The second Grand Tour in the calendar, the third in age, the first to be revealed. Predictability is boring right?
The organisers have got us a very hard route this year, after the somewhat negative reception of fans to 11 straight sprint stages last year they've barely given the fastmen a sniff over three weeks - although there is plenty of room for the tougher sprinters or even the puncheur-sprinters to have their say. Instead we have a more typical nine uphill finishes with even more hilly and mountainous stages around! However that is counterbalanced with a large number of ITT kilometres - it will take a dominant climber or else a complete racer adept in the hills, high mountains and competent on a TT bike to wear red in Madrid. But that's enough previewing the preview - let's get into it!
Week 1: Three summit finishes!
A start on the gorgeous Costa del Sol with a short prologue to decide who will wear red on the first road stage. Just 8km long, the race can't be won here but the scrap for seconds will still be seen as important by all the GC men. A little uphill section will shake it up as well. Stage 2 could see the race lead change hands though, up and down all day but it has a very short but tough climb with 25km to go which could see the opportunists look to deny whichever sprinters can get over it. Stage 3 and 4 are apologies to the sprinters as we travel up the East Coast, before the GC race begins with three successive summit finishes!
The first is the most difficult and the real mountain stage of the first week as the riders take on the very hard (11km at 8%) Alto de Javalambre climb, which will surely see the marker of who is hot and who is not in the race for red. It's then followed by an easier summit finish in Maestrat, before the seventh stage finishes on the brutal ascent of the Mas de la Costa, just 3km but averaging over 12% could really see some gaps leaving behind the out-of-form GC men!
Week 2: Up and down in the North
Stage 8 sees a transitional day up to the North and an easier one by comparison, perhaps a stage for the breakaway with the one major difficulty not being that major in comparison to what came immediately before and will come immediately after! An absolutely killer multi-mountain stage in Andorra, just 88km long but five climbs, all very hard, and the big finale of the first "part" of the race. The men will be well and truly sorted from the boys here, with the HC Col de la Gallina preceding a finish with three successive climbs with very little descent between them!
Stage 10 brings the first ITT kilometres of the race and there's 51 of them and elmost all flat despite it being in the Basque Country, around Bilbao. One minor hill in that profile. Stage 11 and 12 bring more typical Basque romps, with 11 a possibility for the sprinters for the first time in a week if they make it over the mid-stage hills, with the final uncategorised climb being hard but not too hard for some of the punchy sprinters. 12 into Bilbao once more, three short and tough climbs in the last 40km will be full of crowds and will provide entertaining racing even if the GC men have their eyes on tomorrow.
A summit finish after a very tough stage, 4100m of climbing despite no Cat.1 or HC climbs before the finish and an extremely tough and irregular summit finish which goes from absolute wall to short descent every few hundred metres! Stage 14 finally a flat stage for the first time in ten days, but it's a trap - an properly uphill finish with some hard gradients in the final kilometre could count out some of the fatty sprinters, who at this point in the preview I doubt are being sent to La Vuelta anyway!
Week 3: It only gets harder
I'm getting tired and also peeing myself with excitement just writing this preview! Although in spirit part of week two, calender-ically Stage 15's multi-mountain test around the Asturias is the first stage of the third week. Not the hardest stage you'll see but these four climbs could nevertheless lose you the race if you are not careful. A pretty tough summit finish at the Santuario del Acebo. However if that left you saying "when are we getting a real mountain finish?" and if it did I think your name can only be Jose Alarcon, then here it is the very next stage: a trio of Asturian giants on the menu finishing with the officially 18km long but practically more like 20-25km long Alto de la Cubilla, whose length will really provide a great arena for the climbers to do battle.
The next day proves the organisers still do want one or two sprinters to attend with a proper sprint stage this time, before another spicy multi-mountain stage to begin a trio of crucial GC days. This time it's a rare Vuelta mountain stage without a tough summit finish, as we are served four of Madrid's best Cat.1 climbs. A short and not too steep uphill finish after a long downhill could mean an interesting end to the stage win fight, but not much in terms of gaps. The next day adds 35 more ITT kilometres on (hey, when you have this much climbing in a race you better have a lot of time trialling too!), but the first ten or so are uphill and the last 20 slightly downhill, making for an interesting parcours.
Stage 20 is a cracking finale, with the 190km queen stage saved for last at this year's Vuelta. The final GC standings will be decided once and for all here with an up-and-down day centered around the HC climb of the Puerto de Peña Negra with just 35km to go. The stage then has an up-and-down last 30km ending with a short summit finish with some tough but steady gradients all the same. The ceremonial Stage 21 is back to being a last chance for the sprinters rather than finishing on the Angliru like last year!
6 Flat (One uphill finish)
4 Hill (1 HTF)
1 Medium Mountain (1 MTF)
7 High Mountain (6MTF 1 HTF)
3 ITT (94km total)
My thoughts exactly all while I was writing it. Let's get the ultimate GT showdown of the MVS vs Demare rivalry!
I like this route, looks like a lot of fun!
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
Well stage 2 passes not 100m from my front door, so even if as a PCT team WCC highly unlikely to be on the start line, I'll make sure to get out on the road side and cheer along with the rest of the MG fans . Maybe we'll have a loaned out rider or two on the start list gaining PT XP.
Maybe a bit of a shame that an ITT rather than the TTT start as was IRL, but I think I understand in terms of how it potentially skews the GC and ranking points across the first few stages in the MG context. Hopefully we'll get as exciting racing as the real thing is currenly serving up (minus the crazy crashes!).
