Vuelta a España 2019 Rumours

[Red Rick]

Yeah I've been finding reasons why Sky might lose the Tour for years now and it's never come close.

If Dumoulin focused on the Tour I would find them, but not when Dumoulin clearly was running out of gas at the end of the Tour this year and there will be less recovery after the Giro this year.

 

[yaco]

Reckon it's an average route by Vuelta standards - Though I suspect it will best suit the light-weight climbers.

 

[Robert5091]

Seems like S.Yates fancies his chances.

 

[Koronin]

Re:

Seems like S.Yates fancies his chances.

Agreed, Yates appears to like the route.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Meh. Decent enough route for Vuelta standards - I would have liked it a lot better had they gotten rid of 2-3 of the sprint finishes.

 

[Koronin]

Re:

Meh. Decent enough route for Vuelta standards - I would have liked it a lot better had they gotten rid of 2-3 of the sprint finishes.

That's my biggest problem with this year's Vuelta.

 

[Red Rick]

Yeah, unusually large amount of sprint stages.

But I thought that this year as well but profiles turned out to be rather deceptive. However I still think we have like 7-8 sprints on our hands.

Overall, I'm really really trying to like what they're doing, but the general idea with those last 2 stages is just that they don't have a good place to launch an attack cause it's never steep at any point in that stage. It worked with dropping Dumoulin cause he was like the 8th best climber in the race and his next best teammate uphill was a sprinter.

It's good that they're seemingly trying to move away from murito's a little bit, but I kinda miss the ESP MTF.

And the TTT must die.

 

[Tonton]

It looks like an invite. A two-week race and the field will be loaded. Giro riders fresh, TdF riders can handle it. New. Smart. But for the avid fans, that race will be over quickly.

 

[bassano]

I think it Is very nice route, good amount of ITT, no TTT, nice and enough long mountain stages (except shitty Andora one).
Only how was just mentioned, I am missing really challenging stage, all are medicore with decent amount of climbed meters. And final ramp in stage 7 looks very nice and long enough.

 

[Descender]

Re:

I think it Is very nice route, good amount of ITT, no TTT, nice and enough long mountain stages (except ****** Andora one).
Only how was just mentioned, I am missing really challenging stage, all are medicore with decent amount of climbed meters. And final ramp in stage 7 looks very nice and long enough.

There is a TTT.



This is still a bad route, but it has some positives. The Andorra stage is being criticized, but it's probably the best mountain stage of the route. No flat kms and all three climbs are hard, with the second-to-last climb (Gallina) being the hardest. There's also a rest day right after that stage. Plus, there's 4km of flat "sterrato" on the last climb, between Engolasters and Els Cortals.

There's a welcome increase in "real" multi-climb mountain stages, though the Madrid mountain stage is underwhelming. 2015 was a lucky break, and this stage is even easier. But still, we've got Andorra + El Acebo + La Cubilla + Navacerrada, four up-and-down mountain stages with several hard climbs. When was the last time we had that in a Vuelta route?

Besides, after both the Andorra stage and the La Cubilla stage, which are the two best mountain stages of the route, we have a rest day, which makes agressive riding more likely.

I like the 20th stage to Gredos not so much because of the stage but because of the decision to draw that kind of stage as the last one. The stage itself could and should have been harder, but we could very well see action on Peña Negra, which is nice.

Also, I think people are overestimating the number of sprint stages. Many of those supposedly "flat" stages are deceptively challenging for sprinters.

The Javalambre stage is not strictly _______________/

The Bilbao stage is a nice hilly stage, and the one after that to Los Machucos is even better.

 

[yaco]

Reckon the route suits Mitchelton Scott's cohort of GC riders - This could be their most successful GC again in 2019.

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

I think it Is very nice route, good amount of ITT, no TTT, nice and enough long mountain stages (except ****** Andora one).
Only how was just mentioned, I am missing really challenging stage, all are medicore with decent amount of climbed meters. And final ramp in stage 7 looks very nice and long enough.

There is a TTT.



This is still a bad route, but it has some positives. The Andorra stage is being criticized, but it's probably the best mountain stage of the route. No flat kms and all three climbs are hard, with the second-to-last climb (Gallina) being the hardest. There's also a rest day right after that stage. Plus, there's 4km of flat "sterrato" on the last climb, between Engolasters and Els Cortals.

There's a welcome increase in "real" multi-climb mountain stages, though the Madrid mountain stage is underwhelming. 2015 was a lucky break, and this stage is even easier. But still, we've got Andorra + El Acebo + La Cubilla + Navacerrada, four up-and-down mountain stages with several hard climbs. When was the last time we had that in a Vuelta route?

I like the 20th stage to Gredos not so much because of the stage but because of the decision to draw that kind of stage as the last one. The stage itself could and should have been harder, but we could very well see action on Peña Negra, which is nice.

Also, I think people are overestimating the number of sprint stages. Many of those supposedly "flat" stages are deceptively challenging for sprinters.

The Javalambre stage is not strictly _______________/

The Bilbao stage is a nice hilly stage, and the one after that to Los Machucos is even better.

Valverde had a comment about that a couple years ago on two stages the Vuelta listed as flat. He had laughed that they were listed as flat and said that if anyone thinks those are flat they're in for a surprise, those are my training roads, they aren't flat.

 

[Descender]

These are the three last climbs to Bilbao:

http://www.altimetrias.net/aspbk/verPuerto.asp?id=81

http://www.altimetrias.net/aspbk/verPuerto.asp?id=68

http://www.altimetrias.net/aspbk/verPerfilusu.asp?id=3

Classic hilly Basque stage with short, very steep climbs. I for one welcome this switch away from muritos as MTF towards muritos as used in this stage.

 

[Robert5091]

Re: Re:

Valverde had a comment about that a couple years ago on two stages the Vuelta listed as flat. He had laughed that they were listed as flat and said that if anyone thinks those are flat they're in for a surprise, those are my training roads, they aren't flat.

From looking at the profiles at this year's Vuelta, not all were, shall we say, "entirely accurate".

 

[OlavEH]

Re: Re:

This is still a bad route, but it has some positives.

Bad route in Vuelta perspective? From my point of view, this has to be one of the better routes the last 10-15 years. The are of course aspects of the route that could be improved, but we definitely have seen several worse routes than this in the Vuelta the last decade.

 

[Descender]

Re: Re:

This is still a bad route, but it has some positives.

Bad route in Vuelta perspective? From my point of view, this has to be one of the better routes the last 10-15 years. The are of course aspects of the route that could be improved, but we definitely have seen several worse routes than this in the Vuelta the last decade.

Bad route in general for a GT. Above average for a modern route.

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

Valverde had a comment about that a couple years ago on two stages the Vuelta listed as flat. He had laughed that they were listed as flat and said that if anyone thinks those are flat they're in for a surprise, those are my training roads, they aren't flat.

From looking at the profiles at this year's Vuelta, not all were, shall we say, "entirely accurate".

That seems to be fairly typical for la Vuelta. Someone (don't remember who) made a comment that they think la Vuelta doesn't list or categorize all the climbs because if they did they'd scare off too many riders.

 

[Red Rick]

It's just scaling of the Y axis on profiles. The Tour will just scale from 0-300 or something on flat stages while the Vuelta will just go from 0-1000.

Also, the 3D profile of la Vuelta and that thick line of RCS profiles makes it harder to read subtle differences on profiles.

But really TdF profiles gimme a headache too, and generally I think Giro profiles are the best.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Looking at the route again, I actually like it. The only thing I dislike is the fact that I think the last week is bad, after the rest day.. 3 sprinter stages out of 5 and the stage in the Madrid mountains with Cotos last is too easy I think. I like the penultimate stage tho, but the race should pretty much be over when we reach the second rest day.

Overall tho, Im happy about it tbh.

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

Looking at the route again, I actually like it. The only thing I dislike is the fact that I think the last week is bad, after the rest day.. 3 sprinter stages out of 5 and the stage in the Madrid mountains with Cotos last is too easy I think. I like the penultimate stage tho, but the race should pretty much be over when we reach the second rest day.

Overall tho, Im happy about it tbh.

Third week depends like 100% on climbs that are far from the finish, and it's just frustrating that the climbs that are used for that purpose are just very weak.

The Giro has kind of a similar problem. Giro 3rd week is either somebody goes on Passo Manghen a 100km out or your third week is a few weak MTFs. In this Vuelta, it's more like it's very likely they'll try, but also almost certain it won't succeed. The Dumoulin situation in 2015 was just very rare.

And for the 2nd year in a row I'm just missing the super hard climbs in the Vuelta. Collada de Gallina is imo the only legit Esp in the race, and it's a rather borderline one. I do guess this means that easier climbs are likely to be raced harder, especially with less emphasis on murito's and stuff like that, but it makes me feel like it's kinda unbalanced cause of the TTT.

 

[Valv.Piti]

The TTT isn't long tho, so I don't think its unbalanced really.

But really, I dont think we should be unhappy about this.

 

[ice&fire]

Re:

Looking at the route again, I actually like it. The only thing I dislike is the fact that I think the last week is bad, after the rest day.. 3 sprinter stages out of 5 and the stage in the Madrid mountains with Cotos last is too easy I think. I like the penultimate stage tho, but the race should pretty much be over when we reach the second rest day.

Overall tho, Im happy about it tbh.

If you believe that Guadalajara and Toledo are for the sprinters you might be surprised. The more recent finishes in both towns have been uphill. Gilbert won in Toledo in 2009 and Paolini won in Guadalajara from the break in 2006. Those two stages are perfect training for potential World contenders.

 

[roundabout]

There is nothing insurmountable in Toledo for a durable sprinter. Nothing.

Guadalajara finish does not look uphill in the stage profile, but maybe it is wrong.

 

[yaco]

I suspect the Vuelta will be a good race for S.Bennett - He is good in the slightly tougher finishes - Thinking more LS should consider taking Ewan.

 

[ice&fire]

Re:

There is nothing insurmountable in Toledo for a durable sprinter. Nothing.

Guadalajara finish does not look uphill in the stage profile, but maybe it is wrong.

The fake 3D effect in the profile may hide any short bump in the final kilometres of the Toledo stage.
I don't know where they will set the finish line, but Plaza Zocodover is 80m above River Tagus and has hosted stage finishes in the past. They could do a finish with 1.1km@7% from Puente de Azarquiel. I guess that would be for durable sprinters like Sagan, Gilbert, Valverde, Alaphilippe, Dan Martin or Kwiato.