Vuelta Stage 14: Écija - Sierra de la Pandera (175 km)

neris

Time for fun & games

he Vuelta a España heads back to the hills with a vengeance on Saturday as the race tackles the second of its three summit finishes in Andalusia, Spain’s most southerly region.

While Wednesday’s ascent to Calar Alto was extremely tough because of its altitude, the sheer amount of vertical metres of climbing and the atrocious weather conditions, the ascent itself is not so difficult, as Igor Anton, who won there in 2006, told Cyclingnews. But La Pandera, the first of the 2017 Vuelta’s four summit finishes to be rated Hors Categorie – together with Sierra Nevada (stage 15), Los Machuchos (stage 17) and, of course, the Angliru (stage 20) – is another story altogether.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/vuelta-a-espana-heads-back-to-the-mountains-at-la-pandera/

Fernando Escartín commentary

Mountain. The heat will accompany the peloton during a “leg-breaker” stage with a final climb up La Pandera (HC). The accumulated exhaustion and high temperatures will hinder a stage that could be favourable for a breakaway win, depending on everyone's interests regarding the general classification

Climbs:
Km 85.5 - Puerto El Mojón - 8.8 kilometre-long climb at 3.7% - category 3
Km 153.1 - Puerto Locubin - 8.5 kilometre-long climb at 4.8% - category 2
Km 175.0 - Sierra de la Pandera - 12 kilometre-long climb at 7.3% - category H

TV Times
Eurosport - 13:45-17:00
ITV 4 highlights - 19:00

Just a heads up there is also racing in Belgium today, coverage on ES player from 1pm. Sam Bennet is racing in that one as far as I know.

retalivity

13th place rider Sam Oomen has abandoned, stomach problems

Inquitus

Looks like a GC Day? They seem committed to reeling in the break, Bertie fancies going for a stage win I assume, he's going to want to take something from his last Grand Tour, this one must be one of the ones he fancies if he has the legs?

MPFGLB

No BMC in the poll ?

dastardly00

Eurosport getting carried away with the Alpecin ads. Two in the one ad break!

Inquitus

dastardly00 wrote: »

Eurosport getting carried away with the Alpecin ads. Two in the one ad break!

And its such a cringe inducing ad as well.....arrrgghhhh

dastardly00

MPFGLB wrote: »

No BMC in the poll ?

No Canyon either :eek:

dastardly00

Froome has 6 domestiques with him. It's going to be very hard for any other contender to gain time on him.

dastardly00

Jaysus 20% ramps going through that town and it's not even categorised as a climb!

dastardly00

Less than 8km to go.
Majka with a 1'45" lead. Rui Costa and De Clerq a bit behind.
About 30 in the main peloton including Nico

dastardly00

Aru at the back of the main group as his own team mate sets the tempo at the front!!

marvin80

Will Majka hold on? Hope he does.

Could be a close finish

dastardly00

marvin80 wrote: »

Will Majka hold on? Hope he does.

Could be a close finish

Yeah go should do because of the 600m descent

Lusk_Doyle

Inquitus wrote: »

And its such a cringe inducing ad as well.....arrrgghhhh

That's why Belkov was pushed off the bike the other day.

neris

dastardly00 wrote: »

No Canyon either :eek:

Jeez, some people are just never happy

dastardly00

Nico now down to 13th in GC. I think that's the end of any top-10 hopes. I thought he was looking quite strong in the final climb, and better than TvG, but he fell away badly when Chaves and then Nibali attacked.

dastardly00

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Just a heads up there is also racing in Belgium today, coverage on ES player from 1pm. Sam Bennet is racing in that one as far as I know.

Didn't see any of it, but Sam was a DNF

D9Male

dastardly00 wrote: »

Nico now down to 13th in GC. I think that's the end of any top-10 hopes. I thought he was looking quite strong in the final climb, and better than TvG, but he fell away badly when Chaves and then Nibali attacked.

I haven't understood why Roche doesn't target week-long stage races. He is wasted on GT GC hunting.

MPFGLB

D9Male wrote: »

I haven't understood why Roche doesn't target week-long stage races. He is wasted on GT GC hunting.

I think he is going to be changing his focus after this Vuelta

Previous Vueltas havent had as many long climbs ....were far more suited to Purito and Valverde and thus suited Roche who can climb fine on the shorter sharper stuff...just not buillt for the longer stuff


Having said that there is still along way to go in this Vuelta and alot of riders are suffering so top 10 is not totally gone ....Tomorrow is a killer but if he is not too far behind then there is still a possibilty with the TT and some stages next week ...but mentally its bound to be very diffciult (not just physically)

Plus Roche's issue is not 3 weeks ...he is fine with the length of a GT and has very good recovery/stamina... ...His issue is MTFs over 12KM in length ...and those can be in one week races too..its a power to weight issue ..well trying to maintain it for a long period ..at nearly 70KG he has to put out some much more power than the lighter guys on the very steep stuff..cant do it on the long stuff