Brutal new top-finish in Vuelta 2013
victorponf
Posts: 1,187
Haza Llana, brutal new top-finish in Vuelta 2013 (profile included)
http://www.revistadesdelacuneta.com/ten ... rchivo0554
http://www.revistadesdelacuneta.com/ten ... rchivo0554
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I suppose it's their way of guaranteeing that a Spaniard wins. They need to be careful though, this years Vuelta was a good one but something tells me that Contador will revert to his old format next year and race hard up till the Tour then put his feet up.
It is one of the longest climbs that I can remember to have been included in a race.
Very exposed too which will be murder if it is windy.
Talking about sprint stages... When you keep creating routes like these that is when Degenkolb wins 5 stages. And everyone with just little knowledge know that John - being a fast man, mind you - shouldn't be able to win 5 stages in a GT.
I'm with you. The organisers are in the same mindset groove that Zomegnan got into (as Inky says, remember the '11 Giro). They think that more really is more. It'll head back to the days of the non-Spanish riders looking for the closest airports to the locations of the last stage before a rest day; Tier 1 sprinters will rule out the Vuelta even more than last year; and the Vuelta will truly cement its place as an also-ran to the Giro and the Tour - unless you're Spanish.
Stages which end in some riders having to wheel their bikes across the finish seems brutal enough.
edit - yeah yeah I'm from the future - I mean 2012 and 2013 !
it's a hard life if you don't weaken.
Don't see anybody saying the Vuelta route was poor LL. It was a great race, but it did feature a lot of very similar stages, fairly flat then a mental finish, like this ______/ (wow, you can tell I work in design)!
After a while I a bit felt like I was watching the Fleche Wallone over and over again. They just need to make sure it has some variety, after all, the stage where the race was won wasn't a particularly tough one.
The main reason the Vuelta was good was because you had a couple of very well matched riders, who had a real ding dong battle throughout the race. Sadly, due to the lack of Contador, Schleck and a fully fit Evans you just didn't have that in the Tour. The tour route was pretty poor, but it would still have been a better race if it had been close like the Vuelta was.
I can see the Spanish race slipping into deep obscurity, as all but the best specialist climbers vote with there feet.
When did we say that the Tour was better? It wasn't. It was awful. And the Giro wasn't very entertaining either. The Vuelta was 10 minutes of action every day with the same outcome bar 1-2 stages. You could literally turn on tour tv 10 minutes before the end and miss absolutely nothing. Is that the way you want the coverage of cycling to be in the future?
The 2012 season was saved by the classics - as it often is.
Can't remember the classics being all that this year. Not like I can remember too much, but in terms of the monuments, I seem to remember LBL had a pretty good edition, PR was boring but impressive, Flanders was a bit dull, Sanremo had a great last ten minutes
In any case, you write all this in the context of of what looks like a great mountain to add to the Vuelta. The riders make the race and all that, but that little hillock looks pretty decent to me. Fair play to the organisers for using it
I think that the Vuelta started well, but then it was just as boring as the Tour. Instead of Sky grinding it out, you just waited for J Rod/Alberto/Piti to pop out at the end and sprint up a very steep slope (or Degenkolb to sprint).
By all means put a couple of circus climbs in, but mix it up a little. A little bit for everyone perhaps?
http://100hillsforgeorge.blogspot.com/
http://www.12on12in12.blogspot.co.uk/