Vuelta a España Vuelta a España 2023, stage 1: Barcelona - Barcelona (14.8k / TTT)

[Devil's Elbow]

The most hotly anticipated Vuelta in a long time starts with one of its less hotly anticipated stages.

Startlist

Start order
(not yet published at the time of posting)

The route

Not that much to go into. The stage starts from the marina, before embarking on a route that takes the riders past many of the city's famous sights to the finish line at the bottom of the Montjuïc, Barcelona's traditional venue for road cycling and many other sports. It's a flat and fairly technical route for a TTT, especially early on. There are longer straights to really power down in the second half, but it's clear that cornering and explosivity will play a greater role than usual. There is one time check which isn't shown on the profile or map, at the Sagrada Familia, almost two-thirds of the way in.

A note on the weather: there are a lot of thunderstorms expected for the weekend, but thankfully they are currently forecasted to start a couple of hours after this stage ends. Sunday is going to be rain-soaked, though.

Spot the road on which they finish.

 

[IndianCyclist]

Jumbo Visma for the win
Edit: Cannot identify the road but the butt was very identifiable

 

[Lequack]

Team presentation is live now on Youtube

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4N7jo5DZqU

 

[Valv.Piti]

Simply don't understand why we don't just start with an ITT and get all riders presented and get some nice time gaps already. 14 km ITT is quite perfect for an opening stage IMO, not too short or too long.

 

[Cookster15]

Hard to pick team time trials, but I suppose Jumbo is favorite. Hopefully it stays dry and no crashes.

 

[Netserk]

Kuss in red or I'll riot.

 

[Scarponi]

Movistar going to back up their Burgos TTT?

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Simply don't understand why we don't just start with an ITT and get all riders presented and get some nice time gaps already. 14 km ITT is quite perfect for an opening stage IMO, not too short or too long.

Especially annoying because the only actual ITT in the race is as short as it is.

 

[Berniece]

Remco said he’ll focus on preserving energy and not taking the whole team by their hand. We’ll see what’s actually true about that, wouldn’t make a lot of sense to me. EDIT: Apparently that was a joke.

Jumbo will win, Bora/UAE/SQS/Movistar wil hope to lose maximum 20-30s.

 

[Sciatic]

Kuss in red or I'll riot.

Kuss might get dropped on the flat, pure power sections.

 

[Landeirovic]

Remco said he’ll focus on preserving energy and not taking the whole team by their hand. We’ll see what’s actually true about that, wouldn’t make a lot of sense to me.

Jumbo will win, Bora/UAE/SQS/Movistar wil hope to lose maximum 20-30s.

In a TTT from 14,8km?? Uae have Fisher Black, Soler, Ayuso, Vine and Almeida

 

[Berniece]

In a TTT from 14,8km?? Uae have Fisher Black, Soler, Ayuso, Vine and Almeida

Yeah that’s why I say max. Normally I expect them to lose less time. Why did you include Soler in your list? I’ve never seen him as a decent time trialist but maybe I’m forgetting a great performance of him

 

[Tim Cahill]

TJV the favourites I think but really not overwhelmingly, can see UAE/Ineos challenging them and QS/Movistar not losing too much time

Team on a flat tt

Vingegaard - Excellent but form unknown, may be coming in cold and growing into the race
Roglic - As above but has been questionable on the flats this year
Wilco - Good in the past, assume he's not done much on the tt bike this year because his results are poor.
DVB/Tratnik - Solid but nothing this year
Valter - Not too sure, probably about average
Bobby - Used to be alright but not nowadays
3rd GC of the year Kuss - Just don't crash ffs

Lot's of unknowns though you would assume those who haven't ridden a proper tt or soft pedalled them this year will up their game and prepare well for it. Also the discipline is a bit different as size and drafting come in to play, so tt-skill doesn't directly translate.

TTT is just so hard to predict

 

[Tim Cahill]

Unfortunately for UAE I just looked and it was in fact good Oliveira that has dropped out so a blow for them in this.

 

[Ilmaestro99]

Mickey mouse

 

[Bonimenier]

The only TTT I want to see on the calendar is the WCh trade teams.

 

[houtdffan]

Simply don't understand why we don't just start with an ITT and get all riders presented and get some nice time gaps already. 14 km ITT is quite perfect for an opening stage IMO, not too short or too long.

Because Prudhomme won't fire Guillen, just as he won't fire Goveneou

Given that both race directors are designing the same routes, maybe Prudhomme is the one who needs to go

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Because Prudhomme won't fire Guillen, just as he won't fire Goveneou

Given that both race directors are designing the same routes, maybe Prudhomme is the one who needs to go

In spite of the ITT shortage, this Vuelta route is probably better than anything the Tour has produced in the Gouvenou era. Certainly, it’s almost perfectly paced (which the Tour never manages) and stage 20 is far, far ballsier than anything we’ve ever seen at the Tour.

Also, the Vuelta generally needs fewer TT kilometres than the Tour (let alone the Giro) because the mountain options are far weaker. Excluding the Canaries, Spain literally has zero proper HC passes that genuinely back into each other. So, while only 25k of ITT is a clear issue, it’s far less big a problem than if you were to pair it with the mountains of, say, the 2011 Giro. I know you aren’t going to agree with me on this, but IMO even a hard Vuelta route will only need 50-70k of TT for balance, whereas for the Giro you can very easily come up with routes where you should have more TT than that if you want to prevent the route from being weighted in favour of the climbers.

 

[SHAD0W93]

Vingegaard to finish 3 mins ahead of TJV, Jumbo to still win the TT over Movistar.

 

[houtdffan]

In spite of the ITT shortage, this Vuelta route is probably better than anything the Tour has produced in the Gouvenou era. Certainly, it’s almost perfectly paced (which the Tour never manages) and stage 20 is far, far ballsier than anything we’ve ever seen at the Tour.

Also, the Vuelta generally needs fewer TT kilometres than the Tour (let alone the Giro) because the mountain options are far weaker. Excluding the Canaries, Spain literally has zero proper HC passes that genuinely back into each other. So, while only 25k of ITT is a clear issue, it’s far less big a problem than if you were to pair it with the mountains of, say, the 2011 Giro. I know you aren’t going to agree with me on this, but IMO even a hard Vuelta route will only need 50-70k of TT for balance, whereas for the Giro you can very easily come up with routes where you should have more TT than that if you want to prevent the route from being weighted in favour of the climbers.

I'd say you are right, except for the fact that this year the Vuelta goes into France and actually does chain HC climbs on back to back days.

First stage should have been an ITT. Stage 10 should have been 55km

 

[Rob5091]

Anybody got an update on the weather?

 

[Potomac]

For the record, I like team time trials.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Vingegaard to finish 3 mins ahead of TJV, Jumbo to still win the TT over Movistar.

Yup, this will happen after the words from Grischa to show the world who's the strongest! Remco will attack his own team as well and will finish second after Vingo.

BTW is the TTT format classical (i.e. time of the 5th guy or sth like that) or does everybody have his own time? (the latter is way more attractive).

 

[Netserk]

Yup, this will happen after the words from Grischa to show the world who's the strongest! Remco will attack his own team as well and will finish second after Vingo.

BTW is the TTT format classical (i.e. time of the 5th guy or sth like that) or does everybody have his own time? (the latter is way more attractive).

Classic, so time of the 5th rider.

 

[search]

the Vuelta has started with a TTT ~15 times in the past 20 years, so I doubt there's Proudhomme or even Guillen to blame for it. It just turned into a bit of a tradition, and I tbh don't see what's ther problem with it. It's a good way to start the race.