Stage 12: Salobreña - Sierra Nevada-Hoya de la Mora, 194km
Queen stage time - rather than Unipuerto down the coast we're going to loop around first. Shame to have it on a midweek day, but so be it. Of course the MTF is still going to be the main thing, but we can at least make the riders exhausted enough beforehand with Conjuros and Haza del Lino.
Stage 13: Martos - Montilla, 167km
Classic Vuelta stage here - very little
real climbing, but almost no true flat. One for the sprinters, but they're going to have to work for it. 2km at 6% 20km from home, shouldn't be enough to stop the sprint.
Stage 14: Montoro - Sierra de La Pandera, 169km
Throwing in the
La Yedra climb that was planned to be added in to the Vuelta a few years ago as a staging post en route to La Pandera, early on.
Hoya de Charilla 30km from home, multi-stepped and super steep, then a meta volante in Valdepeñas de Jaén and the traditional La Pandera summit.
Stage 15: Ronda - Estepona-Alto de las Peñas Blancas, 154km
Pretty long transfer here, lots of rolling terrain and uncategorised climbs in the first part. A bit more borrowed from PRC ideas in the first half, then doing the double Peñas Blancas loop borrowed from Devil's Elbow's post
here. This way the previously used side ends at 51km from home, and the rest is either climb or descent, and there's a rest day following...
Stage 16: Sanlúcar de Barrameda - Tomares, 189km
Much reduced transfer between stages 15 and 16 this way.
Stage 17: Aracena - Monastério de Tentudía, 160km
Don't much care for this stage, but like stage 7, not much else I can offer.
Stage 18: Trujillo - Piornal, 147km
Trying to turn this into a breakaway stage, but one where something
could happen. But is unlikely to. Consists of
this side of Piornal until the junction for Cabrero, then
this climb cresting 3,5km of flat and false flat from the finish. It's like an easier version of the 2010 Les Rousses Tour stage and should be one for the break.
Stage 19: Talavera de la Reina - Talavera de la Reina, 199km
Hugely beefed up with the first loop replaced by La Centenera and Pedro Bernardo, and a much longer stage due to the transitional section in the middle. Again likely one for the break but with the punchy
Segurilla climb 11-12km from home to offer a final chance for the escapees or see if somebody is tempted.
Stage 20: Moralzarzal - Estación de Esquí Puerto de Navacerrada, 162km
Final mountain stage and using an old Vuelta trope of having two sides of Navacerrada. Here we put Morcuera early and loop back via Canencia to return to Moralzarzal, then go up Navacerrada south, but instead of a long rolling loop to avoid going back on ourselves like in the 2010 and 2012 Vuelta Bola del Mundo stages, we instead use the forest roads of
Fuente de la Reina to break up the two ascents, placing a narrow and steep puncheur challenge between the two sides of the more gradual and classic traditional climb. This puts Navacerrada south 37km from home, Fuente de la Reina 25km from home and then a descent and a little false flat before Navacerrada north to finish.
Stage 21: Las Rozas - Madrid, 28,1km (ITT)
Final day ITT time, using part of the existing parcours. This used to be a staple, but they moved away from it after two consecutive years when the jersey changed hands in Madrid, with Ángel Casero and Aitor González both taking the jersey on the final day. The 2014 and 2021 Santiago de Compostela finales say that this can reasonably be done, so why not bring it back in Madrid once in a while?