Vuelta a España Vuelta a España 2025, Stage 16: Poio/Poyo – Castro de Herville/Erville (167.9k)

[HashRouge]

I missed the stage so racing related question here - did it look like the breakaway would take the stage even if it wasn't shortened, or were they likely to be caught on the final climb?

 

[Red Rick]

I missed the stage so racing related question here - did it look like the breakaway would take the stage even if it wasn't shortened, or were they likely to be caught on the final climb?

They were always winning the stage.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Moderator surely has opinions and world views on things, far and wide.

I do indeed, and I am trying hard to keep them under wraps here, as I have to at work.

I'm just asking that, as the providers require, the rest of you do the same on non-cycling controversies, even when the impact of one on the other makes that hard.

Moderator trying to beat in a simple, basic point, if people posting make the forum, problematic, possibly violate laws only logical option is to shut down the forum.

Certainly not a situation I would want to arrive at.

I have reviewed the deletions, and restored about a dozen. I have left deleted ones that are promoting certain levels of police action, those that are not rule-breaking in themselves but cannot really be responded to without doing so, a couple that are very strongly political, and hopefully nothing else.

If your posts were temporarily deleted, my apologies, but I believe this was preferable to the rear guard action I was left with the other day.


Now, a nice brisket with some roasted veg, I think, and maybe a glass of wine with dinner tonight.

 

[Cookster15]

If it is impossible to discuss even the purely sporting impacts of the protests

Just dropped in to see this.

Apologies if I missed something already addressed but can you explain what you mean by purely sporting aspects of the protests? The protests are not sporting any more than people who run on football pitches to stop games.

The 2019 Tour de France was stopped for a landslide.

Are we suggesting such protests are now the norm in cycling so moderation should change to adapt? I am not sure that is feasible.

I hope for the sport that the organisers and police can work harder to prevent this happening on a regular basis as we have seen this Vuelta. Otherwise there are serious ramifications for the sport - not just this forum.

But congrats to Egan Bernal as a deserved winner despite what eventuated.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Apologies if I missed something already addressed but can you explain what you mean by purely sporting aspects of the protests? The protests are not sporting any more than people who run on football pitches to stop games.

Sporting impacts, not aspects. I have entirely refrained from alluding to the politics underlying the protests in this thread, not made any value judgment on the protests, avoided discussing the people protesting or what/who they are protesting against, and yet I have still had multiple posts removed where basically all I did was say that this is unlikely to have been the last time a race is impacted. I have seen similarly neutral, sporting impact-oriented posts by others removed.

 

[Sciatic]

This is the age old lie sold by cycling.. Give us money for sponsorship and you will see results..99.9% of the time sponsor a team or event see nothing from your investment. Bike racing selling the folklore that if you host a start or finish line, local cash registers, bars and restaurants will see immediate positive impact, it definitely happens but is usually nowhere near anything close to the sales hype. US we have ours, Leadville, Unbound, Lifetime, Belgian Waffle few dozen gran fondos but overall not much return on putting up with BS.
In Grand Tours you get unusually high patronage but it's lots, lots of work. Lots of people who don't like bikes, bike racing, don't like sports don't own a business see spending time and money as a waste of time.. Which is the majority. Go to Flemish part of Belgium, not everyone is happy about another bike race.. It's all just public relations sales..majority of people find all of it a complete pain in as-

Not talking about the U.S., absolutely no relevance to European cycling. I’ve stayed in several of those TdF stage finish towns at the foot of the mountaintop finish. Every hotel, AirBnB, etcc booked for three days (two before stage and one after) months in advance. Every restaurant full for those three days. Grocers, bakers, etc doing extra business day of the race. Yes, it’s a short period of time but it’s a big business boom. The hard to determine factor is how many of thousands who stayed there for the race decided they liked the place and decided to return (especially the 500+ recreational cyclists who rode the climb prior to the race.

 

[Sciatic]

This is the age old lie sold by cycling.. Give us money for sponsorship and you will see results..99.9% of the time sponsor a team or event see nothing from your investment. Bike racing selling the folklore that if you host a start or finish line, local cash registers, bars and restaurants will see immediate positive impact, it definitely happens but is usually nowhere near anything close to the sales hype. US we have ours, Leadville, Unbound, Lifetime, Belgian Waffle few dozen gran fondos but overall not much return on putting up with BS.
In Grand Tours you get unusually high patronage but it's lots, lots of work. Lots of people who don't like bikes, bike racing, don't like sports don't own a business see spending time and money as a waste of time.. Which is the majority. Go to Flemish part of Belgium, not everyone is happy about another bike race.. It's all just public relations sales..majority of people find all of it a complete pain in as-

Also, since this is a discussion about mountain finishes, exactly which town in Belgium is at the foot of a Cat 1 or HC climb?

 

[CyclistAbi]

Now that was a quality breakaway in terms of fandom, either winning would be great. Kudos to Bernal for outsprinting Landa. First time i seen an UAE rider being pulled back, for Almeida.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Not talking about the U.S., absolutely no relevance to European cycling. I’ve stayed in several of those TdF stage finish towns at the foot of the mountaintop finish. Every hotel, AirBnB, etcc booked for three days (two before stage and one after) months in advance. Every restaurant full for those three days. Grocers, bakers, etc doing extra business day of the race. Yes, it’s a short period of time but it’s a big business boom. The hard to determine factor is how many of thousands who stayed there for the race decided they liked the place and decided to return (especially the 500+ recreational cyclists who rode the climb prior to the race.

And TV viewers might also be drawn to certain regions after seeing them on TV during a big bike race. For me personally, Corsica and the Picos de Europa entered my bucket list when I saw them during the Tour and Vuelta respectively as a teenager, and I've since vacationed in both. Of course I am not statistically significant on my own, but there will be plenty of other viewers who consciously or subconsciously decide to travel somewhere in a similar way.

 

[Sciatic]

And TV viewers might also be drawn to certain regions after seeing them on TV during a big bike race. For me personally, Corsica and the Picos de Europa entered my bucket list when I saw them during the Tour and Vuelta respectively as a teenager, and I've since vacationed in both. Of course I am not statistically significant on my own, but there will be plenty of other viewers who consciously or subconsciously decide to travel somewhere in a similar way.

Same is true for me!

 

[Izzyeviel]

Are you saying we cannot report what is actually happening, like a tree being felled to block the road?

don't say it was felled, just say it just so happened to fall over on today of all days after 200 hundreds years of strong growth & its time to call in Mulder & Scully to investigate the mystery.

 

[KZD]

Unfortunate that the stage had to be shortened due to the protests.

Great to see Bernal winning and Landa fighting for the win too.

A shame that Braz Afonso had the puncture, he was looking good.

 

[SHaines]

I can ask the Admins to come and give some sort of explanation, but until them, I am firefighting: please don't make it harder than it already is.

Not derailing the discussion, but here's a thread with a comment on our policies.

 

[P4rthen0n]

This is getting out of hand.
It's absolutely unacceptable to have this twice in a GT.
Bilbao was already bad, but this is even worse because this is a mountain finish.
The spanish police have to work harder to disband these protests.

 

[CyclistAbi]

Personally i feel that we should get used to the protests as being integral part of pro peloton. Due to neglect in the past, all sort of areas, protesters now just got such amount of work to do that i doubt all can get done in near future. Kudos to the organiser, although their hands were tied, by UCI, they innovated with this hide and seek approach and at least they are keeping the riders safe. On positive side it seem that suddenly everybody support and respect riders safety much more, then before Vuelta started. That is something we should carry on doing regardless of the protests.

 

[Boehmand]

Just dropped in to see this.

Apologies if I missed something already addressed but can you explain what you mean by purely sporting aspects of the protests? The protests are not sporting any more than people who run on football pitches to stop games.

The 2019 Tour de France was stopped for a landslide.

Are we suggesting such protests are now the norm in cycling so moderation should change to adapt? I am not sure that is feasible.

I hope for the sport that the organisers and police can work harder to prevent this happening on a regular basis as we have seen this Vuelta. Otherwise there are serious ramifications for the sport - not just this forum.

But congrats to Egan Bernal as a deserved winner despite what eventuated.

Not a at all.

We (well at least I) were saying it didn't make sense to remove posts that mentioned the disruption the demonstration caused, as if we were supposed to pretend it didn't happen

 

[hayneplane]

At least with the stage finish still being a step uphill section it did not alter the dynamic between those particular riders who were going to contest the finish anyway had they gone the full race distance.

With it being Bernal vs Landa we were guaranteed a feel good winner which sweetness the bitter taste somewhat.

 

[JosefK]

Grateful for all the shared views on today's stage. Forum moderation is also a challenging task, and hats off to the current mods of this forum for their efforts. In the old days (in other forums) posters who deviated from accepted protocols were sometimes remanded to more direct modes of corrective action, as shown here:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WUyZXhLHMk

 

[scribers]

"spends the night in the box"

Love that movie. Reminds me of papa scribe

 

[Oldman]

Now that was a quality breakaway in terms of fandom, either winning would be great. Kudos to Bernal for outsprinting Landa. First time i seen an UAE rider being pulled back, for Almeida.

Not only that; an excellent bike change for Vindegaard with his teammate that his guys up front didn't notice until the finish! If that had been Roglic JV's team car would have driven past him and run over his bike in the process...

 

[Oldman]

"spends the night in the box"

Love that movie. Reminds me of papa scribe

Gotta get that Boys mind right....

 

[scribers]

They tried, but could never fully break that man's indomitable spirit.

 

[ice&fire]

This is getting out of hand.
It's absolutely unacceptable to have this twice in a GT.
Bilbao was already bad, but this is even worse because this is a mountain finish.
The spanish police have to work harder to disband these protests.

It's not exactly a mountain finish but a hilltop finish surrounded by several villages (up to 1km from the top), a dense local road network and only 12km away from the center of a metropolitan area with a population of almost 500K people.

I won't comment on the police work, because if I speak I'm in big trouble.

 

[tobydawq]

Not only that; an excellent bike change for Vindegaard with his teammate that his guys up front didn't notice until the finish! If that had been Roglic JV's team car would have driven past him and run over his bike in the process...

While peeing on it.

 

[Rob5091]

Despite all the brouhaha at the end, The Man to Watch, Chumil, came home just in front of the grupetto nearly 18 minutes down but in 132 place. He's back baby!
https://www.nuestrodiario.com/depor...peleando-su-propia-batalla-en-vuelta-a-espana