- Sep 20, 2017
- 12,032
- 22,801
- 28,180
The midpoint of the race is marked by a pretty interesting-looking mid-mountain stage.
Map and profile
(someone should explain to Unipublic how you show circuits on a map, without the profile I would be completely lost)
Start
A pretty gruelling transfer of well over three hours has taken the riders from the easternmost reaches of the wider Basque region to the westernmost of its major cities, Bilbao (or Bilbo in Basque – for the sake of me not going insane, I’ll stick to the internationally-used Spanish name in the rest of this post). Little is known of its history until it was granted a town charter in 1300, well after the Castilian conquest of the Basque Country. At this time, the town consisted of only three streets, and although it gradually started to draw in more trade, it was still only at about 1000 inhabitants when it gained special trading privileges for wool in 1511. The mining of iron also gained in importance. This spurred more rapid development, and in spite of most of the town burning down in 1571, it now overtook the rival port of Bermeo both economically and politically, replacing its competitor as the capital of Biscay in 1602. Bilbao was now also a centre of Basque culture, as evidenced by the printing of the first book in Basque here in 1596.
As in most of Spain, the 17th century was difficult, with all regions bearing the brunt of the crown’s financial woes. Biscay was one of many places where this led to a revolt, in this case against the imposition of a salt tax in 1631. In spite of this, the town continued to grow, and by the 19th century the old town had become too cramped and the development of the Abando neighbourhood, nowadays the true centre of the city, began. However, nobody at the time would have expected just how much greater the economic pressure was about to become. The Industrial Revolution started to take hold in the mid-19th century, with the population growing from 10000 to 35000 between 1842 and 1877. As discussed on the previous stage, 1877 is one year after the elimination of the Basque Country’s separate economic status, and the subsequent removal of trade barriers meant that economic development went into overdrive. The population more than doubled in the next two decades, and continued to grow almost constantly until its peak at over 400000 inhabitants in the 1970s. Bilbao was now the face of the Industrial Revolution in Spain, with a booming iron and steel industry, but especially in the earlier decades also the associated environmental problems and poverty.
Of course, there was one slight blip in this era of constant development: the Spanish Civil War. The industrial region in Northern Spain were republican, but in the early stages of the war the nationalist forces succeeded in cutting off this area from the rest of the republican-held territory. Thus, the strip of land from central Asturias through Cantabria to the central Basque Country was surrounded on all sides by hostile forces. And with the importance of the industries of this area in general and Bilbao in particular, those in it must have known that a republican offensive was inevitable.
And so it came to pass. The nationalists enlisted the help of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, and when it became clear that the other European governments were going to unanimously cover themselves in glory by sitting on the sidelines, they launched their campaign in the spring of 1937. The centre of the Basque Country was first to fall, amidst the most notorious war crimes in Spanish history (we’ll get to those in more ways than one later on in this stage). Bilbao was now directly in the line of fire, and all the republicans could muster was the hasty construction of fortifications. These would prove to of little value against the (mostly foreign) Francoist air forces. The Battle of Bilbao started on the 12th of June, and it would be less than a week until its fall. The one upside of the lopsided military situation was that Bilbao was neither heavily bombed nor subject to much street fighting, and thus sustained relatively little damage. Even so, the number of casualties likely numbered in the thousands.
In the 1970s, the industrialised cities in Europe collectively entered a steep decline amidst the oil crisis. Many such cities are still reeling from the impact to this day, but Bilbao was among the first and most successful in pivoting to a more service-based economy. The already-existing banking sector that had developed in support of its industry was an important factor, but the transition has also involved a focus on tourism (notably including the establishment of its Guggenheim Museum) been and been made possible by major infrastructure developments (such as the opening of its metro network in 1995). As a result, the period of population decline came to an end around the turn of the century and today, the city is doing quite well for itself again.
And of course, we cannot talk about Bilbao without talking about sports. Its flagship is of course Athletic Bilbao, the eight-time La Liga champions famous for exclusively signing players from the wider Basque region. With the huge popularity of cycling in the Basque Country, the city has naturally seen a lot of the sport, being a staple of the Vuelta save for the three decades where the race avoided the region, organising the 2023 Grand Départ and hosting an array of Basque races.
(picture by Michael Meraner at Wikimedia Commons)
The route
The first KOM starts almost immediately after the end of the neutralised zone. Alto de Laukiz/Unbe Mendi is probably too soft to deserve its KOM points, but should still contribute to what I expect to be an entertaining start to the day.
There is little rest for the wicked on this stage. After a rolling section, it’s straight onto the next climb, Alto del Sollube/Sollube Gaina from its easier southwestern side. Unipublic have decided that the KOM should be at the pass rather than at the end of the proper climb, but as it’s only a cat. 3 this strange choice shouldn’t impact proceedings much.
The descent is somewhat steep, but not testing by any means (not that any of the descents on this stage are particularly tricky). It takes us into the coastal town of Bermeo, which as I mentioned previously was once the regional capital. When a tourist comes here, they almost invariably head west towards Gaztelugatxe, but the Vuelta is turning south, and that means it’s time to cast our mind towards more important things than cycling, as the next stopoff is Gernika/Guernica. As such, it’s time to talk about those notorious war crimes, and from there segue into the more recent part of Basque history I have not discussed so far.
Although never a particularly large town, Gernika had a special status within the Basque Country long before its darkest hour. In the region, it was customary for a long time that political/community meetings were held under an oak tree. Over time, the tree in Gernika came to take on that role for meetings concerning all of Biscay, and thus the town was the political centre of the region until the abolition of autonomy in 1876. Indeed, it has housed the government of Biscay once more since the restoration of democracy.
Thus, Gernika became a somewhat forgotten place, until that fateful Monday in April 1937. Whether it was selected for its strategic significance (which was existent, but somewhat limited) or purely for the sake of terror remains a matter of debate, as is the victim count (estimates range from 100 to 2000 – the attempts at cover-up by the Franco regime, which lasted until its very end, play a significant role in the lack of an accurate figure). What is certain is that the Francoist command ordered the attack, the German and Italian air forces carried it out, and the town was mostly destroyed. And the other European governments watched their collective near futures and continued to do nothing.
Immortalised by Pablo Picasso’s famous painting, the bombing is both one of the causes of and symbolic for the difficult relationship between the Basque Country and the Spanish government. As mentioned previously, the Franco regime embarked on a policy of forced Hispanization whilst denying any role in the bombing of Gernika. After the fall of the regime upon Franco’s death in 1975, the fledgling Spanish democracy decided on the so-called Pact of Forgetting, codified by the 1977 amnesty law. While there was some logic to this – there was a great deal of fear of a Francoist counterrevolution materialising – the result was that there was never any justice for the victims of the Franco regime. And while the Spanish centre-left has made some moves against this Pact in more recent times, the amnesty law has never been repealed, and even something as basic as a formal apology for Gernika has proven to be a step too far.
It is in this context that the more radical, generally far-left elements of Basque nationalism slid into what can only be described as terrorism. So, because there haven’t been enough controversial topics in this post yet, it’s time to talk about the ETA. Although founded in 1959, they did not embark on a program of assassinations until 1968. At the time, their main target was the Franco regime, and thus the French government provided a degree of cover for the ETA at the time. Although this policy had some success, as the ETA wound up assassinating Franco’s chosen heir Luis Carrero Blanco in 1973, they would have to reverse course after Franco’s fall.
As mentioned previously, the new government granted the Basque Country a great deal of autonomy, but the refusal to include the right to self-determination in the new constitution coupled with other grievances such as the amnesty law left the majority of Basques unsatisfied. Most of them went no further in their protest than to boycott the constitutional referendum, but the ETA, well, went a lot further. 1978 through 1980 were the years where their violence was at its worst, with over a quarter of their killings (the official total is 829) occurring in this period. One of the many effects of this was that the Vuelta abandoned its trips into the Basque Country, the region that had been most central to the race, after 1978. Over the years, there were many opportunities to bring an end to the fighting, especially as popular support for the ETA grew increasingly marginal. However, a combination of the ETA’s rigidity and some – how do I put this – ill-advised decisions by the Spanish government (including the establishment of anti-separatist death squads by the state in the 1980s) meant that a permanent ceasefire and the disbandment of the ETA were not achieved until 2010 and 2018 respectively. Although Basque nationalism retains a great deal of support, the faultline has become less active than the one in Catalonia since then. This paved the way for the Vuelta’s return to the Basque Country in 2011, and thereby also for this stage.
Oh, right, I was talking about a stage at some point in this post. Said stage leaves Pello Bilbao’s hometown via the uncategorised ascent up Astorkigane.
The briefest of descents brings us to the bottom of the next KOM, Balcón de Bizkaia/Bizkaiko begiratokia.
Next up is the Alto de Morga/Aretxabalagane.
And then, after a bit of valley, things get a lot more serious. The final 57 kilometres consist of the following: climb Alto del Vivero/Vivero gaina from its most usual side, descend the entirety of the ridge road into Bilbao, pass through the finish, climb Vivero again from the same side, descend in the other direction, climb back up to the ridge road via Alto de Pike/Pike Bidea, then descend back to the finish. The two ascents of Vivero are not quite identical: on the first pass, we only go up to 200 metres before the end of the profile below, whereas the second time up follows the profile in full.
The finish in Bilbao is not atop a short climb like in the Tour, but in the middle of the city, which means it’s slightly closer to both Vivero and Pike. On the first passage, we have the intermediate sprint. Then, after the second ascent of Vivero, it’s time for the decisive climb, the brutal little wall up Pike that was first introduced by the Circuito de Getxo and then made famous by the Tour.
As you may remember from that stage, the route back into the city is as untechnical as it gets. With the flat finish and shorter finale, the role of Pike should be more decisive than it was that day.
Map and profile
(someone should explain to Unipublic how you show circuits on a map, without the profile I would be completely lost)
Start
A pretty gruelling transfer of well over three hours has taken the riders from the easternmost reaches of the wider Basque region to the westernmost of its major cities, Bilbao (or Bilbo in Basque – for the sake of me not going insane, I’ll stick to the internationally-used Spanish name in the rest of this post). Little is known of its history until it was granted a town charter in 1300, well after the Castilian conquest of the Basque Country. At this time, the town consisted of only three streets, and although it gradually started to draw in more trade, it was still only at about 1000 inhabitants when it gained special trading privileges for wool in 1511. The mining of iron also gained in importance. This spurred more rapid development, and in spite of most of the town burning down in 1571, it now overtook the rival port of Bermeo both economically and politically, replacing its competitor as the capital of Biscay in 1602. Bilbao was now also a centre of Basque culture, as evidenced by the printing of the first book in Basque here in 1596.
As in most of Spain, the 17th century was difficult, with all regions bearing the brunt of the crown’s financial woes. Biscay was one of many places where this led to a revolt, in this case against the imposition of a salt tax in 1631. In spite of this, the town continued to grow, and by the 19th century the old town had become too cramped and the development of the Abando neighbourhood, nowadays the true centre of the city, began. However, nobody at the time would have expected just how much greater the economic pressure was about to become. The Industrial Revolution started to take hold in the mid-19th century, with the population growing from 10000 to 35000 between 1842 and 1877. As discussed on the previous stage, 1877 is one year after the elimination of the Basque Country’s separate economic status, and the subsequent removal of trade barriers meant that economic development went into overdrive. The population more than doubled in the next two decades, and continued to grow almost constantly until its peak at over 400000 inhabitants in the 1970s. Bilbao was now the face of the Industrial Revolution in Spain, with a booming iron and steel industry, but especially in the earlier decades also the associated environmental problems and poverty.
Of course, there was one slight blip in this era of constant development: the Spanish Civil War. The industrial region in Northern Spain were republican, but in the early stages of the war the nationalist forces succeeded in cutting off this area from the rest of the republican-held territory. Thus, the strip of land from central Asturias through Cantabria to the central Basque Country was surrounded on all sides by hostile forces. And with the importance of the industries of this area in general and Bilbao in particular, those in it must have known that a republican offensive was inevitable.
And so it came to pass. The nationalists enlisted the help of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, and when it became clear that the other European governments were going to unanimously cover themselves in glory by sitting on the sidelines, they launched their campaign in the spring of 1937. The centre of the Basque Country was first to fall, amidst the most notorious war crimes in Spanish history (we’ll get to those in more ways than one later on in this stage). Bilbao was now directly in the line of fire, and all the republicans could muster was the hasty construction of fortifications. These would prove to of little value against the (mostly foreign) Francoist air forces. The Battle of Bilbao started on the 12th of June, and it would be less than a week until its fall. The one upside of the lopsided military situation was that Bilbao was neither heavily bombed nor subject to much street fighting, and thus sustained relatively little damage. Even so, the number of casualties likely numbered in the thousands.
In the 1970s, the industrialised cities in Europe collectively entered a steep decline amidst the oil crisis. Many such cities are still reeling from the impact to this day, but Bilbao was among the first and most successful in pivoting to a more service-based economy. The already-existing banking sector that had developed in support of its industry was an important factor, but the transition has also involved a focus on tourism (notably including the establishment of its Guggenheim Museum) been and been made possible by major infrastructure developments (such as the opening of its metro network in 1995). As a result, the period of population decline came to an end around the turn of the century and today, the city is doing quite well for itself again.
And of course, we cannot talk about Bilbao without talking about sports. Its flagship is of course Athletic Bilbao, the eight-time La Liga champions famous for exclusively signing players from the wider Basque region. With the huge popularity of cycling in the Basque Country, the city has naturally seen a lot of the sport, being a staple of the Vuelta save for the three decades where the race avoided the region, organising the 2023 Grand Départ and hosting an array of Basque races.
(picture by Michael Meraner at Wikimedia Commons)
The route
The first KOM starts almost immediately after the end of the neutralised zone. Alto de Laukiz/Unbe Mendi is probably too soft to deserve its KOM points, but should still contribute to what I expect to be an entertaining start to the day.
There is little rest for the wicked on this stage. After a rolling section, it’s straight onto the next climb, Alto del Sollube/Sollube Gaina from its easier southwestern side. Unipublic have decided that the KOM should be at the pass rather than at the end of the proper climb, but as it’s only a cat. 3 this strange choice shouldn’t impact proceedings much.
The descent is somewhat steep, but not testing by any means (not that any of the descents on this stage are particularly tricky). It takes us into the coastal town of Bermeo, which as I mentioned previously was once the regional capital. When a tourist comes here, they almost invariably head west towards Gaztelugatxe, but the Vuelta is turning south, and that means it’s time to cast our mind towards more important things than cycling, as the next stopoff is Gernika/Guernica. As such, it’s time to talk about those notorious war crimes, and from there segue into the more recent part of Basque history I have not discussed so far.
Although never a particularly large town, Gernika had a special status within the Basque Country long before its darkest hour. In the region, it was customary for a long time that political/community meetings were held under an oak tree. Over time, the tree in Gernika came to take on that role for meetings concerning all of Biscay, and thus the town was the political centre of the region until the abolition of autonomy in 1876. Indeed, it has housed the government of Biscay once more since the restoration of democracy.
Thus, Gernika became a somewhat forgotten place, until that fateful Monday in April 1937. Whether it was selected for its strategic significance (which was existent, but somewhat limited) or purely for the sake of terror remains a matter of debate, as is the victim count (estimates range from 100 to 2000 – the attempts at cover-up by the Franco regime, which lasted until its very end, play a significant role in the lack of an accurate figure). What is certain is that the Francoist command ordered the attack, the German and Italian air forces carried it out, and the town was mostly destroyed. And the other European governments watched their collective near futures and continued to do nothing.
Immortalised by Pablo Picasso’s famous painting, the bombing is both one of the causes of and symbolic for the difficult relationship between the Basque Country and the Spanish government. As mentioned previously, the Franco regime embarked on a policy of forced Hispanization whilst denying any role in the bombing of Gernika. After the fall of the regime upon Franco’s death in 1975, the fledgling Spanish democracy decided on the so-called Pact of Forgetting, codified by the 1977 amnesty law. While there was some logic to this – there was a great deal of fear of a Francoist counterrevolution materialising – the result was that there was never any justice for the victims of the Franco regime. And while the Spanish centre-left has made some moves against this Pact in more recent times, the amnesty law has never been repealed, and even something as basic as a formal apology for Gernika has proven to be a step too far.
It is in this context that the more radical, generally far-left elements of Basque nationalism slid into what can only be described as terrorism. So, because there haven’t been enough controversial topics in this post yet, it’s time to talk about the ETA. Although founded in 1959, they did not embark on a program of assassinations until 1968. At the time, their main target was the Franco regime, and thus the French government provided a degree of cover for the ETA at the time. Although this policy had some success, as the ETA wound up assassinating Franco’s chosen heir Luis Carrero Blanco in 1973, they would have to reverse course after Franco’s fall.
As mentioned previously, the new government granted the Basque Country a great deal of autonomy, but the refusal to include the right to self-determination in the new constitution coupled with other grievances such as the amnesty law left the majority of Basques unsatisfied. Most of them went no further in their protest than to boycott the constitutional referendum, but the ETA, well, went a lot further. 1978 through 1980 were the years where their violence was at its worst, with over a quarter of their killings (the official total is 829) occurring in this period. One of the many effects of this was that the Vuelta abandoned its trips into the Basque Country, the region that had been most central to the race, after 1978. Over the years, there were many opportunities to bring an end to the fighting, especially as popular support for the ETA grew increasingly marginal. However, a combination of the ETA’s rigidity and some – how do I put this – ill-advised decisions by the Spanish government (including the establishment of anti-separatist death squads by the state in the 1980s) meant that a permanent ceasefire and the disbandment of the ETA were not achieved until 2010 and 2018 respectively. Although Basque nationalism retains a great deal of support, the faultline has become less active than the one in Catalonia since then. This paved the way for the Vuelta’s return to the Basque Country in 2011, and thereby also for this stage.
Oh, right, I was talking about a stage at some point in this post. Said stage leaves Pello Bilbao’s hometown via the uncategorised ascent up Astorkigane.
The briefest of descents brings us to the bottom of the next KOM, Balcón de Bizkaia/Bizkaiko begiratokia.
Next up is the Alto de Morga/Aretxabalagane.
And then, after a bit of valley, things get a lot more serious. The final 57 kilometres consist of the following: climb Alto del Vivero/Vivero gaina from its most usual side, descend the entirety of the ridge road into Bilbao, pass through the finish, climb Vivero again from the same side, descend in the other direction, climb back up to the ridge road via Alto de Pike/Pike Bidea, then descend back to the finish. The two ascents of Vivero are not quite identical: on the first pass, we only go up to 200 metres before the end of the profile below, whereas the second time up follows the profile in full.
The finish in Bilbao is not atop a short climb like in the Tour, but in the middle of the city, which means it’s slightly closer to both Vivero and Pike. On the first passage, we have the intermediate sprint. Then, after the second ascent of Vivero, it’s time for the decisive climb, the brutal little wall up Pike that was first introduced by the Circuito de Getxo and then made famous by the Tour.
As you may remember from that stage, the route back into the city is as untechnical as it gets. With the flat finish and shorter finale, the role of Pike should be more decisive than it was that day.
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