there are a lot of mountain points available today - 55 in all (10 for each cat.1, 20 for the first pass of Cálar Alto and 15 for the finish) so it will be a key day for those riders targeting that classification to get up the road, especially for GC-outsider candidates like Fraile who will need to collect as much as possible early on knowing that when the wick is lit behind he's not likely to be picking up those points from the bunch. The plateau after the Alto de Alcolea is broken up by another short climb, the Cerro de Miranda which would potentially be a cat.3 climb elsewhere as well, although it isn't all that tough, a mostly consistent 5,5% which looks much tougher on the profile thanks to the stage's length, but will also help break up the rhythm because there's a lot of climbing being done even before the "real" climbing begins.
The first "real" climb of the day begins after a little under 40km of undulation, and is a long and winding climb over the shoulder of the Sierra de Gádor called the Puerto de Santillana. It has, surprisingly, never been used by the Vuelta a España, although the Ruta del Sol has occasionally utilized the climb with the higher altitude neighbours like La Ragua being questionable in terms of access in February. It is a climb which essentially amounts to 11km at just under 6%, then a short flat and descent, then a coda of 5km at 5,5% to bring the riders to its summit - you can see from the profile that it's not the toughest climb you'll ever see, but at nearly 20km in length and with some serious climbing going on this is definitely a valid cat.1; you could probably give it cat.1 just for the climb to Tices, before that final stretch to the summit. The descent is sometimes steep and extremely technical during this part, so the riders will have to fight well to keep all together in the bunch, as I'm sure the red jersey will be on the shoulders of a GC-candidate climber at this point unless a break was given a huge amount of leeway in the stages between Zamora and yesterday (I'm expecting the sprinters will have wanted Ciudad Real as well, so leaving us with the Valverde del Fresno and Andújar breakaway stages) so their team will be wanting to pressurise others while still knowing they have energy to save given the amount of climbing to come.
At the base of the descent comes an intermediate sprint in Abla, but after this it's back uphill again for another little-heralded gem of a climb whose statistics bear a lie to its difficulty. PRC has done an excellent feature on the possibilities that this hidden threat poses for the Vuelta; as you can see from the profile, although the average being 4,5% suggests relatively mild climbing, this one has some steps at the start and end; this disguises the fact that in the middle of the climb (beginning at km 8) there are 16km averaging 5,9% and including ramps of up to 10%. The Altimetrias page on the climb also includes some photographs and description for those who can read Spanish - this is a real cat.1 all right. PRC compare it to the south face of Galibier.
Surprisingly, this potential great has only been climbed a measly once by the Vuelta, and even then it was from its easier northern side, in 2011's Baza to Sierra Nevada stage in the middle of week 1 and erroneously dubbed "Sierra de los Filabres", which is actually the entire range that it stands on, not the climb (although it does also go by the name of Puerto de Padilla). Koen de Kort was first to the summit. After this long and gradual descent, however, there's the longest stretch of respite of the entire day, which several riders will surely welcome - 30km of flat and rolling terrain with a gradual downhill rest section that leads us into the small town of Tijola... and this is where it gets really tough.
Somewhat disappointingly, the Vuelta has never climbed Cálar Alto from its brutal north eastern side via Tijola in full. The 2004 and 2006 stages climbed Velefique then joined the Tijola side at the junction marked Bacares on that profile, so keeping the steepest section, the 6km at 9,1% that leads to the Collado del Ramal, but did not climb the first part, before the same finish as I have used. In 2009's Velefique stage the riders climbed the "normal" north face, from Serón, after descending into Tijola from the Puerto de Velefique, and though the summit was named Alto de Cálar Alto they actually only passed the Collado Venta Luisa, just below the observatory. I could have made the stage slightly shorter by taking the Serón route, but it does cut out some of the toughest climbing, and I preferred to use the Tijola side because of its brutal inconsistency, which PRC compares - not without reason - to another multi-stepped monstrosity, the Col de la Croix de Fer from Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne. That section of 6km at over 9% includes a dozen different ramps of over 10% and a max gradient of 17%; therefore even though the climb crests at 57km from the line, I expect to see some action here as there will be a lot of people suffering, and also from the escape the race for the Cima Alberto Fernández and its highest level of mountain points will be a gamble to take; the final 3km from the Collado Venta Luisa to the observatory are the same from every side but one (the one we're descending) and so the riders will get a chance to get their first look at the finish with a kilometre at 9,5% and a ramp of 14% before it eases up for a couple of kilometres with even some flat in there before a final 500m that ramp back up with a max of 10% shortly before the line.
A long and winding descent via the climb's most consistent and least threatening face deposits us back on the south side of the Sierra de los Filabres, and now the riders are on firmer territory for the Vuelta, as the rest of the stage follows the template that was set in 2004, when the climb was introduced to the race for the very first time, and copied in 2006, of descending into Gergál and then climbing the final, destructive side of the climb, the steepest overall and most classic HC climbing side - a real long brute of 22,8km averaging 6,3%.
The steepest section is 9km averaging a little inside of 8% before the flattening out at Venta Luisa, but given that we're well over 200km into the stage and over two cat.1 and an ESP category climb before we get here, the bunch should be shredded, especially if the heat of Almería plays a role (the riders may well be thankful for the altitude in the circumstances, although that's another factor as the Vuelta features very few 2000m+ summit finishes). It's crazy to me that this area has gone mostly ignored for seven years following the three stages in five years after its introduction, just as it's crazy to me that it took the race until 2004 to discover the area considering the German-Spanish collaboration that led to the opening of the observatory began all the way back in 1970, before the Vuelta even really did mountaintop finishes, and was completed in 1975. But discover it they did, which we should all be happy for. Francisco Lara was the first to cross its summit, from the breakaway in the section from Bacares to the observatory as mentioned above, but the first to win here, climbing from Gergál, was Roberto Heras, en route to his record-equalling third Vuelta, in a brutal demonstration on the final climb of the day. Interestingly, second place went to a relatively unknown Phonak rider who had been losing time being only there-or-thereabouts in the race to that point; by the time a week had passed, however, everybody out there knew the name Santiago Pérez, as he staged one of the most remarkable week 3 comebacks ever despite being a rank outsider with a limited palmarès to that point. It's not for nothing that this was the name on everybody's lips when Froome emerged in 2011, as his palmarès to that point was similarly sparse - moments of promise punctuating much anonymity and keeping him in the team's consideration, but without the expectation of his suddenly turning into a GT behemoth. Of course, unlike Froome's, there's no fairytale ending to Santi's story, and after being hounded from the top level following homologous blood transfusions he returned in 2007 with Relax-GAM and their Puerto exiles, before quietly leaving the sport after a few years in Portugal punctuated only by occasionally showcasing what might have been in his quests to win his local race, the Vuelta a Asturias, during its most notorious period.
In 2006, of course, the climb was back, with the Vuelta's sometimes excessive tradition for copying something that worked in full force - the exact stage was cloned, which you can see here (split into three parts, I've only linked part 1). In the post-Puerto world of course, the péloton was very different; Heras was no longer there, the furore around his 2005 Vuelta win having brought his career to an abrupt end, with him banned at the time and of course persona non grata, the most blacklisted of the blacklisted, in the subsequent road cycling world; the legendary escalador has since been spotted in all manner of unlikely places, from cross-country MTB to Gran Fondos to the Brompton World Championships (!), but never in professional road cycling again. Santi, too, was sitting on the shelf as mentioned above. Third in 2004, Paco Mancebo, had been taken off the road by Ag2r following his name emerging in Operación Puerto as well. Therefore the first man from the 2004 Vuelta stage left standing was Alejandro Valverde, 4th on the day. 2006's stage was a good day for the Basques, with Egoi Martínez, then with Discovery Channel, taking the climb in the breakaway in his (ultimately successful, but not yet) quest to wrest the mountains jersey away from Pietro Caucchioli, and then an exciting young superdomestique in the mountains, 23-year-old Igor Antón, who was proving an invaluable hand to assist Samuel Sánchez in his bid for the podium, taking the victory ahead of an elite group of Valverde, Vino, Samu and Carlos Sastre, with Danielson trailing a couple of seconds later carried by Triki Beltrán. It was the one time Kash was truly, comprehensively dropped, too, losing over a minute to the other GC men after doing his job as Bonnie Parker to Vino's Clyde Barrow.
And then, apart from that passage in the 2009 stage to Velefique, the climb - from all of its sides - has been unused. Even I have only used it once in my Vuelta designs - in the very first one, when I cloned the Vuelta's Velefique-Cálar Alto only from the Bacares cruce. It's gone unused for too long given the options and that as a climb it has a wholly different character from so much of the Vuelta's traditional fare and could therefore create some real variety in the mountain stages, at least compared to the current vogue in the race. And a decade since it's been used means we could have some mythos built up, having only ever been won by world class pure climbers as well.
And besides, a 240km stage in this kind of brutality should mean that we get a real worthy winner and we really find out who the contenders are for the race...
GPM:
Puerto de Santillana (cat.1) 18,0km @ 4,8%
Puerto de Escúllar (cat.1) 27,1km @ 4,5%
Observatório Astronómico de Cálar Alto por Tijola (cat.ESP) 31,8km @ 4,6%
Observatório Astronómico de Cálar Alto por Gergál (cat.ESP) 22,8km @ 6,3%
The reason for such a steep mountaintop finish on stage 8 is revealed, as we have an early queen stage in the Vuelta, and probably the hardest stage I've included in any of my Vuelta routes (a possible exception for the Teide stage in the second, but that only had three major climbs - just that those were Izaña and Teide, both of which are over 40km long). I've had harder stages perhaps - the Aosta stage in my second Tour route, for example - but this is perhaps the most brutal Vuelta stage I've put forward that is also realistically achievable given the consideration of the race when it comes to entering into the organizational headache that is a trip to the Canary Islands; the race indeed has only done it once, back in 1988, with two stages on Tenerife and one on Gran Canaria and, as it was the first three stages of the race, limited use of the terrain available. Thoughts have been put forward for around the last decade to bring the race back, probably for the race finish, which have picked up steam since the 2014 Vuelta elected not to finish in Madrid as has become traditional, and 2017 was mooted, although those rumours have gone quiet again, presumably as they may wish to start in Madrid if ending so far afield and with the capital missing out in 2014 and the 2017 start in Nîmes already confirmed, the oft-delayed plans are put back once more.
Anyway, I digress. This stage is a brute, a 200+km multi-mountain odyssey with HC climbs of a character seldom seen in the Vuelta - long, grinding and also including some high altitude (indeed, the Cima Alberto Fernández is in this stage as Cálar Alto is the highest point the riders will reach - I will give out that prize, with its additional mountains points as well, for the FIRST passage of Cálar Alto in order to incentivize aggression). These climbs in the Cordillera Penibética are perhaps the closest in character that Spain has to the great Alpine passes; obviously the Pyrenean passes are Pyrenean (although the Catalan side features many more gradual ascents, there are plenty of passes and summits like the Coll de Pal, Cerler and some of the Andorran ascents that reflect the character of the classic Pyrenean ascents from the Tour) but the climbs of the Sierra de Madrid are comparatively limited in scale and connectivity, while the mountains of Asturias, Cantabria and Galicia are lower in altitude and build their difficulty primarily in steepness and inconsistency, while the even lower Basque mountains are a whole other level in steepness and inconsistency themselves. Therefore, this kind of long, drawn out, rhythmic climbing is something that the Vuelta doesn't see too often these days. Not that these climbs are super consistent, as we will see.
Today's stage start town, Berja, is on the western tip of the Provincia de Almería, and has just under 15.000 inhabitants. Nearly abandoned after the Morisco revolt, it was a relatively isolated village on the edges of the Sierra de Gádor until the 19th century, when the arrival of lead mining in the town resulted in expansion, and while the lead mines have since closed, the opening of a solar plant has kept the town developing. It hosted the Vuelta in 2009, when it served the same purpose as today, the start of a brutal mountain stage - then the queen stage to Sierra Nevada via El Purche won by David Moncoutié as mentioned in the last stage in a stage which had perhaps the single biggest responsibility for the overall GC, with Evans and Sánchez dropped, the former in unfortunate circumstances but then blowing himself up in the chase. Had he not won the 2011 Tour, this would probably still be discussed to this day, in that, because Samu was dropped and they didn't want to let him back, the other heads of state did not offer Cadel the courtesy of waiting, and Evans in his panic worked far too hard in the chase, pulling Samu who was doing a Sastre job, so that when Evans broke, Samu was able to actually pull time back to the Mosquera-Gesink-Basso-Valverde group but Cuddles lost significant time. In that stage, ignore the categorization, the Puerto de la Ragua from the south is a clear ESP (25km @ 6%!). Also, because the Vuelta is inconsistent with its mountains classification and has grown more so, being very stingy in some mountain stages with uncategorized ascents, and very generous in others (granting climbs like Cumbre del Sol and the Alto del Cordal cat.1 status) I have elected to use the Alto de Alcolea (erroneously called the Alto de Berja in that 2009 stage) but not categorize it, because unlike in 2009 when they undercategorized La Ragua as a result, it doesn't cover up for the lack of mountain points elsewhere; plus also I wanted to offer a potentially dangerous opening to the stage that will enable a very strong breakaway to form, because this is probably the toughest "no puntable" climb in the race - we start with the final 8km of this - yes, that's 8km at just under 5% going uncategorized. Not as crazy as some of the uncategorized climbs in the Giro, but still.
The idea of this early part of the stage is a strong breakaway despite the lack of incentive in the form of mountain points for this particular climb; the fact is, however, there are a lot of mountain points available today - 55 in all (10 for each cat.1, 20 for the first pass of Cálar Alto and 15 for the finish) so it will be a key day for those riders targeting that classification to get up the road, especially for GC-outsider candidates like Fraile who will need to collect as much as possible early on knowing that when the wick is lit behind he's not likely to be picking up those points from the bunch. The plateau after the Alto de Alcolea is broken up by another short climb, the Cerro de Miranda which would potentially be a cat.3 climb elsewhere as well, although it isn't all that tough, a mostly consistent 5,5% which looks much tougher on the profile thanks to the stage's length, but will also help break up the rhythm because there's a lot of climbing being done even before the "real" climbing begins.
The first "real" climb of the day begins after a little under 40km of undulation, and is a long and winding climb over the shoulder of the Sierra de Gádor called the Puerto de Santillana. It has, surprisingly, never been used by the Vuelta a España, although the Ruta del Sol has occasionally utilized the climb with the higher altitude neighbours like La Ragua being questionable in terms of access in February. It is a climb which essentially amounts to 11km at just under 6%, then a short flat and descent, then a coda of 5km at 5,5% to bring the riders to its summit - you can see from the profile that it's not the toughest climb you'll ever see, but at nearly 20km in length and with some serious climbing going on this is definitely a valid cat.1; you could probably give it cat.1 just for the climb to Tices, before that final stretch to the summit. The descent is sometimes steep and extremely technical during this part, so the riders will have to fight well to keep all together in the bunch, as I'm sure the red jersey will be on the shoulders of a GC-candidate climber at this point unless a break was given a huge amount of leeway in the stages between Zamora and yesterday (I'm expecting the sprinters will have wanted Ciudad Real as well, so leaving us with the Valverde del Fresno and Andújar breakaway stages) so their team will be wanting to pressurise others while still knowing they have energy to save given the amount of climbing to come.
At the base of the descent comes an intermediate sprint in Abla, but after this it's back uphill again for another little-heralded gem of a climb whose statistics bear a lie to its difficulty. PRC has done an excellent feature on the possibilities that this hidden threat poses for the Vuelta; as you can see from the profile, although the average being 4,5% suggests relatively mild climbing, this one has some steps at the start and end; this disguises the fact that in the middle of the climb (beginning at km 8) there are 16km averaging 5,9% and including ramps of up to 10%. The Altimetrias page on the climb also includes some photographs and description for those who can read Spanish - this is a real cat.1 all right. PRC compare it to the south face of Galibier.
Surprisingly, this potential great has only been climbed a measly once by the Vuelta, and even then it was from its easier northern side, in 2011's Baza to Sierra Nevada stage in the middle of week 1 and erroneously dubbed "Sierra de los Filabres", which is actually the entire range that it stands on, not the climb (although it does also go by the name of Puerto de Padilla). Koen de Kort was first to the summit. After this long and gradual descent, however, there's the longest stretch of respite of the entire day, which several riders will surely welcome - 30km of flat and rolling terrain with a gradual downhill rest section that leads us into the small town of Tijola... and this is where it gets really tough.
Somewhat disappointingly, the Vuelta has never climbed Cálar Alto from its brutal north eastern side via Tijola in full. The 2004 and 2006 stages climbed Velefique then joined the Tijola side at the junction marked Bacares on that profile, so keeping the steepest section, the 6km at 9,1% that leads to the Collado del Ramal, but did not climb the first part, before the same finish as I have used. In 2009's Velefique stage the riders climbed the "normal" north face, from Serón, after descending into Tijola from the Puerto de Velefique, and though the summit was named Alto de Cálar Alto they actually only passed the Collado Venta Luisa, just below the observatory. I could have made the stage slightly shorter by taking the Serón route, but it does cut out some of the toughest climbing, and I preferred to use the Tijola side because of its brutal inconsistency, which PRC compares - not without reason - to another multi-stepped monstrosity, the Col de la Croix de Fer from Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne. That section of 6km at over 9% includes a dozen different ramps of over 10% and a max gradient of 17%; therefore even though the climb crests at 57km from the line, I expect to see some action here as there will be a lot of people suffering, and also from the escape the race for the Cima Alberto Fernández and its highest level of mountain points will be a gamble to take; the final 3km from the Collado Venta Luisa to the observatory are the same from every side but one (the one we're descending) and so the riders will get a chance to get their first look at the finish with a kilometre at 9,5% and a ramp of 14% before it eases up for a couple of kilometres with even some flat in there before a final 500m that ramp back up with a max of 10% shortly before the line.
A long and winding descent via the climb's most consistent and least threatening face deposits us back on the south side of the Sierra de los Filabres, and now the riders are on firmer territory for the Vuelta, as the rest of the stage follows the template that was set in 2004, when the climb was introduced to the race for the very first time, and copied in 2006, of descending into Gergál and then climbing the final, destructive side of the climb, the steepest overall and most classic HC climbing side - a real long brute of 22,8km averaging 6,3%.
The steepest section is 9km averaging a little inside of 8% before the flattening out at Venta Luisa, but given that we're well over 200km into the stage and over two cat.1 and an ESP category climb before we get here, the bunch should be shredded, especially if the heat of Almería plays a role (the riders may well be thankful for the altitude in the circumstances, although that's another factor as the Vuelta features very few 2000m+ summit finishes). It's crazy to me that this area has gone mostly ignored for seven years following the three stages in five years after its introduction, just as it's crazy to me that it took the race until 2004 to discover the area considering the German-Spanish collaboration that led to the opening of the observatory began all the way back in 1970, before the Vuelta even really did mountaintop finishes, and was completed in 1975. But discover it they did, which we should all be happy for. Francisco Lara was the first to cross its summit, from the breakaway in the section from Bacares to the observatory as mentioned above, but the first to win here, climbing from Gergál, was Roberto Heras, en route to his record-equalling third Vuelta, in a brutal demonstration on the final climb of the day. Interestingly, second place went to a relatively unknown Phonak rider who had been losing time being only there-or-thereabouts in the race to that point; by the time a week had passed, however, everybody out there knew the name Santiago Pérez, as he staged one of the most remarkable week 3 comebacks ever despite being a rank outsider with a limited palmarès to that point. It's not for nothing that this was the name on everybody's lips when Froome emerged in 2011, as his palmarès to that point was similarly sparse - moments of promise punctuating much anonymity and keeping him in the team's consideration, but without the expectation of his suddenly turning into a GT behemoth. Of course, unlike Froome's, there's no fairytale ending to Santi's story, and after being hounded from the top level following homologous blood transfusions he returned in 2007 with Relax-GAM and their Puerto exiles, before quietly leaving the sport after a few years in Portugal punctuated only by occasionally showcasing what might have been in his quests to win his local race, the Vuelta a Asturias, during its most notorious period.
In 2006, of course, the climb was back, with the Vuelta's sometimes excessive tradition for copying something that worked in full force - the exact stage was cloned, which you can see here (split into three parts, I've only linked part 1). In the post-Puerto world of course, the péloton was very different; Heras was no longer there, the furore around his 2005 Vuelta win having brought his career to an abrupt end, with him banned at the time and of course persona non grata, the most blacklisted of the blacklisted, in the subsequent road cycling world; the legendary escalador has since been spotted in all manner of unlikely places, from cross-country MTB to Gran Fondos to the Brompton World Championships (!), but never in professional road cycling again. Santi, too, was sitting on the shelf as mentioned above. Third in 2004, Paco Mancebo, had been taken off the road by Ag2r following his name emerging in Operación Puerto as well. Therefore the first man from the 2004 Vuelta stage left standing was Alejandro Valverde, 4th on the day. 2006's stage was a good day for the Basques, with Egoi Martínez, then with Discovery Channel, taking the climb in the breakaway in his (ultimately successful, but not yet) quest to wrest the mountains jersey away from Pietro Caucchioli, and then an exciting young superdomestique in the mountains, 23-year-old Igor Antón, who was proving an invaluable hand to assist Samuel Sánchez in his bid for the podium, taking the victory ahead of an elite group of Valverde, Vino, Samu and Carlos Sastre, with Danielson trailing a couple of seconds later carried by Triki Beltrán. It was the one time Kash was truly, comprehensively dropped, too, losing over a minute to the other GC men after doing his job as Bonnie Parker to Vino's Clyde Barrow.
And then, apart from that passage in the 2009 stage to Velefique, the climb - from all of its sides - has been unused. Even I have only used it once in my Vuelta designs - in the very first one, when I cloned the Vuelta's Velefique-Cálar Alto only from the Bacares cruce. It's gone unused for too long given the options and that as a climb it has a wholly different character from so much of the Vuelta's traditional fare and could therefore create some real variety in the mountain stages, at least compared to the current vogue in the race. And a decade since it's been used means we could have some mythos built up, having only ever been won by world class pure climbers as well.
And besides, a 240km stage in this kind of brutality should mean that we get a real worthy winner and we really find out who the contenders are for the race...
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