Euskaltel! said:
Basque Country looks lovely, no wonder Euskaltel-Euskadi is a bunch of climbers
Unfortunately this year we're just riding PAST the mountains and enjoying the views while riding on pretty much the only flat roads in Euskadi. There's only really the plains of Araba that are flat, but they've gone out of their way to not use any good climbs.
Dekker_Tifosi said:
Tony Martin in the chasing group...
He can win this race
Trofinios said:
Good to see Martin back in form. He will now win the GC.
This is proof, if proof were ever needed, that this is by FAR the worst route this race has ever had. Utterly pathetic. Tony had a good ride today, but if Tony Martin is winning the Vuelta al País Vasco... it's like Igor Antón winning the Eneco. Just wrong in every way.
Richeypen said:
Tony Martin wins GC. How depressing
It's like race organisers realised that some of the GTs are going all climbified (Giro '11, Vuelta '12) so are compensating for this by making every single short stage race as flat and TT-focused as they can. It's not even like they have the excuse of staying in urban centres for the money, since urban centres would actually provide more decisive finishes than we've seen in this race. They've actually wilfully destroyed the race.
Bavarianrider said:
Well there is still tomorrow. He needs good legs tomorrow too.
thegrimpeur said:
The finish tomorrow is on top of a hill, so I wouldn't give up on this race quite yet. Hope for more of a selection as it would be cool to at least have an interesting final TT, as it stands right now Tony Martin should take this pretty comfortably...
The "climb" is about 4-5% until the last 700m, and the run-in to it is nothing more than rolling. We may rag on Tony's climbing, but no way does he lose enough in 700m to lose the GC from here. Not with a complete POS stage 5 (usually a good intermediate stage to break up things a bit more like the Aia stage in 2010) and a flatter-than-usual ITT.
Euskaltel! said:
The climb isn't great though, the last 2km are a write off and it only has a few km of real steep stuff, I'm not sure what you were expecting!
Arrate is a good climb, but it's time for a layoff. I desperately hoped when the Vuelta chose to do it that they'd not do it in the Itzulia, since there is so much more to offer in the Basque country than that.
How's about these for starters?
(you can stop at San Kristobal and then have about 15km descent into Durango for a good finish)
(there are several other routes here and a much higher summit if you go all the way to the antennae)
(the great cathedral of Basque cycling, now unused since the Subida a Urkiola died in 2009, can easily be linked to Monte Oiz too)
(the actual summit is in Burgos, leaving País Vasco, but they could easily finish at the miradors)
BillytheKid said:
That steep? Horner could win if it ends that kind of uphill. Could be the same three tomorrow. Another minute over Martin needed for Horner to win the GC.
Could well be the same 3, but there's still not likely to be enough time gain to prevent Martin winning.
Red Rick said:
This race could be more exciting if it had bonifications
The race could be more exciting if the route wasn't so ridiculously unrepresentative of what País Vasco has to offer. This is like a Tour de France which doesn't use the Alps, the Pyrenées or the Massif Central, just has a couple of intermediate stages in the Vosges and a one-climb stage to Alpe d'Huez to sate the fans' bloodlust.
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