Vuelta a España Vuelta a España 2020: Stage 5 (Huesca - Sabiñanigo, 181.4 km)

[Devil's Elbow]

The first of many middling mid-mountain stages.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Climbs:

The finish is uphill, 550 meters at 7.5% by my calculations.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

It wouldn't let me put the climbs in the opening post or edit my second post, anything up with the forum or either of the images?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I assume we'll see Fiscal from the opposite side on Sunday too. This is probably a reduced sprint or the break takes it. Can't see too many big guns going for broke on this one.

 

[gregrowlerson]

Aleksandr Vlasov showed much better shape on stage 3. He is my pick to win tonight's stage. Given his already extensive losses on GC, the top guns can afford to offer him a little freedom, which is all he will need.

150-1 is good value imo.

P.S. Bagioli is my other tip. No real reason. I just like the name.

 

[Koronin]

The way they've been riding/racing this year, it doesn't appear breaks are going to get much time on most stages, so reduced sprint is a good possibility. I don't think we get a repeat of stage 2, but it's 2020 and it's la Vuelta, so who knows.

 

[Leinster]

The way they've been riding/racing this year, it doesn't appear breaks are going to get much time on most stages, so reduced sprint is a good possibility. I don't think we get a repeat of stage 2, but it's 2020 and it's la Vuelta, so who knows.

They have to start letting breaks go sooner or later. Any team that chases down every single break through the first 2 weeks is going to be on their knees in week 3. The effort required for the sake of a maximum 10s bonus day after day just seems a bit too expensive to me.

 

[Koronin]

They have to start letting breaks go sooner or later. Any team that chases down every single break through the first 2 weeks is going to be on their knees in week 3. The effort required for the sake of a maximum 10s bonus day after day just seems a bit too expensive to me.

You'd think so. Although there is still the possibility of weather (forget Covid) shortening, cancelling, or changing some of the stages.

 

[Pantani_lives]

184.4 km is way too long. The riders should go on strike.

 

[Amazinmets87]

184.4 km is way too long. The riders should go on strike.

If 260kms on the flats was too long 184kms with medium mountains is untenable.

Anyway, reduced sprint. Perhaps Valverde can show some explosiveness.

 

[Fernandez]

I love these hilly/medium mountain stages. Id love to watch an entire GT only with these kind of stages.
No flat stages with more than 200 kms please.

 

[Red Rick]

On a first glance, this just too easy and probably boring, but in this Vuelta someting cool might still happen.

 

[F_Cance]

breakaway stage, no GC action

 

[Eclipse]

It should be a break but I'm really not writing anything off after Carapaz tried to attack on the flat the other day lol. We're also super sorted on GC already after the first couple of days so could see someone a bit further back try take a punt to get back into things (Chaves needs to recover that time though I think he'll save it for a day he can go early and try make it stick)

 

[gunara]

Just realized that there are only 5 Italians in this race, weird to see so few of them in a grand tour, of course at the same time there are plenty of them in another grand tour.

 

[ice&fire]

On a first glance, this just too easy and probably boring, but in this Vuelta someting cool might still happen.

If something happens it will be in the tunnel of Petralba and we won't see it.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

It should be a break but I'm really not writing anything off after Carapaz tried to attack on the flat the other day lol. We're also super sorted on GC already after the first couple of days so could see someone a bit further back try take a punt to get back into things (Chaves needs to recover that time though I think he'll save it for a day he can go early and try make it stick)

Remember last year on stage 2, Nairo Quintana won a stage by attacking on the flat.

 

[Eclipse]

Remember last year on stage 2, Nairo Quintana won a stage by attacking on the flat.

Sadly I don't

Work really ruined watching cycling live for me for a few years lol. The one upside to WFH has been getting back to being able to regularly watch and discuss with y'all here

 

[Anderis]

Could be a good stage for Woods but he doesn't seem to be in great shape after stage 1 crash.

 

[RedheadDane]

Can I just say how nice it is to see that the Vuelta has a prefix-colour that actually makes sense?

 

[Anderis]

Huesca is my favourite Spanish city. Its pronounciation means "a little teardrop" in Polish.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Looks like this is the new profile for tomorrow.

It's basically a very similar stage to the legendary 2016 one. Unfortunately there aren't many choices to make it much harder unless they go further east and replicate part of today's stage. Part of me wants them to loop over Fanló and add the Vío-Fanlo doublette from today's stage as a duplicate just to add more to the legs to be perfectly honest. If the economy hadn't fallen apart a decade or so ago we'd be in a better position because Sahún would have been paved and then Sahún-Cerler would have been an option (Cerler is administered by the same people as Formigal and with a rest day following the transfer would be less of an issue).

Or use this as the MTF instead, as the toughest not-yet-used Aragonese MTF option...

 

[Forever The Best]

What about Presa de Llauset?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

What about Presa de Llauset?

I was thinking that the last kilometre being in a tunnel would be a problem there, but looks like there's actually a mirador with a decent amount of parking just before the last tunnel so that would be possible, it would cut the climb slightly short but yes, that would still be 15,6km @ 6,7% by my reckoning, finishing at 2100m altitude, a vastly superior climb to Tella. It is, however, all the way over on the Aragón-Cataluña border which would make it harder for them to reasonably do here.

 

[BlueRoads]

Looks like they don't want Cattaneo to get away?...