Stage 7: Vigo - Vigo, 148km
GPM:
Monte da Groba (cat.2) 11,4km @ 5,5%
Monte Aloia (cat.1) 9,5km @ 6,3%
Alto de San Cosme (cat.2) 5,4km @ 6,8%
Alto de A Madroa (cat.2) 2,6km @ 8,0%
The final stage is around Galicia’s biggest city - and strangely is shorter and arguably easier than the amateur race that follows this route too. More on that in a bit though. We are here in Vigo, a city of around 300.000 (and around half a million in its extended metropolitan area), one of the most important economic hubs in this part of Spain and the largest city of the province. It wasn’t always thus - in fact compared to most of the traditional cities we’ve visited on this route, Vigo might even be the youngest, having only been a small village settlement until the 15th Century. Nevertheless, it was large enough to be considered a city by the late 16th, when Francis Drake attacked it in retribution for the attacks on Britain by the Spanish Armada. A few years later the Turks attempted to attack the city, and as it was a relatively new city that had not had existing fortifications built as part of its structure, Felipe IV commanded the construction of new city walls, most of which survive to this day. They were effective, but did not stop the British/Dutch alliance from successfully capturing French and Spanish vessels carrying riches and resources in the Battle of Vigo Bay in 1702, an early naval battle in the Guerra de sucesión Española. The Brits would return 17 years later and occupy the city temporarily in a show of power after a Spanish fleet used Vigo as its departure point en route to supporting the Jacobite Rebellion in Scotland. The city has grown rapidly in the 20th Century, especially under Franco as, as mentioned in the last stage, he declined to award the Industrial Development Zone title to Pontevedra despite its provincial capital status as punishment for the Galician regionalist sentiment harboured there, so Vigo was preferred. Nevertheless, the awkward geography of the city - hills to the east, sea to the west and north, and long stretches of tourist-friendly beaches well separated from the central fortifications - led to unstructured development and the city is now an odd, elongated shape having swallowed other urban areas especially to its southwest, but with most amenities concentrated in the new city centre which is to the east of the old town, with the beaches and resort facilities separated from the main body of the city by a long thin industrial strip which is undergoing redevelopment, meaning buses and lengthy walks proliferate for much of the city’s population. The post-Franco boom in regionalist sentiment and economic shifts hit Vigo hard, but it recovered well, and even saw its own equivalent of the Movida Madrileña, known as A Movida Viguesa, with the counter-cultural art and alternative music scenes of this part of the country rapidly converging on Vigo.
As can probably be imagined, as the largest city in the province, it is also the least Galego-speaking, with just 7,7% speaking exclusively Galician, and over half using Spanish only. The city has also attracted significant minority populations from Latin America, with the number of Venezuelans swelling in recent years in particular, but there are also many Portuguese and Brazilians who use their own tongue as well to obfuscate the linguistic statistics.
Vigo has a long history in the sport; it dates back in the Vuelta to 1936, when Vicente Carretero won, and has been a common stop-off point for the race ever since whenever it heads through Galicia. Other winners include Délio Rodríguez in 1941, René Vietto in 1942, Rik van Looy in 1965, Jan Janssen in 1967, António Esparza in 1987, Alfonso Gutiérrez in 1993, and Daniele Bennati in 2007. The Volta a Galicia has been coming here since its very beginning; Federico Ezquerra won there back in the first edition in 1933, when it finished the final stage, and subsequent stages to Vigo were won by the likes of Fermín Trueba (1935), Délio Rodríguez (1945), Alfonso Gutiérrez (1984), Acácio da Silva (1988), Laurent Jalabert (1995) and Gianluca Bortolami (1997) during its pro years, but it’s not been so common since the race went amateur, only appearing in 2004, 2005 and 2013, with the latter being won by Benjamí Prades, probably the highest profile of the three winners.
Do not think, however, that this means Vigo is appearing less in cycling. It has hosted a lot of its own one-day races too. The first dates back to 1940, won by Délio Rodríguez, and brought back in the late 50s when Rik van Looy was the most prominent victor. In 2001, a smaller one-day race, the GP Cidade de Vigo, was introduced, being over around 150km in late August after the Volta a Portugal, and running until 2006 as a pro race (highest profile winner being the inaugural victor, Pavel Brutt), before going amateur from 2007 to 2019, with winners including veterans of the scene like José António de Segovia and Ángel Vallejo, and Venezuelan exile Leangel Linárez. From 2004 to 2007 there was also a parallel one-day race that ran the day before, making it a weekend of racing in the city, with Jacek Morajko the most prominent winner. A new version of this diptych was set up from 2012 to 2019, and winners of the new version included Frederico Figueiredo in 2012, Marino Kobayashi in 2015 and, then, they reintroduced it in 2021 when another Venezuelan import, Ricardo Zurita, won. It also hosted a stage of the GP Paredes Rota dos Movéis in 2007 and a stage of O Gran Camiño in 2022, with Magnus Cort victorious. There have been a few other iterations of criterium races over the years, most notably in the 1980s when Jesús Blanco and Alfonso Gutiérrez won multiple times. The most recent introduction is the Vigo Copa de España race which was introduced in 2021 and features a steep and dramatic climb to A Madroa as a Flèche Wallonne styled finale. It’s a different side of A Madroa than I am using later, but this is a pretty tough - and over 180km makes it long and difficult for the amateur calendar - race.
2023’s race was won by Guatemalan prospect Sérgio Chumil, ahead of young Finisher (Movistar feeder) rider Hugo Aznar and Telco’m leader Marc Cabedo, you can see the full stream here:
Vigo is also an area being developed for its tourist potential by modern Spanish and Galician governments; the airport is being expanded to deal with more budget flights, and also as a gateway for northern Portugal. The city also has a warmer climate than most of Galicia, thanks primarily to the Ría de Vigo being better protected from the winds across the Atlantic by the premier tourist attraction for the city, this being the Illas Cíes, or the Cíes Islands, a scenic archipelago that is home to a number of rare birds and plants, with its waters bountiful with dolphins and turtles, and which is only accessible in summer via ferry from Vigo and a couple of other smaller towns. The number of visitors is strictly limited; there is one campsite but tickets can only be booked from the port in Vigo, and ferry purchasers must also obtain a QR code to be scanned to show they have been booked in through the official channels. It has been a natural park since 1980 and is very strictly protected - no bins exist on the island, even in the bar/cafe at the harbour, so all rubbish must be brought back to the mainland. The terrain is manageable even for novice hikers, and the beaches are some of the best in Spain, thanks to the protected status and strict enforcement of rules around numbers and behaviours.
While the beaches of the Illas Cíes may be the most dramatic, it’s not like the mainland doesn’t have options, and we will actually be starting from Praia de Samil, the largest and most popular urban beach in the city, to the west of the city centre. We will hug the coastline for the first part of the stage, for around 20km until we arrive at Baiona, base of our first climb of the day - and our most gradual, although it has been a mountaintop finish in no less a race than the Vuelta a España, back in 2013 when Nicolas Roche won to take the red jersey. It’s a scenic climb with amazing views down to the coast, but it’s not the hardest climb you’ll ever see. Descending from here takes us down to the banks of the Minho, which serves as the border between Spain and Portugal for this part of the country, strangely where there is something of a narrow river crossing as opposed to the wider Rías further north. We follow the river round to Tui, known as Tuy in its Spanish form for the Franco era, connected to the Portuguese town of Valença by two bridges and the capital of O Baixo Miño comarca and an occasional host of the Volta a Galicia, with stages won by Íñaki Gastón in 1987, Álvaro Pino in 1988 and Frank van den Abeele in 1991. The second half of the stage is much heavier and harder for the riders, however.
While the real life race climbs Monte Aloia from the main road route, we take a smaller alternative via the Alto de San Fins. On the raw stats it seems longer and less steep but those stats only tell half the story. The regular route is 7,1km @ 7,8%, while our version is 9,5km @ 6,3% - but, that’s with a kilometre of descent in it. The final 3km of the Alto de San Fins average 10,7%, including two 20% ramps and at one point 450m averaging 16%. After the descent there is a final 2,7km at 7,5% with a toughest stretch of 590m at 9,5%. I’ve given it cat,1 for the overall climb but it could be arguably cat.2. However I’d almost certainly give San Fins in and of itself cat.2 so adding that final ramp I felt merited the cat.1 status. It crests 51km from home so it’s not super obviously an attack platform, but it’s the last day so we could see hell break loose.
We then have a 12km descent down via Chenlo to Mosende, and then in to a second meta volante in O Porriño, home of the architect António Palacios and host of a couple of stages of the Volta a Galicia; Gianni Bugno is the most prominent winner here, winning a stage in 1993 ahead of Johan Bruyneel. It has been used a couple of times in the amateur era too, with Fernando Torres winning here in 2002, Dmitry Puzanov and Asier Estévez in 2009, and Francisco Campos in 2016. This then serves as the base of the penultimate ascent of the race, the Alto de San Cosme. This is a stop-off on the tougher route to Mirador de Herbille, which served as the final HTF in the 2021 Vuelta a España, a dramatic stage which had drastic impact on the GC, though none as significant as Miguel Ángel López, 3rd on GC two days from the finish, having a disagreement with his team car, team manager Eusebio Unzué personally intervening, and causing López to get off and quit the race in full view of TV cameras in dramatic style. As a result, though, it means that some of the challenge of the climb gets a bit overlooked. That 2km at 11,2% toward the end of the climb is going to have some action I would suspect. Although again, 38km remain at the summit.
Then, however, we are descending back down toward Vigo itself and we will finish with one and a half laps of a 21km circuit. This circuit could have been a bit shorter but the attempt was deliberate to make the climbs a bit further out so that they would not be the be all and end all, as well as to give us a safe run-in what with the hilly profile of the Casco Vello and O Castro parts of town. We actually arrive at the town via the Porta do Atlántico, or Gateway to the Atlantic, a sculpture and fountain on a large roundabout in the new town. From here we head into Coia, a former industrial area undergoing rapid redevelopment as it helps connect the old town of Vigo to the beach areas to the west, as well as to the port area at Bouzas. We will head down to the waterfront road - although it’s not really a waterfront road at this stage because the Puerto Pesqueiro rather obstructs the view.
Puerto Pesqueiro is in the middle; in the foreground, the short distance ferry port, and in the background the cargo port
Casco Vello
It’s a very straight run-in until we get to the Casco Vello, where we head around Praza do Berbés and past the A Laxe shopping mall, turning right at the tourist ferry boat port which sends tourist boats across to the Illas Cíes, with a handful of right-angle turns as we head through the newer centre of town, with a final left hand curve at the entrance to the Casco Histórico, then we have a final 800m which is on an uphill drag at 4% up to Praza Fernando el Católico, near to the recently-redeveloped Urzaiz train station, now the Vialia Centre.
The first 5km or so of the circuit are just flat along a road at the bottom of the ridge until we get to the outlying district of Chapela. The side of A Madroa that we are climbing, from Chapela through Parada… is pretty brutal and País Vasco-tastic. The overall stats of 2,6km at 8% don’t sound too bad… but… the last kilometre of that barely averages above 1%. The first kilometre, by contrast, averages 13,7%, with 800m at 16,2% as the steepest part of the climb, and a maximum gradient of an eye-watering 26%. Overall the first 1600m average 12% and the summit of the climb (i.e. at Vigozoo, after the kilometre or so of false flat) comes at 13km from the line so this should be pretty selective. According to this article, this is the steepest road in the Vigo metropolitan area, so this should definitely be able to create some separation.
Subida a Buraca
We then descend through the Rua do Areeiro back into the city’s confines, but although we arrive above the station and so we aren’t going to descend directly down past what we already climbed, that would not work. So instead we head around Castelo do Castro, the hilltop ruins in the city centre, which we pass around 6km from the line. These are the remains of a 1665 hilltop fortification constructed during the War of the Portuguese Restoration, although it wasn’t the most effective due to an irregular shape and the multiple landing spots along the coast; it was occupied by the British twice in the early 18th Century and by the French once in the 19th. Nowadays it is more a scenic area with views over the city and lush green space which is a popular spot for the Vigués population to walk.
From here we head out towards Plaza Independencia, and then back along the coast for the finish. This one should give us a nice finale as if there are big gaps created, then riders will have to make Monte Aloia or San Cosme count; if the gaps are small, a shootout on A Madroa should still be pretty effective. This will hopefully give us a week-long race which has some varied options and can show off a bit of everything Galicia has to offer, and something for almost all types of riders, with something akin to a Vuelta al País Vasco at a lower level in terms of the short walls and medium length climbs being the main decisive factors, but with a local flavour distinct to Galician cycling that gives it an identity of its own as opposed to that of Asturias, Castilla y León or País Vasco.


GPM:
Monte da Groba (cat.2) 11,4km @ 5,5%
Monte Aloia (cat.1) 9,5km @ 6,3%
Alto de San Cosme (cat.2) 5,4km @ 6,8%
Alto de A Madroa (cat.2) 2,6km @ 8,0%
The final stage is around Galicia’s biggest city - and strangely is shorter and arguably easier than the amateur race that follows this route too. More on that in a bit though. We are here in Vigo, a city of around 300.000 (and around half a million in its extended metropolitan area), one of the most important economic hubs in this part of Spain and the largest city of the province. It wasn’t always thus - in fact compared to most of the traditional cities we’ve visited on this route, Vigo might even be the youngest, having only been a small village settlement until the 15th Century. Nevertheless, it was large enough to be considered a city by the late 16th, when Francis Drake attacked it in retribution for the attacks on Britain by the Spanish Armada. A few years later the Turks attempted to attack the city, and as it was a relatively new city that had not had existing fortifications built as part of its structure, Felipe IV commanded the construction of new city walls, most of which survive to this day. They were effective, but did not stop the British/Dutch alliance from successfully capturing French and Spanish vessels carrying riches and resources in the Battle of Vigo Bay in 1702, an early naval battle in the Guerra de sucesión Española. The Brits would return 17 years later and occupy the city temporarily in a show of power after a Spanish fleet used Vigo as its departure point en route to supporting the Jacobite Rebellion in Scotland. The city has grown rapidly in the 20th Century, especially under Franco as, as mentioned in the last stage, he declined to award the Industrial Development Zone title to Pontevedra despite its provincial capital status as punishment for the Galician regionalist sentiment harboured there, so Vigo was preferred. Nevertheless, the awkward geography of the city - hills to the east, sea to the west and north, and long stretches of tourist-friendly beaches well separated from the central fortifications - led to unstructured development and the city is now an odd, elongated shape having swallowed other urban areas especially to its southwest, but with most amenities concentrated in the new city centre which is to the east of the old town, with the beaches and resort facilities separated from the main body of the city by a long thin industrial strip which is undergoing redevelopment, meaning buses and lengthy walks proliferate for much of the city’s population. The post-Franco boom in regionalist sentiment and economic shifts hit Vigo hard, but it recovered well, and even saw its own equivalent of the Movida Madrileña, known as A Movida Viguesa, with the counter-cultural art and alternative music scenes of this part of the country rapidly converging on Vigo.

As can probably be imagined, as the largest city in the province, it is also the least Galego-speaking, with just 7,7% speaking exclusively Galician, and over half using Spanish only. The city has also attracted significant minority populations from Latin America, with the number of Venezuelans swelling in recent years in particular, but there are also many Portuguese and Brazilians who use their own tongue as well to obfuscate the linguistic statistics.
Vigo has a long history in the sport; it dates back in the Vuelta to 1936, when Vicente Carretero won, and has been a common stop-off point for the race ever since whenever it heads through Galicia. Other winners include Délio Rodríguez in 1941, René Vietto in 1942, Rik van Looy in 1965, Jan Janssen in 1967, António Esparza in 1987, Alfonso Gutiérrez in 1993, and Daniele Bennati in 2007. The Volta a Galicia has been coming here since its very beginning; Federico Ezquerra won there back in the first edition in 1933, when it finished the final stage, and subsequent stages to Vigo were won by the likes of Fermín Trueba (1935), Délio Rodríguez (1945), Alfonso Gutiérrez (1984), Acácio da Silva (1988), Laurent Jalabert (1995) and Gianluca Bortolami (1997) during its pro years, but it’s not been so common since the race went amateur, only appearing in 2004, 2005 and 2013, with the latter being won by Benjamí Prades, probably the highest profile of the three winners.
Do not think, however, that this means Vigo is appearing less in cycling. It has hosted a lot of its own one-day races too. The first dates back to 1940, won by Délio Rodríguez, and brought back in the late 50s when Rik van Looy was the most prominent victor. In 2001, a smaller one-day race, the GP Cidade de Vigo, was introduced, being over around 150km in late August after the Volta a Portugal, and running until 2006 as a pro race (highest profile winner being the inaugural victor, Pavel Brutt), before going amateur from 2007 to 2019, with winners including veterans of the scene like José António de Segovia and Ángel Vallejo, and Venezuelan exile Leangel Linárez. From 2004 to 2007 there was also a parallel one-day race that ran the day before, making it a weekend of racing in the city, with Jacek Morajko the most prominent winner. A new version of this diptych was set up from 2012 to 2019, and winners of the new version included Frederico Figueiredo in 2012, Marino Kobayashi in 2015 and, then, they reintroduced it in 2021 when another Venezuelan import, Ricardo Zurita, won. It also hosted a stage of the GP Paredes Rota dos Movéis in 2007 and a stage of O Gran Camiño in 2022, with Magnus Cort victorious. There have been a few other iterations of criterium races over the years, most notably in the 1980s when Jesús Blanco and Alfonso Gutiérrez won multiple times. The most recent introduction is the Vigo Copa de España race which was introduced in 2021 and features a steep and dramatic climb to A Madroa as a Flèche Wallonne styled finale. It’s a different side of A Madroa than I am using later, but this is a pretty tough - and over 180km makes it long and difficult for the amateur calendar - race.

2023’s race was won by Guatemalan prospect Sérgio Chumil, ahead of young Finisher (Movistar feeder) rider Hugo Aznar and Telco’m leader Marc Cabedo, you can see the full stream here:
Vigo is also an area being developed for its tourist potential by modern Spanish and Galician governments; the airport is being expanded to deal with more budget flights, and also as a gateway for northern Portugal. The city also has a warmer climate than most of Galicia, thanks primarily to the Ría de Vigo being better protected from the winds across the Atlantic by the premier tourist attraction for the city, this being the Illas Cíes, or the Cíes Islands, a scenic archipelago that is home to a number of rare birds and plants, with its waters bountiful with dolphins and turtles, and which is only accessible in summer via ferry from Vigo and a couple of other smaller towns. The number of visitors is strictly limited; there is one campsite but tickets can only be booked from the port in Vigo, and ferry purchasers must also obtain a QR code to be scanned to show they have been booked in through the official channels. It has been a natural park since 1980 and is very strictly protected - no bins exist on the island, even in the bar/cafe at the harbour, so all rubbish must be brought back to the mainland. The terrain is manageable even for novice hikers, and the beaches are some of the best in Spain, thanks to the protected status and strict enforcement of rules around numbers and behaviours.

While the beaches of the Illas Cíes may be the most dramatic, it’s not like the mainland doesn’t have options, and we will actually be starting from Praia de Samil, the largest and most popular urban beach in the city, to the west of the city centre. We will hug the coastline for the first part of the stage, for around 20km until we arrive at Baiona, base of our first climb of the day - and our most gradual, although it has been a mountaintop finish in no less a race than the Vuelta a España, back in 2013 when Nicolas Roche won to take the red jersey. It’s a scenic climb with amazing views down to the coast, but it’s not the hardest climb you’ll ever see. Descending from here takes us down to the banks of the Minho, which serves as the border between Spain and Portugal for this part of the country, strangely where there is something of a narrow river crossing as opposed to the wider Rías further north. We follow the river round to Tui, known as Tuy in its Spanish form for the Franco era, connected to the Portuguese town of Valença by two bridges and the capital of O Baixo Miño comarca and an occasional host of the Volta a Galicia, with stages won by Íñaki Gastón in 1987, Álvaro Pino in 1988 and Frank van den Abeele in 1991. The second half of the stage is much heavier and harder for the riders, however.
While the real life race climbs Monte Aloia from the main road route, we take a smaller alternative via the Alto de San Fins. On the raw stats it seems longer and less steep but those stats only tell half the story. The regular route is 7,1km @ 7,8%, while our version is 9,5km @ 6,3% - but, that’s with a kilometre of descent in it. The final 3km of the Alto de San Fins average 10,7%, including two 20% ramps and at one point 450m averaging 16%. After the descent there is a final 2,7km at 7,5% with a toughest stretch of 590m at 9,5%. I’ve given it cat,1 for the overall climb but it could be arguably cat.2. However I’d almost certainly give San Fins in and of itself cat.2 so adding that final ramp I felt merited the cat.1 status. It crests 51km from home so it’s not super obviously an attack platform, but it’s the last day so we could see hell break loose.

We then have a 12km descent down via Chenlo to Mosende, and then in to a second meta volante in O Porriño, home of the architect António Palacios and host of a couple of stages of the Volta a Galicia; Gianni Bugno is the most prominent winner here, winning a stage in 1993 ahead of Johan Bruyneel. It has been used a couple of times in the amateur era too, with Fernando Torres winning here in 2002, Dmitry Puzanov and Asier Estévez in 2009, and Francisco Campos in 2016. This then serves as the base of the penultimate ascent of the race, the Alto de San Cosme. This is a stop-off on the tougher route to Mirador de Herbille, which served as the final HTF in the 2021 Vuelta a España, a dramatic stage which had drastic impact on the GC, though none as significant as Miguel Ángel López, 3rd on GC two days from the finish, having a disagreement with his team car, team manager Eusebio Unzué personally intervening, and causing López to get off and quit the race in full view of TV cameras in dramatic style. As a result, though, it means that some of the challenge of the climb gets a bit overlooked. That 2km at 11,2% toward the end of the climb is going to have some action I would suspect. Although again, 38km remain at the summit.

Then, however, we are descending back down toward Vigo itself and we will finish with one and a half laps of a 21km circuit. This circuit could have been a bit shorter but the attempt was deliberate to make the climbs a bit further out so that they would not be the be all and end all, as well as to give us a safe run-in what with the hilly profile of the Casco Vello and O Castro parts of town. We actually arrive at the town via the Porta do Atlántico, or Gateway to the Atlantic, a sculpture and fountain on a large roundabout in the new town. From here we head into Coia, a former industrial area undergoing rapid redevelopment as it helps connect the old town of Vigo to the beach areas to the west, as well as to the port area at Bouzas. We will head down to the waterfront road - although it’s not really a waterfront road at this stage because the Puerto Pesqueiro rather obstructs the view.

Puerto Pesqueiro is in the middle; in the foreground, the short distance ferry port, and in the background the cargo port

Casco Vello
It’s a very straight run-in until we get to the Casco Vello, where we head around Praza do Berbés and past the A Laxe shopping mall, turning right at the tourist ferry boat port which sends tourist boats across to the Illas Cíes, with a handful of right-angle turns as we head through the newer centre of town, with a final left hand curve at the entrance to the Casco Histórico, then we have a final 800m which is on an uphill drag at 4% up to Praza Fernando el Católico, near to the recently-redeveloped Urzaiz train station, now the Vialia Centre.
The first 5km or so of the circuit are just flat along a road at the bottom of the ridge until we get to the outlying district of Chapela. The side of A Madroa that we are climbing, from Chapela through Parada… is pretty brutal and País Vasco-tastic. The overall stats of 2,6km at 8% don’t sound too bad… but… the last kilometre of that barely averages above 1%. The first kilometre, by contrast, averages 13,7%, with 800m at 16,2% as the steepest part of the climb, and a maximum gradient of an eye-watering 26%. Overall the first 1600m average 12% and the summit of the climb (i.e. at Vigozoo, after the kilometre or so of false flat) comes at 13km from the line so this should be pretty selective. According to this article, this is the steepest road in the Vigo metropolitan area, so this should definitely be able to create some separation.

Subida a Buraca
We then descend through the Rua do Areeiro back into the city’s confines, but although we arrive above the station and so we aren’t going to descend directly down past what we already climbed, that would not work. So instead we head around Castelo do Castro, the hilltop ruins in the city centre, which we pass around 6km from the line. These are the remains of a 1665 hilltop fortification constructed during the War of the Portuguese Restoration, although it wasn’t the most effective due to an irregular shape and the multiple landing spots along the coast; it was occupied by the British twice in the early 18th Century and by the French once in the 19th. Nowadays it is more a scenic area with views over the city and lush green space which is a popular spot for the Vigués population to walk.

From here we head out towards Plaza Independencia, and then back along the coast for the finish. This one should give us a nice finale as if there are big gaps created, then riders will have to make Monte Aloia or San Cosme count; if the gaps are small, a shootout on A Madroa should still be pretty effective. This will hopefully give us a week-long race which has some varied options and can show off a bit of everything Galicia has to offer, and something for almost all types of riders, with something akin to a Vuelta al País Vasco at a lower level in terms of the short walls and medium length climbs being the main decisive factors, but with a local flavour distinct to Galician cycling that gives it an identity of its own as opposed to that of Asturias, Castilla y León or País Vasco.