- Sep 20, 2017
- 12,032
- 22,801
- 28,180
The race continues after the rest day where it left off, with a unipuerto stage on a weak MTF. Will it be a breakaway day this time or are we getting another surprise outcome?
Map and profile
Start
Neither the start nor the finish is actually in a town on this stage, so this will be a record low in terms of time spent talking about the stage hosts for me. The start is barely 10 kilometres away from Sunday’s stage start, in the theme park/wild park hybrid Sendaviva. Located where the semi-desert of the Bardenas Reales meets the Navarrese part of the Ebro valley, it was opened in 2004 and is (or at least claims to be) the largest amusement park in Spain in terms of sheer area. It sits inside the municipality of Arguedas, a scenic town in its own right that is notable for its former cave dwellings. As the route isn’t really giving me a natural way to segue into Navarrese history and this is the sole stage in the region, it will have to be a more or less standalone section.
The early history of the wider Basque region is a bit of a strange one. The Vascones, already speaking a form of the Basque language, already inhabited the area before the Romans arrived in Iberia. When they did, the mountainous north was not an area they were particularly interested in, and thus Romanisation was not complete here, allowing the Basque language to survive in the rural areas in particular. In both the Visigothic and early Umayyad period, the region was usually semi-independent, which helped shape a distinct identity. In the 9th century, a kingdom centred in Pamplona/Iruña gradually gained full independence. This kingdom was Navarra, and it would soon grow to rule over what we conceive of now as the wider Basque region in its entirety. At its peak, the borders extended further. We have already discussed the two most notable examples: La Rioja and the original County of Aragón.
In the second half of the Middle Ages, the Kingdom slowly went into decline. What is now the Basque Country was lost to Castilla in the 12th century, and both Aragón and France were able to hold effective control of Navarra for a period of time. In the early 16th century, the kingdom was decimated when Castilla conquered everything it had left on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees, including the area in which we are starting. The French part of the kingdom survived, and at the end of the century the ruling house inherited the French throne, founding the Bourbon dynasty. These events contributed greatly to the area where Basque is spoken shrinking significantly over the course of the centuries. In Navarra, the language is all but extinct in the southern areas and the majority language solely in the far north.
In spite of the conquest, Navarra was allowed to join the Basque Country in retaining home rule. Basque-Navarrese support of Philip V during the War of the Spanish Succession meant this arrangement survived the Nueva Planta degrees. However, the region was probably the most supportive of the Carlist pretenders, even establishing a Carlist state during the Third Carlist War. As a result, political autonomy was ended in 1839-41 and economic autonomy went the same way in 1876. Economic integration wound up contributing to great economic development in the cities nearer the coast, but Navarra entered a period of stagnation and decline. By the 1930s, the worst was over, but it remained underdeveloped, rural and conservative. It should therefore not come as a surprise that the region supported the Francoists during the Spanish Civil War. After the Second World War, the economic development that had already started before the civil war really took off in Navarra, and the region outpaced its peers to develop into one of the richest in the country.
(picture by Utolotu at Wikimedia Commons)
The route
As much as there is to complain about the route on this stage from a sporting perspective, in terms of landscapes this is the best and especially most varied the Vuelta is bringing us this year. We start by traversing the scorched south of Navarra towards Olite/Erriberri. This town is one of the main tourist destinations in the region thanks to its royal palace, one of the seats of the kings of Navarra from its construction in the 13th century until Castilian conquest in 1512. Here, the landscape changes: the riders enter the foothills of the Pyrenees, which makes for greener terrain but more importantly some degree of climbing as the riders head up the Alto de Lerga.
Up next is the Alto de Aibar/Oibar. This marks the point where we join the route of the 2022 Vuelta a Navarra stage to Larra-Belagua, and from here onwards the two are identical.
The route then passes through Lumbier, a town known for the two canyons near it. One is right to its south, the other to the northeast, which happens to be the way where we are going. As the road does not go through the canyon, it needs to head up the mountainside instead, doing so via the Alto de Iso/Isoko Gain.
The next climb is quite a bit harder, and therefore actually categorised. Alto de las Coronas/Coronas mendatea is also the location of the bonification sprint.
The descent takes us into the Valle del Roncal/Erronkaribar, the easternmost and highest part of Navarra. We are well and truly back into the Pyrenees here, but unlike in the 2023 stage (which came from France and took in two really hard climbs in Hourcère and Larrau, but was pretty awful regardless because Visma had destroyed the race the day before on Tourmalet), we have just the MTF left to do. The intermediate sprint is in Isaba/Izaba, the uppermost village in the valley, and after another 12 kilometres of false flat the climb towards the border at Col de la Pierre Saint-Martin/Collada de la Piedra San Martin/Belaguako mendatea (I wish I’d realised we would be in trilingual area at some point when I committed to respecting multilinguality a few GTs ago) starts. As in 2023, we don’t go all the way up, instead finishing at the Nordic ski station at Larra-Belagua.
Finish
Larra-Belagua is a small Nordic ski station, located very close to the tripoint with France and Aragón, the Mesa de los Tres Reyes/Table des Trois Rois/Hiru Erregeen Mahaia, which is also the highest point of Navarra. Established in 2008, it is named for the massive karst plateau that spans both sides of the border, making for one of the most distinctive landscapes within the Pyrenees. Aside from the aforementioned Vuelta a Navarra and Vuelta a España stages, it has to the best of my knowledge not hosted any previous races, pro or amateur.
(picture by Ebaquero at Wikimedia Commons)
Map and profile
Start
Neither the start nor the finish is actually in a town on this stage, so this will be a record low in terms of time spent talking about the stage hosts for me. The start is barely 10 kilometres away from Sunday’s stage start, in the theme park/wild park hybrid Sendaviva. Located where the semi-desert of the Bardenas Reales meets the Navarrese part of the Ebro valley, it was opened in 2004 and is (or at least claims to be) the largest amusement park in Spain in terms of sheer area. It sits inside the municipality of Arguedas, a scenic town in its own right that is notable for its former cave dwellings. As the route isn’t really giving me a natural way to segue into Navarrese history and this is the sole stage in the region, it will have to be a more or less standalone section.
The early history of the wider Basque region is a bit of a strange one. The Vascones, already speaking a form of the Basque language, already inhabited the area before the Romans arrived in Iberia. When they did, the mountainous north was not an area they were particularly interested in, and thus Romanisation was not complete here, allowing the Basque language to survive in the rural areas in particular. In both the Visigothic and early Umayyad period, the region was usually semi-independent, which helped shape a distinct identity. In the 9th century, a kingdom centred in Pamplona/Iruña gradually gained full independence. This kingdom was Navarra, and it would soon grow to rule over what we conceive of now as the wider Basque region in its entirety. At its peak, the borders extended further. We have already discussed the two most notable examples: La Rioja and the original County of Aragón.
In the second half of the Middle Ages, the Kingdom slowly went into decline. What is now the Basque Country was lost to Castilla in the 12th century, and both Aragón and France were able to hold effective control of Navarra for a period of time. In the early 16th century, the kingdom was decimated when Castilla conquered everything it had left on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees, including the area in which we are starting. The French part of the kingdom survived, and at the end of the century the ruling house inherited the French throne, founding the Bourbon dynasty. These events contributed greatly to the area where Basque is spoken shrinking significantly over the course of the centuries. In Navarra, the language is all but extinct in the southern areas and the majority language solely in the far north.
In spite of the conquest, Navarra was allowed to join the Basque Country in retaining home rule. Basque-Navarrese support of Philip V during the War of the Spanish Succession meant this arrangement survived the Nueva Planta degrees. However, the region was probably the most supportive of the Carlist pretenders, even establishing a Carlist state during the Third Carlist War. As a result, political autonomy was ended in 1839-41 and economic autonomy went the same way in 1876. Economic integration wound up contributing to great economic development in the cities nearer the coast, but Navarra entered a period of stagnation and decline. By the 1930s, the worst was over, but it remained underdeveloped, rural and conservative. It should therefore not come as a surprise that the region supported the Francoists during the Spanish Civil War. After the Second World War, the economic development that had already started before the civil war really took off in Navarra, and the region outpaced its peers to develop into one of the richest in the country.
(picture by Utolotu at Wikimedia Commons)
The route
As much as there is to complain about the route on this stage from a sporting perspective, in terms of landscapes this is the best and especially most varied the Vuelta is bringing us this year. We start by traversing the scorched south of Navarra towards Olite/Erriberri. This town is one of the main tourist destinations in the region thanks to its royal palace, one of the seats of the kings of Navarra from its construction in the 13th century until Castilian conquest in 1512. Here, the landscape changes: the riders enter the foothills of the Pyrenees, which makes for greener terrain but more importantly some degree of climbing as the riders head up the Alto de Lerga.
Up next is the Alto de Aibar/Oibar. This marks the point where we join the route of the 2022 Vuelta a Navarra stage to Larra-Belagua, and from here onwards the two are identical.
The route then passes through Lumbier, a town known for the two canyons near it. One is right to its south, the other to the northeast, which happens to be the way where we are going. As the road does not go through the canyon, it needs to head up the mountainside instead, doing so via the Alto de Iso/Isoko Gain.
The next climb is quite a bit harder, and therefore actually categorised. Alto de las Coronas/Coronas mendatea is also the location of the bonification sprint.
The descent takes us into the Valle del Roncal/Erronkaribar, the easternmost and highest part of Navarra. We are well and truly back into the Pyrenees here, but unlike in the 2023 stage (which came from France and took in two really hard climbs in Hourcère and Larrau, but was pretty awful regardless because Visma had destroyed the race the day before on Tourmalet), we have just the MTF left to do. The intermediate sprint is in Isaba/Izaba, the uppermost village in the valley, and after another 12 kilometres of false flat the climb towards the border at Col de la Pierre Saint-Martin/Collada de la Piedra San Martin/Belaguako mendatea (I wish I’d realised we would be in trilingual area at some point when I committed to respecting multilinguality a few GTs ago) starts. As in 2023, we don’t go all the way up, instead finishing at the Nordic ski station at Larra-Belagua.
Finish
Larra-Belagua is a small Nordic ski station, located very close to the tripoint with France and Aragón, the Mesa de los Tres Reyes/Table des Trois Rois/Hiru Erregeen Mahaia, which is also the highest point of Navarra. Established in 2008, it is named for the massive karst plateau that spans both sides of the border, making for one of the most distinctive landscapes within the Pyrenees. Aside from the aforementioned Vuelta a Navarra and Vuelta a España stages, it has to the best of my knowledge not hosted any previous races, pro or amateur.
(picture by Ebaquero at Wikimedia Commons)
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