Vaujany having the tradition it has, however, makes it definitely a location that should be visited. Like Monte Serra, Limoux or San Domenico, it's one of the few locations which has a great tradition primarily within women's cycling, not as women's cycling history being appended to men's cycling's history (as is the case with e.g. Madonna del Ghisallo, which has been used as an MTF in the Giro Donne a number of times, but had decades of cycling heritage before that).
Stage 13: Logroño - Jacá (Fuerte Rapitán), 231km
GPM:
Alto de Lerga (cat.3) 4,0km @ 4,5%
Alto de los Cuatro Caminos (cat.3) 6,3km @ 5,2%
Alto de San Juan de la Peña (cat.2) 12,3km @ 4,5%
Fuerte Rapitán (cat.3) 3,3km @ 8,2%
The second Friday of the race sees the péloton take on a marathon hilly stage as we transition from La Rioja, through Navarra and into Aragón ready for the penultimate weekend’s showdown. This is therefore a stage that may not do too much on its own, but its value will be seen in the coming days. This is a long, long day in the saddle which should be well over 5 hours in the saddle for the bunch, plus a bunch of uncategorised climbing.
We have another short transfer today, probably for the best for the riders given the long day ahead, as we start the stage in Logroño, the capital of the La Rioja region and pretty much the focal point for trade in the area’s most famous export, its wine. On many pilgrimage and trade routes, Logroño has been a trader’s hub for centuries and is currently home to some 200.000 people. Its name is believed to have derived from a Celtic word to mean a ford or pasing place, believed to have been because this was a popular crossing point for the river Ebro. During Roman times it was known as Vareia and so the reversion to a Celtic nomenclature is unusual and therefore has been the source of some debate. The Roman name remains in that of Varea, an outlying village which is part of the Logroño municipality. Loyal to the kings of Castile, it was granted city status as a thanks for its support in the 16th Century, and has remained a central location for trade and transit ever since.
This position as a trading centre along with its close proximity to the Basque Country - in fact the part of Álava south of the Montes Vasco is known as Rioja Alavesa - has meant that it has some ties to the region, even within its most protected identifiers, the Basque loyalist sports teams - Rubén Díaz de Cerio riding for Euskaltel, and Athletic Bilbao’s academy offshoot in Oión, close to the border with La Rioja, resulted in a number of Logroño-born players appearing for Los Leones de San Mamés, due to meeting the criteria of having been part of Basque academies and undertaken their footballing development in the region. Although the entry requirements for the Oión facility were tightened in order to more accurately reflect the team’s philosophy, some Riojan kids found their way all the way up to La Liga, with Santiago Ezquerro chief among them with over 200 appearances; David López (not to be confused with ex-Euskaltel cyclist David López, whose compliance to the self-imposed restrictions of his own Basque team were rather more robust), José Mari and Borja Viguera are among the other jacareros to suit up for Athletic Club. Similarly, Logroño is a hotbed of pelota vasca, with a number of leading stars of recent generations in the regional sport beloved in País Vasco hailing from the province, many of whom in recent years under the influence of the timeless, ageless champion Augusto Ibáñez Sacristán, better known by his pelota nom de guerre, Titin III, who kept playing at the highest level until almost 50 and whose visage dominates the rear wall at Logroño’s central frontón. The flip side of the “Oión loophole” is that there are also many athletes who are born in Logroño as it is the most local hospital to them, but are in fact from Álava, such as the footballer Javier Zubillaga; the most well known cyclist from the city in the current world is Sheyla Gutiérrez, who likewise came up through the Basque cycling system and has settled at Movistar, although her greatest successes came at Cylance, where she won Le Samyn des Dames and a stage of the Giro Rosa in 2017.
Logroño is also a common host of the Vuelta, being a provincial capital and close at hand to the race’s Basque homelands during the El Correo-El Pueblo Vasco days. It was introduced to the race in 1941, with Délio Rodríguez winning in the city, before being seen again in 1960 (won by Jesús Galdeano), 1962 (Ernesto Bono), 1966 (Gerben Karstens), 1967 (Rolf Wolfshohl), 1976 (Gerben Karstens again), 1978 (Bernard Hinault) and 1979 (Frans van Vlierberghe). Under Unipublic it would frequently be the closest the Basque fans would get to the race, and so would be a common sight too, appearing in 1980 (Eulalio García), 1982 (Ángel Camarillo), 1983 (Eric Vanderaerden), 1985 (Ángel Camarillo again) and 1986 (Alfonso Gutiérrez). The entry into the race’s fashion of Valdezcaray and Cruz de la Demanda in the late 80s meant Logroño was relegated to stage start duty in 1988, 1990 (this was a historical curio, as the Vuelta being the first GT in those days meant that Uwe Raab’s stage wins here predate Olaf Ludwig in the Tour; Raab won the stage from Logroño to Pamplona as the second of his three wins as he became the first rider to win a GT stage representing the DDR), 1996 (Nicola Minali), 2001 (Igor González de Galdeano) and 2005 (Alessandro Petacchi), also hosting a finish in 1995 (also won by Minali) and 2007 (Óscar Freier). In recent years we have seen an execrable flat circuit race in 2012 and 2014 (both won by John Degenkolb), an ITT in 2017 won by Chris Froome, and a stage start for the Moncalvillo MTF in 2020.
Here, we’re back on stage start duty, and we start almost immediately by traversing the Ebro and heading into Navarra, in which we will spend much of the stage. We avoid a lot of the somewhat tempting sterrato around southern Navarra, instead riders will be thankful to learn that much of this first 80km is pretty much flat or at most rolling, although there is a short and steep uncategorised ramp into the pretty hilltop town of Lerín; this served as a hilltop finish in the 2006 edition of the Vuelta al País Vasco with Samuel Sánchez outsprinting Davide Rebellin and Alberto Contador. This leads us in to our first categorised climb, and it’s not very threatening, although it is longer than that would suggest as there’s a good amount of uphill required to get into San Martín de Unx in the first place - although none of it especially steep.
We next have an uncategorised climb - 1,3km @ 5,7% - over the Alto de Javier, before passing through the town of the same name. It only has a population of a little over a hundred today, but I have put the intermediate sprint here for historical purposes, as this is the home of the Castillo de Javier, a 10th Century castle which was a stronghold of the Kingdom of Navarre after its capture in the 12th Century, and later became the birthplace of 16th Century theologian and missionary San Francisco Javier. The town’s name was actually a bastardisation attempting to Romanise the local dialectal version of the Basque compound word “etxebarria”, or “new house”; this has then been back-borrowed into Basque itself. The old Spanish form current at the time was “Xavier”, the version that has become current is “Javier” and the Basque form is “Xabier”. The veneration of San Francisco Javier in Spain and France is what bequeaths us Xavier, Javier and all of its associated forms as a given name, in fact. The family had defended the castle against Spanish incursion for many years and therefore it was partially destroyed during Francisco’s childhood, but it has since been restored.
Javier is our last port of call in Navarra before we enter Aragón, opening up with a cat.3 ascent from Undués de Lerda to the Puerto de los Cuatro Caminos, a fairly unthreatening ascent, but it is long and sustained enough to merit categorisation, especially considering I have declined to categorise the Alto de Bagüés immediately afterward. Although there is only the two cat.3 climbs in the first 180km of this stage, there is a lot of up and down and plenty of low gradient false flat and repechos to make this one something of a struggle once we get down to business. Once we reach Puente de la Reina de Jacá, we briefly enter the valley of the Aragon river, which gives the province its name, and is home to Jacá, our nominal stage host today. Before we get there, however, we sweep to the right to head up on the most difficult climb of the day, the long drag with a sting in its tail that is the ascent to the Monastério de San Juan de la Peña.
Much like the better-known-to-cycling-enthusiasts Covadonga, the Real Monastério de San Juan de la Peña is carved in part into the enormous rock face that overhangs the building complex. The original monastery was built in 920AD, joined the Benedictine order around a century later, and became one of the most important Aragonese monasteries for several centuries. It was badly damaged in a fire in 1675, whereupon a new monastery building was added. Both constructions are now national monuments, so this is a good stop off point for the Património Cultural crew. It also gives its name to the Crónica Pinatense, a chronicle of the history of Aragón written by the monks at the behest of Pedro IV.
The overall statistics of the climb are not that imposing - averaging only four and a half percent - but this is somewhat misleading as it starts with false flat and incorporates around a kilometre and a half of descent; the last 7,8km averaging 5,8%, the first 5km of that averaging 6,6%; the last 800m of the ascent proper average some 10,3% to give it that final little additional kick of a challenge and earn that cat.2 status. 32km still remain at the summit, so it may be a good springboard if the GC men decide to let the break have 20 minutes up the road, like the Córdoba stage in 2009 or the Dantxarinea stage in 2016, but for the GC men, they are likely to leave it until the last 3km to have their battle, which is fair enough given what is coming in the ensuing stages.
There’s no more flat to worry about either if a rider does want to make a move, even if there’s plenty of false flat, descending, digs and repechos. The descent certainly isn’t steep and then we have the climb to the Puerto de Oroel from Bernués, which is more of an annoyance than anything else, averaging a meagre 1,7%, but with many an irritating false flat section, before its descent begins 13km from the line. This is at a steady 6km at 5%, and takes us to our (very) late second intermediate sprint, in the city of Jacá.
An ancient fort town on the Aragón river, the Kingdom of Aragón has its formative development around the city of Jacá, so despite its meagre population of 13.000, it has an important role in Spanish history for that reason. The current fortifications are largely medieval, as is the cathedral, but the most dramatic part of its military imagery, its magnificent five-point star citadel, is much more recent, dating to the 16th Century. It was also the site of an uprising in 1930 which demanded the abolition of the Spanish crown and was one of the seeds of what would later become the Spanish Civil War.
In the latter Franco era and beyond, Jacá has been a city transformed seasonally from a hidden away, peaceful valley town to a bustling winter sport city, used as the main access point for the ski resorts of Astún and Formigal’s various arms such as Anayet and Sarrios, as well as the Nordic centre at Candanchú - Spain’s largest such centre, and the only IBU-accredited biathlon venue in the country - Canfranc-Estación and the spas of Baños de Panticosa. Massive development in the city took place to convert it to a modern resort town, in order to attempt to compete with the resorts of the French Pyrenees and the rapidly-growing Catalan resorts. Jacá has been at the forefront of trying to establish itself as the self-proclaimed winter capital of Spain, and has a high level ice rink as well as the neighbouring ski resorts. This focus led it to win the rights to host the Winter Universiade back in 1981, and it successfully stepped in as host of the event again in 1995. The optimism surrounding these events led it to perhaps overstretch its capabilities in bidding for the Winter Olympics, which by this point were long since extending beyond this type of small resort town hosting. The bids were, of course, unsuccessful, and Jacá has now - either alone or paired with another city such as Zaragoza or Barcelona - bid unsuccessfully on the Olympics four times, in 1998, 2002, 2010 and 2014, and is supposedly preparing a new bid for 2030. In the meantime, however, they have had to settle for the consolation prize of the European Youth Olympic Festival, from which a few successful figures have come - Ilka Stuhec and Bernadette Schild took first and second in the women’s Giant Slalom, future Olympic silver medallist Tim Tscharnke and Sebastian Eisenlauer won golds for Germany in the men’s 10km free and 7,5km classic respectively, Marthe Kristoffersen won silver in the 5km classic and gold in the 7,5km free in the women’s cross-country, while in the biathlon Benjamin Weger won bronze in the 10km individual and silver in the 7,5km sprint, while Germany locked out the podium in the women’s Individual with future World Cup race winner and World and Olympic medallist Miriam Gössner and future World Champion relay specialist Maren Hammerschmidt being beaten out by Anne Domeinski, whose career never managed to get to the same heights. The presence of the rink also means that Jacá has been a historic power in the embryonic sport of ice hockey in Spain, and most Spanish players to have managed to get to a wider crowd - Iván Gracia playing in Major Junior in Canada for Spokane, Juan Muñoz signing for KalPa in the Finnish Liiga and Ander Alcaine in the French Ligue Magnus - have come from CH Jacá. It has also hosted pro cycling, of course, with the 1991 Tour de France rocking up into town with Charly Mottet winning.
We finish off, however, with a little sting in the tail to make sure that the GC guys can’t just soft pedal the day and nullify the effects of the 230km stage the day before they get into the mountains, and it’s in the form of the final, nasty ramp up to Fuerte Rapitán. This climb has only been seen in pro racing the once, and it was one of the 21 hilltop finishes in the 2012 edition (an exaggeration, but honestly not that much of one). It’s not the toughest puncheur finish - in fact the maximum gradient is only about 11% - but it is all high tempo stuff until the last 300m which average over 10%. Back in 2012, Sky set their train into full operation as it was still pretty early in the race and Froome had yet to drop time to the Spanish trio, and he was at probably the best he would be all race on the stage, as he would start losing time for good at Canolich two days later. As it was, he dropped Contador and Valverde after the train did its thing and rid the bunch of the pretenders, but Joaquím Rodríguez remained glued to his wheel, and then when they got into the last 300m and they reached the steepest ramps, Purito did his thing, and Stemgazer had no answer.
My expectations for this one are that the breakaway will take it, and probably with around 10 minutes’ advantage. They will know that the stage is being handed to them, and start attacking each other on San Juan de la Peña, and then the final climb will be either Mano a Mano or survival from a small group. We’ll probably be seeing some specialist ATVs and baroudeurs in the break, the likes of Matej Mohorič, Omar Fraile, Jesús Herrada and Diego Ulissi as well as some local favourite escape artists like a Cristián Rodríguez, Fernando Barceló or Ángel Madrazo, the usual surprise artist or two who hit super form in a Vuelta like Ben King or Tomasz Marczyński a couple of years back, and maybe a couple of strong climbers who have dropped out of the GC mix or aren’t really contesting it like Marc Soler, Michael Woods or Wout Poels. Oh, and Guillaume Martin, of course. Then, a few minutes later, the GC men will arrive, and set tempo before battling out over a few seconds at the very end. Their time will come.
Stage 13: Logroño - Jacá (Fuerte Rapitán), 231km
GPM:
Alto de Lerga (cat.3) 4,0km @ 4,5%
Alto de los Cuatro Caminos (cat.3) 6,3km @ 5,2%
Alto de San Juan de la Peña (cat.2) 12,3km @ 4,5%
Fuerte Rapitán (cat.3) 3,3km @ 8,2%
The second Friday of the race sees the péloton take on a marathon hilly stage as we transition from La Rioja, through Navarra and into Aragón ready for the penultimate weekend’s showdown. This is therefore a stage that may not do too much on its own, but its value will be seen in the coming days. This is a long, long day in the saddle which should be well over 5 hours in the saddle for the bunch, plus a bunch of uncategorised climbing.
We have another short transfer today, probably for the best for the riders given the long day ahead, as we start the stage in Logroño, the capital of the La Rioja region and pretty much the focal point for trade in the area’s most famous export, its wine. On many pilgrimage and trade routes, Logroño has been a trader’s hub for centuries and is currently home to some 200.000 people. Its name is believed to have derived from a Celtic word to mean a ford or pasing place, believed to have been because this was a popular crossing point for the river Ebro. During Roman times it was known as Vareia and so the reversion to a Celtic nomenclature is unusual and therefore has been the source of some debate. The Roman name remains in that of Varea, an outlying village which is part of the Logroño municipality. Loyal to the kings of Castile, it was granted city status as a thanks for its support in the 16th Century, and has remained a central location for trade and transit ever since.
This position as a trading centre along with its close proximity to the Basque Country - in fact the part of Álava south of the Montes Vasco is known as Rioja Alavesa - has meant that it has some ties to the region, even within its most protected identifiers, the Basque loyalist sports teams - Rubén Díaz de Cerio riding for Euskaltel, and Athletic Bilbao’s academy offshoot in Oión, close to the border with La Rioja, resulted in a number of Logroño-born players appearing for Los Leones de San Mamés, due to meeting the criteria of having been part of Basque academies and undertaken their footballing development in the region. Although the entry requirements for the Oión facility were tightened in order to more accurately reflect the team’s philosophy, some Riojan kids found their way all the way up to La Liga, with Santiago Ezquerro chief among them with over 200 appearances; David López (not to be confused with ex-Euskaltel cyclist David López, whose compliance to the self-imposed restrictions of his own Basque team were rather more robust), José Mari and Borja Viguera are among the other jacareros to suit up for Athletic Club. Similarly, Logroño is a hotbed of pelota vasca, with a number of leading stars of recent generations in the regional sport beloved in País Vasco hailing from the province, many of whom in recent years under the influence of the timeless, ageless champion Augusto Ibáñez Sacristán, better known by his pelota nom de guerre, Titin III, who kept playing at the highest level until almost 50 and whose visage dominates the rear wall at Logroño’s central frontón. The flip side of the “Oión loophole” is that there are also many athletes who are born in Logroño as it is the most local hospital to them, but are in fact from Álava, such as the footballer Javier Zubillaga; the most well known cyclist from the city in the current world is Sheyla Gutiérrez, who likewise came up through the Basque cycling system and has settled at Movistar, although her greatest successes came at Cylance, where she won Le Samyn des Dames and a stage of the Giro Rosa in 2017.
Logroño is also a common host of the Vuelta, being a provincial capital and close at hand to the race’s Basque homelands during the El Correo-El Pueblo Vasco days. It was introduced to the race in 1941, with Délio Rodríguez winning in the city, before being seen again in 1960 (won by Jesús Galdeano), 1962 (Ernesto Bono), 1966 (Gerben Karstens), 1967 (Rolf Wolfshohl), 1976 (Gerben Karstens again), 1978 (Bernard Hinault) and 1979 (Frans van Vlierberghe). Under Unipublic it would frequently be the closest the Basque fans would get to the race, and so would be a common sight too, appearing in 1980 (Eulalio García), 1982 (Ángel Camarillo), 1983 (Eric Vanderaerden), 1985 (Ángel Camarillo again) and 1986 (Alfonso Gutiérrez). The entry into the race’s fashion of Valdezcaray and Cruz de la Demanda in the late 80s meant Logroño was relegated to stage start duty in 1988, 1990 (this was a historical curio, as the Vuelta being the first GT in those days meant that Uwe Raab’s stage wins here predate Olaf Ludwig in the Tour; Raab won the stage from Logroño to Pamplona as the second of his three wins as he became the first rider to win a GT stage representing the DDR), 1996 (Nicola Minali), 2001 (Igor González de Galdeano) and 2005 (Alessandro Petacchi), also hosting a finish in 1995 (also won by Minali) and 2007 (Óscar Freier). In recent years we have seen an execrable flat circuit race in 2012 and 2014 (both won by John Degenkolb), an ITT in 2017 won by Chris Froome, and a stage start for the Moncalvillo MTF in 2020.
Here, we’re back on stage start duty, and we start almost immediately by traversing the Ebro and heading into Navarra, in which we will spend much of the stage. We avoid a lot of the somewhat tempting sterrato around southern Navarra, instead riders will be thankful to learn that much of this first 80km is pretty much flat or at most rolling, although there is a short and steep uncategorised ramp into the pretty hilltop town of Lerín; this served as a hilltop finish in the 2006 edition of the Vuelta al País Vasco with Samuel Sánchez outsprinting Davide Rebellin and Alberto Contador. This leads us in to our first categorised climb, and it’s not very threatening, although it is longer than that would suggest as there’s a good amount of uphill required to get into San Martín de Unx in the first place - although none of it especially steep.
We next have an uncategorised climb - 1,3km @ 5,7% - over the Alto de Javier, before passing through the town of the same name. It only has a population of a little over a hundred today, but I have put the intermediate sprint here for historical purposes, as this is the home of the Castillo de Javier, a 10th Century castle which was a stronghold of the Kingdom of Navarre after its capture in the 12th Century, and later became the birthplace of 16th Century theologian and missionary San Francisco Javier. The town’s name was actually a bastardisation attempting to Romanise the local dialectal version of the Basque compound word “etxebarria”, or “new house”; this has then been back-borrowed into Basque itself. The old Spanish form current at the time was “Xavier”, the version that has become current is “Javier” and the Basque form is “Xabier”. The veneration of San Francisco Javier in Spain and France is what bequeaths us Xavier, Javier and all of its associated forms as a given name, in fact. The family had defended the castle against Spanish incursion for many years and therefore it was partially destroyed during Francisco’s childhood, but it has since been restored.
Javier is our last port of call in Navarra before we enter Aragón, opening up with a cat.3 ascent from Undués de Lerda to the Puerto de los Cuatro Caminos, a fairly unthreatening ascent, but it is long and sustained enough to merit categorisation, especially considering I have declined to categorise the Alto de Bagüés immediately afterward. Although there is only the two cat.3 climbs in the first 180km of this stage, there is a lot of up and down and plenty of low gradient false flat and repechos to make this one something of a struggle once we get down to business. Once we reach Puente de la Reina de Jacá, we briefly enter the valley of the Aragon river, which gives the province its name, and is home to Jacá, our nominal stage host today. Before we get there, however, we sweep to the right to head up on the most difficult climb of the day, the long drag with a sting in its tail that is the ascent to the Monastério de San Juan de la Peña.
Much like the better-known-to-cycling-enthusiasts Covadonga, the Real Monastério de San Juan de la Peña is carved in part into the enormous rock face that overhangs the building complex. The original monastery was built in 920AD, joined the Benedictine order around a century later, and became one of the most important Aragonese monasteries for several centuries. It was badly damaged in a fire in 1675, whereupon a new monastery building was added. Both constructions are now national monuments, so this is a good stop off point for the Património Cultural crew. It also gives its name to the Crónica Pinatense, a chronicle of the history of Aragón written by the monks at the behest of Pedro IV.
The overall statistics of the climb are not that imposing - averaging only four and a half percent - but this is somewhat misleading as it starts with false flat and incorporates around a kilometre and a half of descent; the last 7,8km averaging 5,8%, the first 5km of that averaging 6,6%; the last 800m of the ascent proper average some 10,3% to give it that final little additional kick of a challenge and earn that cat.2 status. 32km still remain at the summit, so it may be a good springboard if the GC men decide to let the break have 20 minutes up the road, like the Córdoba stage in 2009 or the Dantxarinea stage in 2016, but for the GC men, they are likely to leave it until the last 3km to have their battle, which is fair enough given what is coming in the ensuing stages.
There’s no more flat to worry about either if a rider does want to make a move, even if there’s plenty of false flat, descending, digs and repechos. The descent certainly isn’t steep and then we have the climb to the Puerto de Oroel from Bernués, which is more of an annoyance than anything else, averaging a meagre 1,7%, but with many an irritating false flat section, before its descent begins 13km from the line. This is at a steady 6km at 5%, and takes us to our (very) late second intermediate sprint, in the city of Jacá.
An ancient fort town on the Aragón river, the Kingdom of Aragón has its formative development around the city of Jacá, so despite its meagre population of 13.000, it has an important role in Spanish history for that reason. The current fortifications are largely medieval, as is the cathedral, but the most dramatic part of its military imagery, its magnificent five-point star citadel, is much more recent, dating to the 16th Century. It was also the site of an uprising in 1930 which demanded the abolition of the Spanish crown and was one of the seeds of what would later become the Spanish Civil War.
In the latter Franco era and beyond, Jacá has been a city transformed seasonally from a hidden away, peaceful valley town to a bustling winter sport city, used as the main access point for the ski resorts of Astún and Formigal’s various arms such as Anayet and Sarrios, as well as the Nordic centre at Candanchú - Spain’s largest such centre, and the only IBU-accredited biathlon venue in the country - Canfranc-Estación and the spas of Baños de Panticosa. Massive development in the city took place to convert it to a modern resort town, in order to attempt to compete with the resorts of the French Pyrenees and the rapidly-growing Catalan resorts. Jacá has been at the forefront of trying to establish itself as the self-proclaimed winter capital of Spain, and has a high level ice rink as well as the neighbouring ski resorts. This focus led it to win the rights to host the Winter Universiade back in 1981, and it successfully stepped in as host of the event again in 1995. The optimism surrounding these events led it to perhaps overstretch its capabilities in bidding for the Winter Olympics, which by this point were long since extending beyond this type of small resort town hosting. The bids were, of course, unsuccessful, and Jacá has now - either alone or paired with another city such as Zaragoza or Barcelona - bid unsuccessfully on the Olympics four times, in 1998, 2002, 2010 and 2014, and is supposedly preparing a new bid for 2030. In the meantime, however, they have had to settle for the consolation prize of the European Youth Olympic Festival, from which a few successful figures have come - Ilka Stuhec and Bernadette Schild took first and second in the women’s Giant Slalom, future Olympic silver medallist Tim Tscharnke and Sebastian Eisenlauer won golds for Germany in the men’s 10km free and 7,5km classic respectively, Marthe Kristoffersen won silver in the 5km classic and gold in the 7,5km free in the women’s cross-country, while in the biathlon Benjamin Weger won bronze in the 10km individual and silver in the 7,5km sprint, while Germany locked out the podium in the women’s Individual with future World Cup race winner and World and Olympic medallist Miriam Gössner and future World Champion relay specialist Maren Hammerschmidt being beaten out by Anne Domeinski, whose career never managed to get to the same heights. The presence of the rink also means that Jacá has been a historic power in the embryonic sport of ice hockey in Spain, and most Spanish players to have managed to get to a wider crowd - Iván Gracia playing in Major Junior in Canada for Spokane, Juan Muñoz signing for KalPa in the Finnish Liiga and Ander Alcaine in the French Ligue Magnus - have come from CH Jacá. It has also hosted pro cycling, of course, with the 1991 Tour de France rocking up into town with Charly Mottet winning.
We finish off, however, with a little sting in the tail to make sure that the GC guys can’t just soft pedal the day and nullify the effects of the 230km stage the day before they get into the mountains, and it’s in the form of the final, nasty ramp up to Fuerte Rapitán. This climb has only been seen in pro racing the once, and it was one of the 21 hilltop finishes in the 2012 edition (an exaggeration, but honestly not that much of one). It’s not the toughest puncheur finish - in fact the maximum gradient is only about 11% - but it is all high tempo stuff until the last 300m which average over 10%. Back in 2012, Sky set their train into full operation as it was still pretty early in the race and Froome had yet to drop time to the Spanish trio, and he was at probably the best he would be all race on the stage, as he would start losing time for good at Canolich two days later. As it was, he dropped Contador and Valverde after the train did its thing and rid the bunch of the pretenders, but Joaquím Rodríguez remained glued to his wheel, and then when they got into the last 300m and they reached the steepest ramps, Purito did his thing, and Stemgazer had no answer.
My expectations for this one are that the breakaway will take it, and probably with around 10 minutes’ advantage. They will know that the stage is being handed to them, and start attacking each other on San Juan de la Peña, and then the final climb will be either Mano a Mano or survival from a small group. We’ll probably be seeing some specialist ATVs and baroudeurs in the break, the likes of Matej Mohorič, Omar Fraile, Jesús Herrada and Diego Ulissi as well as some local favourite escape artists like a Cristián Rodríguez, Fernando Barceló or Ángel Madrazo, the usual surprise artist or two who hit super form in a Vuelta like Ben King or Tomasz Marczyński a couple of years back, and maybe a couple of strong climbers who have dropped out of the GC mix or aren’t really contesting it like Marc Soler, Michael Woods or Wout Poels. Oh, and Guillaume Martin, of course. Then, a few minutes later, the GC men will arrive, and set tempo before battling out over a few seconds at the very end. Their time will come.
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