Forgotten how bad the route is. (ie Warning: Rant approaching)
First week is a complete mess - no geographical logic to it at all and it contains about 3 or 4 of those hilly-flat stages that are usually reserved for the breakaway, except it's the first week so it probably won't be, so we will have sort-of-reduced bunch finishes, which are imho the least interesting types of finishes.
Also, the organisers, despite starting the race in Andalucia and spending a considerable amount of time there, somehow contrive to miss out the entire Sierra Nevada mountain range bar one middling climb in favour of 'meh' stages that could be easily implemented elsewhere, which in turn would actually help the route to get closer to becoming an actual Vuelta a Espana, in the literal sense.
Stages 8,9,10 and 11 are all decent, indeed I'm rather pleased that, for one stage at least, they've abandoned the 'well it worked last year so it will work every year' theory and actually included a NEW never-before-seen climb in San Miguel de Aralar! The TT could also be interesting as well, although it could do with being a bit longer.
Anyway, enough with the positive talk, as we are quickly confronted with the s****yness that is stage 12. I mean honestly...?
Moving quickly on, we have stage 13, which is typical Vuelta fare, 14 which is an expert lesson (from past masters, it has to be said) in the avoidance of descents, so again is pretty typical Vuelta fare, even up to the hellish gradients on the last climb.
Then Lagos de Covadonga is back...
at least it's a nice climb...
And then in stage 16 we finally have a proper mountain stage! Not a lot to complain about here for once!
However my joy is short-lived as I start to consider the last week as a whole. Rather like the first week, in terms of going in the general direction of A to B, this is a non-sensical mess, as can be seen from the map. This might be passable, if it was for the sake of balancing the route and spacing out the mountains. But no... instead we are treated to an agglomeration of big mountain stages, followed by an insipid trio of flat/probably insignificant hilly stages. Looking at the map, surely it would be easier to have the Lagos de Covadonga stage starting from the south (ie actually somewhere remotely near where the last stage finished) and then have a flat stage along the coast before the Farrapona stage, thus balancing things out and encouraging more action from the favourites as they have an extra day to rest... obviously not, however.
Instead we have an unnecessary detour to the west coast as we pass the finishing town, without actually having decent stages to merit this oddity as for three days of GC irrelevance in what should be the climax of the race. Penultimate stage is fine, I suppose, and the last stage will in about 20% of cases be exciting and 80% a procession.
So to conclude, it's a half-arsed unbalanced waddle around about a quarter of the country with no semblance of geographical direction. Including transfers, it crosses over itself ten times, which tells a story. At least the racing can't be worse (famous last words)
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