- Sep 20, 2017
- 11,978
- 22,661
- 28,180
After five fairly tame days, the Vuelta hits its first mountain stage. The gradients are not exactly brutal, but this is still hard enough to tell us who’s good and who isn’t.
Map and profile
Start
A transfer further inland has brought the riders into Olot, the largest town within the Garrotxa volcanic field. The area contains around forty volcanoes, and Olot has been built in the flat areas in between three of the cones. Although the last eruption happened over 10000 years ago, the field is still sometimes the site of earthquakes, most notably in 1426 when a severe quake claimed hundreds of victims, some of which were killed as far away as Barcelona. This earthquake also destroyed the small town (probably numbering only in the hundreds of inhabitants) that had developed over the course the Middle Ages. Reconstruction was interrupted by the first of the civil wars in Catalonia I mentioned on the previous stage, but from the 16th century onwards it developed a successful textile industry. This led to a period of great development, with the town surpassing 3000 inhabitants in the early 18th century and reaching about 10000 by the time war with revolutionary France first broke out in 1793. By then, Olot had temporarily surpassed Girona to become the largest town in northern Catalonia.
This wave of hostilities with France marked the end of Olot’s heyday. Although France would never fully conquer Spain (in fact, Napoleon’s ruinous Peninsular War from 1808 until his first abdication in 1814 is an overshadowed, but major contributor to his downfall), Olot was highly vulnerable on account of its proximity to the border and suffered accordingly. Its struggles continued throughout the 19th century, as the slow development of infrastructure this far inland led much of its industry to relocate. The sieges it suffered during the First and Third Carlist Wars did not help either. Olot’s fortunes started to improve around the turn of the century, with infrastructural developments headlined by the arrival of the railway and electricity as well as significant urban expansion. Its economic focus also shifted, first encompassing the production of religious images before pivoting towards the agrifood industry and services in more recent times. Its population, which was lower in 1900 than in the late 18th century, started to grow again in this period, something that (except for a period of recession during and immediately after the Spanish Civil War) has continued rather consistently until the present day. Much like Figueres, it has often hosted the Volta a Catalunya, but never the Vuelta.
(picture by Alberto-g-rovi at Wikimedia Commons)
The route
Now there is plenty to criticise where this Vuelta is concerned, but one thing I very much approve of is starting the first mountain stage with a climb. The ascent to Collada de Santigosa/Coll de Sentigosa already starts in the neutralisation, with the official start planned to occur 11.4 kilometres before the summit. As a side note, it’s rather… interesting that Unipublic uses Asturian names in Asturias, but not Catalan names in Catalonia, when Catalan is more widely spoken in Catalonia than Asturian in Asturias…
The descent is much shorter and equally shallow, but also quite twisty. It is followed by a valley section, initially a downhill false flat into Ripoll, then an uphill one towards the next climb, Collada de Toses. There are two roads up here: the old road that averages over 9% in its final four kilometres, or the new one that somehow manages to be both comfortably shallower and more highway-like than the east side of Lautaret. Take a guess which one Unipublic opted for.
After descending through the ski resort of La Molina, home to nobody’s favourite Catalunya MTF, it’s time for the easiest part of the race. The route initially traverses the wide valley of the Cerdanya, then follows the Segre river downstream as far as La Seu d’Urgell, the traditional gateway to Andorra. Here, the riders turn north towards the microstate. They make directly for the capital Andorra la Vella, where there is an intermediate sprint. Directly after this sprint, it’s time for the near-obligatory stopoff on any visit to the country, Alto de la Comella.
Almost immediately after the descent, the road starts to rise once more. Although the KOM doesn’t officially start until La Massana, almost 300 metres higher up, the climb has very much started. To my great annoyance, I can’t actually find a profile that starts before La Massana. Overall, the climb is 15.4k at 5.6% and consists of the following: the final 3.4 kilometres of the first of the two profiles below, 1.6k of flat, and then the officially-categorised section, which corresponds exactly to the second profile except that they finish about 150 metres short of the summit. As you can see, while the overall gradient is nothing special, it’s irregular enough to be reasonably difficult.
Although Pal boasts an 11th-century church, it was a diminutive village until the development of ski infrastructure in the 1980s. After its resort was linked to that of Arinsal in 2000, it became part of the second-largest of the country’s three ski areas. After this merger, Pal opened a bike park that has been used repeatedly for major MTB events, including the World Championships in 2015 and 2024. However, Pal has also been a very frequent host of road cycling. The Vuelta has finished here on four previous occasions, making this the first stage host all race that is not making its maiden appearance, but it has been even more common in the Volta a Catalunya and the now-defunct Setmana Catalana and also hosted the Tour once, in 1993. On its most recent outing in the Vuelta in 2010, the first 11 riders finished within 32 seconds of a victorious Igor Antón (who also took the leaders’ jersey, three days before his tragic DNF), but that was an unipuerto stage. In that sense, the most recent race to finish here, the Volta a Catalunya in 2011, might be a better indicator, as that stage featured a nearly identical route. However, it should be noted that that was the sole mountain stage in that year’s edition, so perhaps we should not be expecting the (original) winner to put 58 seconds into fourth place like Alberto Contador did that year.
(picture by MARIA ROSA FERRE at Flickr, reuploaded to Wikimedia Commons)
Map and profile
Start
A transfer further inland has brought the riders into Olot, the largest town within the Garrotxa volcanic field. The area contains around forty volcanoes, and Olot has been built in the flat areas in between three of the cones. Although the last eruption happened over 10000 years ago, the field is still sometimes the site of earthquakes, most notably in 1426 when a severe quake claimed hundreds of victims, some of which were killed as far away as Barcelona. This earthquake also destroyed the small town (probably numbering only in the hundreds of inhabitants) that had developed over the course the Middle Ages. Reconstruction was interrupted by the first of the civil wars in Catalonia I mentioned on the previous stage, but from the 16th century onwards it developed a successful textile industry. This led to a period of great development, with the town surpassing 3000 inhabitants in the early 18th century and reaching about 10000 by the time war with revolutionary France first broke out in 1793. By then, Olot had temporarily surpassed Girona to become the largest town in northern Catalonia.
This wave of hostilities with France marked the end of Olot’s heyday. Although France would never fully conquer Spain (in fact, Napoleon’s ruinous Peninsular War from 1808 until his first abdication in 1814 is an overshadowed, but major contributor to his downfall), Olot was highly vulnerable on account of its proximity to the border and suffered accordingly. Its struggles continued throughout the 19th century, as the slow development of infrastructure this far inland led much of its industry to relocate. The sieges it suffered during the First and Third Carlist Wars did not help either. Olot’s fortunes started to improve around the turn of the century, with infrastructural developments headlined by the arrival of the railway and electricity as well as significant urban expansion. Its economic focus also shifted, first encompassing the production of religious images before pivoting towards the agrifood industry and services in more recent times. Its population, which was lower in 1900 than in the late 18th century, started to grow again in this period, something that (except for a period of recession during and immediately after the Spanish Civil War) has continued rather consistently until the present day. Much like Figueres, it has often hosted the Volta a Catalunya, but never the Vuelta.
(picture by Alberto-g-rovi at Wikimedia Commons)
The route
Now there is plenty to criticise where this Vuelta is concerned, but one thing I very much approve of is starting the first mountain stage with a climb. The ascent to Collada de Santigosa/Coll de Sentigosa already starts in the neutralisation, with the official start planned to occur 11.4 kilometres before the summit. As a side note, it’s rather… interesting that Unipublic uses Asturian names in Asturias, but not Catalan names in Catalonia, when Catalan is more widely spoken in Catalonia than Asturian in Asturias…
The descent is much shorter and equally shallow, but also quite twisty. It is followed by a valley section, initially a downhill false flat into Ripoll, then an uphill one towards the next climb, Collada de Toses. There are two roads up here: the old road that averages over 9% in its final four kilometres, or the new one that somehow manages to be both comfortably shallower and more highway-like than the east side of Lautaret. Take a guess which one Unipublic opted for.
After descending through the ski resort of La Molina, home to nobody’s favourite Catalunya MTF, it’s time for the easiest part of the race. The route initially traverses the wide valley of the Cerdanya, then follows the Segre river downstream as far as La Seu d’Urgell, the traditional gateway to Andorra. Here, the riders turn north towards the microstate. They make directly for the capital Andorra la Vella, where there is an intermediate sprint. Directly after this sprint, it’s time for the near-obligatory stopoff on any visit to the country, Alto de la Comella.
Almost immediately after the descent, the road starts to rise once more. Although the KOM doesn’t officially start until La Massana, almost 300 metres higher up, the climb has very much started. To my great annoyance, I can’t actually find a profile that starts before La Massana. Overall, the climb is 15.4k at 5.6% and consists of the following: the final 3.4 kilometres of the first of the two profiles below, 1.6k of flat, and then the officially-categorised section, which corresponds exactly to the second profile except that they finish about 150 metres short of the summit. As you can see, while the overall gradient is nothing special, it’s irregular enough to be reasonably difficult.
Although Pal boasts an 11th-century church, it was a diminutive village until the development of ski infrastructure in the 1980s. After its resort was linked to that of Arinsal in 2000, it became part of the second-largest of the country’s three ski areas. After this merger, Pal opened a bike park that has been used repeatedly for major MTB events, including the World Championships in 2015 and 2024. However, Pal has also been a very frequent host of road cycling. The Vuelta has finished here on four previous occasions, making this the first stage host all race that is not making its maiden appearance, but it has been even more common in the Volta a Catalunya and the now-defunct Setmana Catalana and also hosted the Tour once, in 1993. On its most recent outing in the Vuelta in 2010, the first 11 riders finished within 32 seconds of a victorious Igor Antón (who also took the leaders’ jersey, three days before his tragic DNF), but that was an unipuerto stage. In that sense, the most recent race to finish here, the Volta a Catalunya in 2011, might be a better indicator, as that stage featured a nearly identical route. However, it should be noted that that was the sole mountain stage in that year’s edition, so perhaps we should not be expecting the (original) winner to put 58 seconds into fourth place like Alberto Contador did that year.
(picture by MARIA ROSA FERRE at Flickr, reuploaded to Wikimedia Commons)
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