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Vuelta a España 2019 stage 15: Tineo - Santuario del Acebo > 154.4 km

stage-15-profile.jpg



I don't know which profile of the final climb is the right one
 
What I would most like with this climb is possibly one of the nearest things you could legitimately do to a Mortirolo-Aprica stage in Spain - and that's climb the absolute steepest, most brutal side of Acebo, the savage Villarino de Limés side (6,8km @ 11%, first 3,5km @ 13,7%), followed by descending the Las Tiendas side and then finishing at Estación de Esquí Leitariegos from its northwest side, with 3 hard kilometres then 10km of false flats and achievable gradients. You could precede it with the initial loop up the traditional side and back down that they're doing in the Vuelta tomorrow, but instead of then having the long loop with Connio and Valvaler, you could go immediately from that descent to the second climb of Acebo (this time to the summit) and then Leitariegos.

That way you could precede it with the Alto de La Marta or Bustellán, two traceur favourites. Especially the brutal Cruz de Ayones side which includes a tramo of hormigón at 13% in the middle.
 
What I would most like with this climb is possibly one of the nearest things you could legitimately do to a Mortirolo-Aprica stage in Spain - and that's climb the absolute steepest, most brutal side of Acebo, the savage Villarino de Limés side (6,8km @ 11%, first 3,5km @ 13,7%), followed by descending the Las Tiendas side and then finishing at Estación de Esquí Leitariegos from its northwest side, with 3 hard kilometres then 10km of false flats and achievable gradients. You could precede it with the initial loop up the traditional side and back down that they're doing in the Vuelta tomorrow, but instead of then having the long loop with Connio and Valvaler, you could go immediately from that descent to the second climb of Acebo (this time to the summit) and then Leitariegos.

That way you could precede it with the Alto de La Marta or Bustellán, two traceur favourites. Especially the brutal Cruz de Ayones side which includes a tramo of hormigón at 13% in the middle.
The Acebo isn't too far from the San Lorenzo, Cobertoria and all those climbs right? Wouldn't feature in the GC action, but would aid in murderkilldeath
 
For Moviestar, do they gamble and try to send someone up the road on the penultimate climb (Quintana)? I am going to guess "No."
It's pretty futile to do. The penultimate climb is pretty easy.

If the break goes on the first climb you can attack with Quintana or Valverde and hope a miracle breakaway happens but I don't think it can.

Probably just tempo untl the final climb. Break may or may not win.
 
The Acebo isn't too far from the San Lorenzo, Cobertoria and all those climbs right? Wouldn't feature in the GC action, but would aid in murderkilldeath
The bottom of Acebo and San Lorenzo are more than 50km away from each other. I'm not very familiar with the area but I only see a significant climb on that way on non-goat-track kind of road. And I don't think we'll ever see 60-70km of goat tracks to fulfil your dream.
 
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30 km, largely downhill, from the penultimate climb to the base of the last one is a long way to stay away. I can't see anyone attacking Roglic on that climb; I suspect everyone's legs are still pretty fried from Los Machucos, too,, and there are four 1st - cat climbs on this stage.

One possibility is sending riders up the road and joining up, of course...

So we'll probably see the GC bunch stay together until the base of the last climb then we should see some attempted attacks.
 
Don't know what to think, but López seems to struggle on steep climbs compared to how he performs on long ones with less extreme gradients. He's more likely to bounce back on Monday if he's not left behind descending la Cobertoria as he was two years ago on the way to the Angliru.
I'm pretty sure he lost like 3 minutes that day. It's not like he didn't blow up uphill too.

I agree he's worse on extreme gradients though. But he's generally a bit up and down and not really good enough to win Grand Tours if you see how bad his TTs usually are.
 

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