The Vuelta a España starts in Burgos this weekend.
The Grand Tour of Spain start this Saturday and finishes on Sunday 5 September. The race favours the climbers as usual with mountain finishes on Picón Blanco, Lagos de Covadonga and Gamoniteiro.  The latter being something of a beast.
Lopez takes top 5 mano a mano with 40Km to go. ………….nice way for the last mountain stage to unwind…..but then it comes back together.
Lopez tries another kick at 39 Km and backs off again.
Pogacar having a go and seems to be getting some distance……..has the virtual White Jersey and not far off a virtual podium but will he be able to stay away on the descent and final run in…….
Great ride by Pogacar.
Standings going into second rest day…….great ride from Knox getting up to 11th place.
Can’t help being amused that I don’t read anywhere of Jumbo Visma tactics being either suspicious or boring.
Astana tactics seem a bit odd today too. 2 going for the stage and now the remainder attack to pull Lopez to attack Jumbo Visma. Most odd. Maybe just a balance to the value of a stage win and Lopez accepting the podium is a long shot now.
Hmm if Fuglsang had supported Lopez could he have gained more time. Be interesting to see the gaps at the end of today…..
Quintana is definitely baked though.
Yup, when pros are riding at a snail’s pace, you know it’s nasty. Pogacar is quite the young phenom . . . a lot of new young riders emerging: vdPoel, Van Aert, Evenepoel, Pogacar, Carapaz, Bernal. I think the likes of Nibali, Froome, Cav, Porte, van Garderen, Greipel have had their day – and I don’t mean that to sound disrespectful, but there seems to be a real class/crop of youngsters coming through.
Yea, isn’t it awesome what these young guys are doing. That was quite a stage today! Pogacar certainly looks like he has a great future. Roglic showed something I hadn’t really seen from him too. Nice to see that he didn’t just play “defense”.
Yes, and only one of us has Pogacar in their Vuelta OTR!
Looks like the 1 point you will get when he comes in on the podium will make all the difference too! Good call.
Those are some brutal inclines! Pogacar and Roglic seem to have teamed up………
Heck of a ride by the two of them.
Nice win by a wily old vet today. Always happy to see Phil Gil get a win – especially after being left off the Tour squad.
You don’t really expect this from TV coverage of a cycling race!
I saw that too. I can imagine everyone living in that building when asked, will say “no, no, officer, those are not my marijuana plants. I had no idea they were there!”
Well, Roglic delivered.
Quintana loses 3:06, will Movistar throw everything behind Valverde or continue to baffle everyone with their tactics. Will Roglic falter in week 3 or has he learned from The Giro. Will Quintana have one or more epic days in the mountains and pull it back. Lopez seemed to limit his losses to some degree.
Astana and Movistar will have to attack so hopefully the mountains will be spicy.
One thing is sure, we will know at the end!
So it’s ITT reckoning day, how much will Quinata, Lopez and (maybe to a lesser extent) Valverde loose to Roglic? Likely to be minutes rather than seconds…………. With 2 days of hills following before the next mountains stage Roglic should have some chance of recovery from the ITT before the next chance for the pure climbers to put pressure on him. His recovery after a crash on Saturday in the rain will hopefully have not taken too much out of him and he has had the rest day to recover. In for an interesting afternoon. Cycling News assessment of the… Read more »
On another note … I tried to post in Photos yesterday. Actually posted twice, but neither one is showing up. Don’t know if there’s something you need to do on your end. If you can see what I posted, they are a duplicate and just accept the second one. Thanx!
I can’t see anything pending from you and there are no new photos in the media library. Can you try again? Last photos I see from you is the Leading From The Front.
I just posted again. Seeing anything? Is there a file size limit? The photo is 5.4MB.
Not seeing anything, there is a file size limit but I thought I had set it reasonably high……
Can you try a smaller one? I’ll also up the limit, give me 5……..
Damn. Roche and Carthy out. Bad news all around. Roche was going well and Carthy was looking good.
Add Uran to that list too.
Movistar tactics again today – Valverde accelerates and drops Quintana setting up the break for Lopez. Err………..
Kruijswijk abandons La Vuelta with knee problems following injury in the team crash on day 1 in the TTT.
Carapaz seems to be confirmed out of La Vuelta
Good thing I just checked. Changed my OTR picks accordingly.
Carapaz may be out of La Vuelta after a training crash. To be confirmed by his team on Friday.
The Spanish Hill Climb Championship. In terms of just pure fun, my favorite of the Grand Tours.