- Sep 20, 2017
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- 23,467
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This is what passes for a sprint stage in this Vuelta. With some difficult climbing and barely any sprinters left, the breakaway is favoured, but a sprint is definitely likelier than on last Saturday’s stage.
As you can see on the profile, the climbing starts pretty much right out of the gate. The side of Alto de Ajo is the right of the two profiles below, it’s a genuine hill.
After a flat section along the coast, the route heads inland, and in Cantabria that usually means you’re going to be climbing fairly soon. Things start out easily enough with the Alto de la Cruz, probably outside the top-50 of climbs with that name.
And then, it’s time for pain. Alto de la Estranguada is another climb that traceurs have wanted to see for years, and for good reason: it contains the single steepest kilometre of this Vuelta, ahead of even Cuitu Negru. It backs directly into Portillo de Lunada, which in turn chains perfectly into Saturday’s MTF at Picón Blanco… but instead of doing the obvious and sensible thing, Unipublic are bypassing this climb by a stone’s throw on that stage, instead including it as a ***-you to the sprinters here.
So no Lunada today, instead the race doubles back on itself to head up Alto del Caracol. This climb runs parallel to Estranguada, only a couple of kilometres further south. It will be used again on Saturday, from the opposite side - the western one, when the western side of Estranguada is the very wall they are using today and would barely have been a detour. While far from the worst design decision a GT has pulled, this surely has to be the most bizarre one…
Oh, right, I’m supposed to post a profile of this side. It’s the final 8.3k of the one below.
After that, the climbing is pretty much done. There’s the easy Alto de San Martín de Villafufre (profile below) not too long after Caracol, other than that the roads are rolling at most. Favourable terrain for the chase, but will there even be one?
As you can see on the profile, the climbing starts pretty much right out of the gate. The side of Alto de Ajo is the right of the two profiles below, it’s a genuine hill.
After a flat section along the coast, the route heads inland, and in Cantabria that usually means you’re going to be climbing fairly soon. Things start out easily enough with the Alto de la Cruz, probably outside the top-50 of climbs with that name.
And then, it’s time for pain. Alto de la Estranguada is another climb that traceurs have wanted to see for years, and for good reason: it contains the single steepest kilometre of this Vuelta, ahead of even Cuitu Negru. It backs directly into Portillo de Lunada, which in turn chains perfectly into Saturday’s MTF at Picón Blanco… but instead of doing the obvious and sensible thing, Unipublic are bypassing this climb by a stone’s throw on that stage, instead including it as a ***-you to the sprinters here.
So no Lunada today, instead the race doubles back on itself to head up Alto del Caracol. This climb runs parallel to Estranguada, only a couple of kilometres further south. It will be used again on Saturday, from the opposite side - the western one, when the western side of Estranguada is the very wall they are using today and would barely have been a detour. While far from the worst design decision a GT has pulled, this surely has to be the most bizarre one…
Oh, right, I’m supposed to post a profile of this side. It’s the final 8.3k of the one below.
After that, the climbing is pretty much done. There’s the easy Alto de San Martín de Villafufre (profile below) not too long after Caracol, other than that the roads are rolling at most. Favourable terrain for the chase, but will there even be one?
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