The final mountain stage of the race - and indeed the last major mountain stage of the season - is a veritable sawtooth, although I've seen better toolmakers...
There's precious little flat on this stage. Even in the first 25 kilometres, the longest KOM-less stretch of the day, there's the Alto de Bocos to deal with.
From here, we pass through Espinosa de los Monteros, at the base of the MTF, for the first time. Next up is an example of perhaps the most typical feature of the Cordillera Cantábrica. Throughout its entire length, from western Asturias to the middle of the Basque Country, it has the high-lying Meseta to its south and the coast to its north, making for some very lopsided climbs at the watershed. Las Estacas de Trueba showcases this well, with the southern side being tackled here barely worthy of the KOM points.
The easy climb therefore makes for a long descent into Cantabria, and with that the first and easiest part of a sextuplet of climbs chaining directly into each other is out of the way. The next stopoff is Puerto de la Braguía, still a cat. 3 but certainly more testing.
The day's third climb is Alto del Caracol, from the side descended on Wednesday. I'll spare you the repeat of my stage 17 rant.
After this, it's time for the first cat. 1 of the day, Portillo de Lunada. As we're coming from Caracol, it's only the final 14k of the profile below, from the marked junction onwards.
The summit of Lunada is on the watershed, just like that of the next climb, Portillo de la Sía, and the last bit of the descent was actually climbed on the way to Estacas de Trueba earlier in the stage. However, both climb and descent are a bit more significant this time.
After a long descent, it's time for the bad part of the stage. As I've said previously, Estranguada - Lunada would have been the best possible run-in to the MTF because it has very little flat. Going up Puerto de Los Tornos instead makes for 18 flattish kilometres between summit and bottom of the MTF, but that is far from the biggest problem here. That dubious honour goes to the side of Tornos they're taking: it just isn't steep enough. What's more, there is a much better side, and in addition to that there are some pretty steep climbs that back directly into either side. While this isn't a bad stage design by any means, there are easily a dozen better versions of it and it's a shame that we aren't seeing one.
But I digress. This is the side we're actually doing, and who knows, maybe that one kilometre above 7% will actually do something.
At the summit, we go back into Burgos for the final time, and this time the climb is so lopsided that there is no descent to speak of. Back to Espinosa it is, for a MTF seen once before at the Vuelta (in 2021, plus in a bunch of Vuelta a Burgos stages), but never in a stage even half this hard. It's the hardest and by far the steepest climb of the day, but unless you're Enric Mas going for second place, not hard enough to do the damage on its own. Here's hoping the stage is raced accordingly.
There's precious little flat on this stage. Even in the first 25 kilometres, the longest KOM-less stretch of the day, there's the Alto de Bocos to deal with.
From here, we pass through Espinosa de los Monteros, at the base of the MTF, for the first time. Next up is an example of perhaps the most typical feature of the Cordillera Cantábrica. Throughout its entire length, from western Asturias to the middle of the Basque Country, it has the high-lying Meseta to its south and the coast to its north, making for some very lopsided climbs at the watershed. Las Estacas de Trueba showcases this well, with the southern side being tackled here barely worthy of the KOM points.
The easy climb therefore makes for a long descent into Cantabria, and with that the first and easiest part of a sextuplet of climbs chaining directly into each other is out of the way. The next stopoff is Puerto de la Braguía, still a cat. 3 but certainly more testing.
The day's third climb is Alto del Caracol, from the side descended on Wednesday. I'll spare you the repeat of my stage 17 rant.
After this, it's time for the first cat. 1 of the day, Portillo de Lunada. As we're coming from Caracol, it's only the final 14k of the profile below, from the marked junction onwards.
The summit of Lunada is on the watershed, just like that of the next climb, Portillo de la Sía, and the last bit of the descent was actually climbed on the way to Estacas de Trueba earlier in the stage. However, both climb and descent are a bit more significant this time.
After a long descent, it's time for the bad part of the stage. As I've said previously, Estranguada - Lunada would have been the best possible run-in to the MTF because it has very little flat. Going up Puerto de Los Tornos instead makes for 18 flattish kilometres between summit and bottom of the MTF, but that is far from the biggest problem here. That dubious honour goes to the side of Tornos they're taking: it just isn't steep enough. What's more, there is a much better side, and in addition to that there are some pretty steep climbs that back directly into either side. While this isn't a bad stage design by any means, there are easily a dozen better versions of it and it's a shame that we aren't seeing one.
But I digress. This is the side we're actually doing, and who knows, maybe that one kilometre above 7% will actually do something.
At the summit, we go back into Burgos for the final time, and this time the climb is so lopsided that there is no descent to speak of. Back to Espinosa it is, for a MTF seen once before at the Vuelta (in 2021, plus in a bunch of Vuelta a Burgos stages), but never in a stage even half this hard. It's the hardest and by far the steepest climb of the day, but unless you're Enric Mas going for second place, not hard enough to do the damage on its own. Here's hoping the stage is raced accordingly.
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