Vuelta a España Vuelta a España 2024, stage 12: Ourense - Estación de Montaña de Manzaneda, 137.4k

[Devil's Elbow]

Unipublic's submission for least interesting GT MTF in history. They went out of their way too - this is the single easiest of the 10 or so variants of a Manzaneda MTF, and they're doing it as an unipuerto...

Low-gradient hills all day until that MTF, it will be a pretty strenuous battle to get into that breakaway that really should be winning the stage. The intermediate sprint is actually in the wrong place on the profile: it's about 3 kilometres lower on that climb, Alto de Cerdeira. Surprisingly, I have a profile.

And this is the MTF. It just isn't hard at all, nowhere near deserving of its cat. 1 status. It sits somewhere in between Mégève in the 2022 Tour and Bocca della Selva in this year's Giro - neither MTF had any GC action, and Chris Froome finished less than half a minute down on the GC riders without having been in the break on one of them. In other words, not exactly the most exciting stage of this Vuelta - it isn't even that good of a breakaway day.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

I see the fantastic image embedding service this forum uses is now refusing to take pictures from the Vuelta site...

Edit: nor from Climbfinder. Kind of makes it hard to do a writeup, doesn't it?

Edit 2: and suddenly, half an hour later, the images have loaded. Hopefully it was just a hiccup...

 

[Netserk]

Van Aert takes the stage and the dots. As much action behind as there was yesterday.

 

[Samamba]

Don't think anything relevant happens here, or at least not before the last 2km. All in for Friday.

 

[AmRacer]

Testing

 

[Valv.Piti]

At least the last 7 km are relatively hard and last 2 km enough to do a bit of a different. Will definitely see more than yesterday, thats too pessimistic of a take I think, Netserk. It is a MTF after all with decent gradients towards the end. Could see Ben lose 10-20, but nothing major will happen.. and then I agree with you: WVA for the win!

 

[Mako]

What is a "unipuerto" stage? My guess would be single ascent, but I'd rather know for sure. Thanks for all the work @Devil's Elbow !

 

[Devil's Elbow]

What is a "unipuerto" stage? My guess would be single ascent, but I'd rather know for sure. Thanks for all the work @Devil's Elbow !

Your guess is correct.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Wonder who pays for this? Is Manzaneda a ski station?

Yes, but a pretty small one.

 

[tobydawq]

It seems rather similar to the Laguna Negra climb, right?

Edit: Even easier, I see.

 

[Ilmaestro99]

Omg the climb is literally called Masnada mountain station 😍😍😍

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Omg the climb is literally called Masnada mountain station 😍😍😍

Mate, your eyes are more fudged than Roglič's Toby's back.

 

[Netserk]

Wonder who pays for this? Is Manzaneda a ski station?

Anyway, with finishes like these it tends to matter a bit how steep the final km is and that could honestly be worse.

Given that they don't go to the top like in 2011, I think A Pobra de Trives pays.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

So weird to imagine ski stations at 1500m in Spain tbh.

Considering how much trouble Gran Camiño has with winter weather at half the elevation in February...

 

[Sciatic]

Your guess is correct.

But usually with a much steeper climb?

 

[Samamba]

Anyone know what's going on with Pelayo Sanchez? I would normally pick him for a stage like this but he has been nowhere? He was the first one to drop out of the break last stage.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Anyone know what's going on with Pelayo Sanchez? I would normally pick him for a stage like this but he has been nowhere? He was the first one to drop out of the break last stage.

Went down hard on that tricky descent on stage 6, so probably still suffering from that. Unless it's Covid, of course.

 

[ChewbaccaDefense]

Wout 4, IImaestro99 to go apoplectic...or are they already there?

​

 

[Rob5091]

3 of O'Connor's team mates got yellow carded yesterday which will make it trickier to "road block" without getting an "early bath" as they say in some other sports.

 

[movingtarget]

Red Bull will obviously test O'Connor again and hope to keep chipping away. Of course it would be easier if O'Connor just blows up on one stage and loses most of his lead or all of it. Still plenty of climbing left. O'Connor has shown he can be mediocre one day and good the next. So far it still looks open.

 

[Cookster15]

3 of O'Connor's team mates got yellow carded yesterday which will make it trickier to "road block" without getting an "early bath" as they say in some other sports.

True. But how often do teams get yellow carded? I think it was a once off. The outcome of this Vuelta will be decided by who has the best legs and recovery - not who is better at blocking rivals.

 

[Jungle Cycle]

i think we'll see more of this this week...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1828832346491203612

View: https://x.com/ttjash/status/1828832346491203612

 

[BeachBum]

Doesn't matter if the climb is a worthy Cat 1 or not. Look what happened on the prior stage with a Cat 3. The riders, as always, make the race.

They're gonna go at each other hammer and tongs. If Rogla doesn't have the legs, then Mas and or Carapaz will do something.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Cat 3, 2 or 1 is kinda pointless tbh. But this shouldn't really be a cat 1 due to the low gradients, but still, the climb is not a gimme since the second part is harder than the first easy first part.

 

[Samamba]

As expected, Van Eetvelt DNS