A day trip to the seaside for the peloton ahead of the rest day. An extended day off? Unlikely given the intensity of riders battling to get in the breakaways but it should mean a quieter day for the overall contenders.
Vuelta Stage 14 Preview
Labelled by everyone as the Queen Stage of the race, today’s route is packed with climbing and ends with a tough summit finish. Nairo Quintana leads the race but has to take time on Chris Froome. Can he do it?
Friday Shorts
Ban powermeters? After Nairo Quintana’s statement a few readers have emailed in asking for thoughts on this. For starters the possibility of a ban happening seems somewhere between impossible and unimaginable so any debate is academic.
Vuelta Stage 13 Preview
A hilly stage that sees the race cross back and forth between France and Spain, a hard day’s racing and the longest stage of the race and all on the eve of Queen Stage in the Pyrenees.
Vuelta Stage 12 Preview
The race returns to the Basque Country with a finishing circuit around Bilbao. So far many stages have been the kind where it pays to tune into the final 15 minutes but the doble climb of El Vivero means more action for longer.
Vuelta Stage 11 Preview
The race resumes as it left off with a summit finish. The altitude of 565m looks modest but Peña Cabarga is where Chris Froome burst onto the scene as a grand tour contender with his first pro win.
The Vuelta’s Missing Mythical Mountains
What’s the most famous climb in the Vuelta? The race climbed up to the Lagos de Covadonga yesterday – pictured – but arguably the most well-known climb in this year’s edition is… the Col d’Aubisque, used when the Vuelta slips into France for a day.
It’s telling that a foreign climb grabs the limelight, as good as the Vuelta can be when compared to the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia one big missing item is a repertoire of mythical climbs.
Vuelta Stage 10 Preview
The Vuelta doesn’t have many mythical climbs, there’s no Ventoux nor Stelvio but the Lagos de Covadonga are the closest the race gets, a climb that’s been a regular since the 1980s and climbed for the 20th time today.
Vuelta Stage 9 Preview
A mountain stage with some small ascents that have had a big impact. The final climb of the Alto del Naranco was where Chris Horner beat Vincenzo Nibali to win the Vuelta in 2013.