Vuelta a España Preview

If you want to save a click, Pogačar.

The Route
“A mountainous Vuelta” is hardly news but the race ratchets up every year and this edition has 58,000m of vertical gain, more than the Giro and Tour. Much of this achieved on a daily basis rather than set-piece high mountain stages.

There are time bonuses of 10-6-4 seconds at the stage finishes. Plus 6-4-2 seconds at the intermediate sprint and also for several mountain passes marked “B” for bonus on the stage profiles.

The Contenders

Tadej Pogačar (UAE) is the obvious favourite to the point where the GC race feels as if it will have all the thrill of tracking a parcel delivery online. We’ll see if Pogačar can take the lead by Andorra and then watch the logistics of the red jersey as it travels around Spain before the scheduled delivery in Granada on 13 September. There’s always the possibility of the package being dropped or lost en ruta but it’s hard to find weakness in Pogačar here. One concern is his lack of preparation, since 1995 and the Vuelta’s switch to the end of summer, the Tour-Vuelta double has only been won once (Froome, 2017). Plenty in the peloton will hope he comes in hot and quickly takes a dominant lead, the better to ensure he can back off in the third week to aim for the Worlds and this leaves opportunities for everyone else. This includes his team mates with last year’s runner-up João Almeida, last year’s mountains winner Jay Vine and 20 year old Pablo Torres. As easy as it sounds for him, there’s a touch of pressure as he’ll want to tick off this win in order to ensure he doesn’t have to come back again and to complete the grand tour triple in the same season as Vingegaard.

The harder part is picking among the other podium contenders. Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) has the record of four Vuelta wins but his record of results in recent races suggests the 36 year old is fizzling out, he’d surely sign today for a podium finish and a stage win along the way, this is a lot to ask for but he can pull it off. His team bring sprinter Jordi Meeus and also puncheur Finn Fisher-Black, with first-year pro Luke Tuckwell worth watching after his impressive Romandie and Aura Tour rides.

Richard Carapaz (EF) is suited to the race but his team are downplaying his chances saying they don’t have much of a squad to support him but the likes of James Shaw, Markel Beloki and Georg Steinhauser can play big roles here with the latter hired in part by UAE for next season to do this role.

Felix Gall (Decathlon-CMA CGM) got a podium in the Giro, gifted with a stratospheric Vo2 Max he’s improved his race craft to become a less volatile rider able to and will aim to do his race again but as good as the Giro was it showed his limits and two time trial stages are a challenge. Matthew Riccitello and Léo Bisiaux ride in support and with Gall set to leave, we’ll see the two younger climbers given opportunities too.

Oscar Onley (Netcompany-Ineos) got a win in the Vuelta a Burgos, a triumph after crashing out of the Aura Tour in July and he could still improve in form since. The challenge for him is the big set-piece mountain stages with longer summit finishes but in-between then he’s a handy rider for sharper summit finishes. Carlos Rodriguez is worth watching too, if only to hope he can find form after seeming to fade over the last two seasons.

Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) was his team’s best rider at the Tour despite losing time on the opening day and working for Ayuso so some consistency and he could do well but backing up after the Tour is hard, especially as his team is built more around Mads Pedersen and Thibaut Nys.

Enric Mas (Movistar) has never finished lower than sixth in his last six Vueltas so would you bet on him finishing inside the top seven this time? He achieves this by riding his own race to the point where it looked like he forgot how to win during the last Giro so he surely won’t trouble Pogačar. Cian Uijtdebroeks starts with a need to reach Granada just for the short-term goal of finishing a grand tour for the first time since 2023’s Vuelta, but also the longer game of building for 2027 by finishing the season.

Pogačar
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Carapaz, Onley
Gall, Roglič, Almeida

Vuelta a porvenir
If the names above must feel stoic about their chances of the win against Pogačar, they at least can hope to crowd out the rest of the field. The Vuelta has long been used to give neo-pros the experience of a first grand tour – Pogačar among many – but the hard route compounded by UAE’s pace-setting makes it a tough introduction, there are few obvious “rest days” where the bunch will trundle towards a bunch sprint.

To add to names above like Torres, Tuckwell and Bisiaux, look out for former Avenir winner and youngest rider in the race Jakob Omrzel (Bahrain), Jarno Widar (Lotto-Intermarché), Jørgen Nordhagen (Visma-LAB), Juan Guillermo Martinez (Picnic-PostNL), Darren van Bekkum (XDS-Astana) and new neo-pro Juan Felipe Rodriguez (EF). In a field where a third of the field are eligible for the white jersey there are plenty more names.

Tapas cycling
If the peloton might complain about the relentless route, TV viewers on their sofas have it better. Plenty of stages look lively, many have a climb in the final 30 minutes to spice up the finish so there’s often something to watch to the point where instead of suggesting several stages as must-watch days like a Tour or Giro preview features, it can pay to tune into most days but do this by nibbling on the day’s finish rather than feasting on hours of live.

TV broadcast
It’s on RTVE/tdp for locals and VPN users, Eurosport across much of Europe, Peacock in the US, Flo in Canada, SBS in Australia and the race website lists more broadcasters here. The opening and final stage finish around 7.30pm CEST, all the other days are forecast for 5.20pm CEST.

59 thoughts on “Vuelta a España Preview”

      • The reason of doing half of the stages in Andalucía is because the finísh this year was going to be in the Canary Islands, so Andalucía Was going to be the launchpad with ferries to go to the islands. But this plan was dropped and the Vuelta organizers needed to react quickly with a Plan B and therefore so many stages (including the last stage) in Andalucía.
        Also ,the finish this year is not in Madrid because it clashes with the Formula 1 Grand Prix that the city is hosting this year.

          • A mix of things, one factor was the opposition of local politicians to the IPT team but the IPT team is no more, in name at least.

            It feels like the Vuelta is always going to the Canaries soon… but it never happens.

  2. Thx IR.
    It was prescient of the organizers to avoid the fire-ravaged central and northern parts of Spain – I suspect this becomes more of a factor in future grand tour plans. Here’s to an incident-free Vuelta and some fun stages.

  3. Welcome back Inrng! Your preview captures well the feeling of inevitability about this year’s Vuelta. It will be interesting to see the level of engagement with this edition; it already seems quite low. There are always secondary and tertiary narratives, so we’ll see how those play out. The 2023 Vuelta had all sorts of drama, only not associated with the actual racing, which was fun. The 2025 drama, not so fun. I’ll be half-watching, hoping for more interest than I expect.

    • The form doesn’t seem to be there, to get ahead of Carapaz, Gall, Roglič, Onley etc. A stage win in the third week? Still he did win the Vuelta after doing the Giro and Tour, which he’s done this year.

    • My thought exactly! Sepp is a recent Vuelta winner, and it would be great for him to redeem his heartbreak at the Tour. Yet he and Visma earn no love from Mr. Inring. Of course, Sepp is not capable of challenging Tadej, but a stage win and/or podium should be as achievable for him as many of the other also-rans who are mentioned above.

    • I’m very surprised Visma-LAB have included Kuss in their Vuelta team, especially after he had such a poor season the year after he did this before in 2023, and said himself afterwards that he thought doing all three GTs in one season was too much.

      For a so-called ‘Super-team’ they seem to have a very thin roster when it comes to GTs.

  5. I never, ever want to save a click as the Inner Ring is my highlight of the cycling season. When the Inner Ring decides to retire the site it will be sorely missed.

  7. People don’t seem very interested in this race – and I mean in general not just this edition. What does the Vuelta have to do to become a big deal?

      • Agreed. I often find the Vuelta to be the best grand tour. The Giro and especially the Tour have become too calculated and programmed and increasingly risk-averse to taking chances. I like watching the 30-man breakaways by riders trying to get new contracts/extensions, as it makes it unpredictable, and hence interesting.

        But does Pog remember this from his one previous attempt? He could make a lot of enemies here if UAE try to smother the race again (not that I think they have the team to).

        • There is one thing I do not like about the Vuelta (coverage). Despite passing any number of impressive castles, churches, monasteries and the like, the commentators rarely explain what they are, nor are there any subtitles. This particularly annoys my mother who complains regularly about this when we are watching.

  8. Sometimes I like tracking packages. I heard Primoz is not starting because of injury, and Carapaz is leaving EF. Does anyone know? Thank you, IR!

  9. It’s hard to see what the rare sprinters such as Groves might expect from the race with fifteen hard stages before the first of two potential pure sprints. Things could be slightly more favourable for Pedersen and Brennan who should manage some undulating stages.

  10. That meme that goes round at the end of each November showing Michael Buble emerging from a cave ready for Christmas could be reimagined each August for Jay Vine prior to the Vuelta! We’ll get 3 weeks of him looking like one of the best climbers in the world for as long as he can stay upright.
    I have a distinct feeling that the best bit about this Vuelta will be Van Aert and Pedersen’s battle for green, and maybe even red too in the first week.

  11. I don’t know whether we’ll be treated to stage by stage analyses but tomorrow’s short TT (almost prologue) looks too short and technical for specialists like Kung and Tarling, maybe Pogacar too. That leaves Fisher-Black, my long-shots Thornley and Brennan, along with bankers Van Aert and Pedersen. Intriguing.

    • Wout is going to Wout. Meaning that he’ll start by trying to gain the leaders’ jersey during the opening weekend. Go for another two three stages after that, help Brennan win a couple of flat finishes, then set Nordhagen and Tulett up for a couple of wins in the mountains and a good overall and finally launch a monster duo-breakaway with Kuss and gift him the stage win.

  13. I really wish Mr/Mrs/Ms Ring would do a daily update even if it was just the official map of the route and a couple of sentences so we can all comment!

  17. Steinhauser is moving to Bora, not UAE (thankfully).

    An interesting move – he’s a gifted rider and it adds to Bora’s growing ambitions. The same goes for Jegat’s move to Lidl. They have a solid GT top-10 roster but are still missing that podium contender Ayuso unfortunately doesn’t appear to be.

    VLAB does seem to be on the losing end for now.

    • At the moment it appears that Bora, Decathlon and UAE are the only teams that look solid for gc for the future. Everyone else seems to be “hoping for development” from their gc hopefuls.

      • Agreed. Lidl is making an effort, but they’re missing that final touch.

        Unfortunately, UAE has taken Stella, one of the true talents out there, and to make matters worse, today’s result was just as disheartening.

        • To be fair Michael, they no doubt thought they’d got that final touch when they signed Ayuso. But he seems to be a bit short of the GT winning elite (beyond Pog).

          • I completely agree. I saw his move from UAE to LT as one of the smartest decisions in pro cycling ahead of ’26, benefiting both him and LT.

            He did show some glimpses of it back in Algarve, but since then, it’s just been a bit underwhelming. Not exactly bad, just slightly under expectations.

            He just seem to be missing that last ounce of something that his peers – Del Toro, Remco, Seixas, … – has.

        • I’d imagine that Lidl Trek think it’s more than a bit underwhelming. Their bottom line when he joined was no doubt GT podiums and he’s been a fair way off even that and now the young guns are overtaking him, fast.

          • @Kevin

            Absolutely fair. I think he’s shown glimpses of his potential in small doses, but overall, especially considering the hype, LT has to be disappointed.

            It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where it goes wrong. One day he can show real class, and the next he sulks and acts like a child.

            I absolutely can’t stand Team UAE or anything tied to that horror show, I can haveg some sympathy for Almeida when he had reason to question whether Ayuso was riding in support of him or against him during the 2025 Vuelta.

          • @Kevin

            Absolutely fair. I think he’s shown glimpses of his potential in small doses, but overall, especially considering the hype, LT has to be disappointed.

            It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where it goes wrong. One day he can show real class, and the next he sulks and acts like a child.

            I absolutely can’t stand Team UAE or anything tied to that horror show, but I can have some sympathy for Almeida when he had reason to question whether Ayuso was riding in support of him or against him during the 2025 Vuelta.

          • @Michael Eisner. Yes, Ayuso seems to have a mental problem as well as the physical one of not quite being a GT contender. Maybe the former impacts the latter? His mood changes don’t seem to endear him to team-mates either, which is also worrying as he’s never going to win a GT without them (only Pog can do that, maybe Vinny in a weak peloton).

    • Some surprises in there. I had Thornley for a good ride but Bisiaux also had a great ride for a future GC contender while Hayter coming within a whisker of victory was a real shock, despite his TT distant prowess. Despite the narrow defeat it should give him renewed confidence and motivation.

    • Where are all the nags, who think riders are too soft, to complain about Pogs making his own weather protocol decision? Hansen has paid him off! Merckx would have just kept plugging. Hampsten would have taken Red, but then again we all know Breukink would have won the stage.

  21. Regardless of Visma’s GC thinness noted above (which seems true), Visma seem to have a good attitude toward riding a GT without a GC contender in a race where no one but one can win on GC anyway…

    • If we’re talking of winning, the only GC contender is Pogacar – unfortunately. Apart from that Kuss seems well placed for a top five which with Brennan’s stage victories would surely make a successful Vuelta for Visma. Almost all competing teams with the exception of UAE would sign fot that.

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