Stage 15, Sunday 6

190 km, D+ 3300m

To finish the week, we alternate again with another hilly stage. A bit of flat at the start, a bit of flat at the end in Cordoba, and 150 of hills in between.

Stage is shortened by 80 km

As there was a loop in the middle of the stage, I assume they cut it off, which would mean that the part between 50 km and 130 km of the original trace/profile is deleted.

This is supposed to be against the heat, about which riders have expressed growing concerns (just before deciding to go full speed for 150 km…). But it is the same stupidity we already saw elsewhere: in order to keep the same arrival time, the riders will start at 14:50 and thus enjoy the hottest hours of the day.

Stage 14, Saturday 5

155 km, D+ 4100m

Back to a (short) mountain stage with a finish on top. There is no other difficult climb before that, but there is no flat at all, just uphill and downhill false-flats everywhere, with a couple of medium smooth climbs and a few little walls here and there.

The breakaway was even larger than yesterday (45 vs 30); it included climbers from yesterday, but not the Uno-X or most Visma riders who later broke away behind the peloton. Talking about Visma, Laporte🇫🇷 withdrew today; so he won’t get his chance tomorrow or in 3^rd week now that his leaders are replete.

There was little action. Buitrago (🇨🇴 Bahrain) got the points of the first climb, but was surprised to see 2 Astana riders and Berthet (🇫🇷 FDJ) battle for the 2^nd climb. The reason probably was that today the time bonuses were attributed on the top of that pass, instead of being on the Intermediate Sprint that was at the bottom of the climb, and Berthet and C. Rodriguez (🇪🇸 Astana) were very close in GC.

In the descent of the first pass, Vermaeke (🇺🇸 UAE) went ahead solo; he gained 1 minute, perhaps 1′30″. After many miles, he was joined and dropped by an EF rider.

In the last climb, there were a succession of attacks at the front of the breakaway. I’ll name a few: Aparicio (🇪🇸 Burgos), then G. Martin (🇫🇷 FDJ), Buitrago🇨🇴. In the end, a double group of 2 + 2 detached for good: Buitrago🇨🇴 and Brenner (🇩🇪 Tudor), C. Rodriguez🇪🇸 and I. Sosa (🇨🇴 Kern Pharma); V. Paret-Peintre (🇫🇷 Soudal-QS) was part of it, but not in the final stage.

The peloton had let the gap grow up to 8 minutes at some point, and nobody came to help Movistar, not even the teams concerned by the presence of Berthet🇫🇷 and C. Rodriguez🇪🇸 in the breakaway, who were only 11 minutes behind in GC this morning, as they had already won 2 minutes in yesterday’s breakaway. As a result, those two guys gained around 4 minutes over GC top boys, and more over the rest. It means that they are now ahead of Kuss and Tejada, right on the heels of the 7^th, Skjelmose (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek).

Attacks were rarer in the peloton (well, the small group of GC guys). In the end, we find about the same results as usual; today, Gall🇦🇹 and Mas🇪🇸 didn’t separate, and Roglitch🇸🇮 lost a little bit in the end. Not much but enough so that the Austrian is now 2^nd in GC, for just 4 seconds before the Slovenian.

🫒🏜🫒🏜🫒 Boy am I fed up with garrigue and olive trees! 🤣 And I suppose the remaining 7 stages won’t differ much 😭

By chance, we may see Yorkshire at the same time 🙂 🥬 🌦 🍏

Stage 13, Friday 4

193 km, D+ 3300m

Once again, a stage with a climb at a distance from the line, 40 km here, before a flat finish. The originality is that first half of the stage is however pretty hard. If it were still to finish in some sort of a sprint, the last half-mile is uphill.

Mühlberger (🇦🇹 Decathlon), best and very close lieutenant of Gall🇦🇹, 9^th in GC, had to withdraw due to a crash early in the stage 😞

Sivakov (🇷🇺🇫🇷 UAE) also crashed and withdrew (or did he not crash? anyway he withdrew). How many UAE riders are still on the race?

A. Laurence (🇫🇷 Ineos) hit the ground in a street corner while he was leading the breakaway (classical Ineos style of losing the front wheel in curves taken too fast). No apparent damage on the rider, but the bike won’t work and his car was still behind the peloton…

Van Aert (🇧🇪 Visma) once gain went to take the points of the 1^st KOM before Buitrago🇨🇴.

He and Brennan🇬🇧 were in the first 2 groups, and once again, the Brit had to race so that the Belgian could finally win his own stage. It was absolutely whatever, both were always either pulling or chasing, or attacking, for 40 km, they had got good vitamins in their breakfast. Now that he’s got his stage victory (on top of the Green jersey and a podium for the Polka Dots jersey), perhaps will he be less of a PITA for other riders?

Stage 12, Thursday 3

167 km, D+ 4500m

Parts of this stage look similar to the one won by Leknessund on the 1^st week. However there are a few more serious slopes here, in the beginning of the Velefique Pass and then in the beginning of the Calar observatory’s climb . Between 2 easier stages, the GC leaders will certainly battle again here. Will it be for stage victory too, or simply far behind a breakaway?

So, there was breakaway of 30 riders. Sivakov (🇷🇺🇫🇷 UAE) tried to join it, but while the other 2 members of his counter-attack group succeeded, he didn’t. Van Aert (🇧🇪 Visma) once again disputed all of the first 3 KOM to Buitrago (🇨🇴 Bahrain), and because there are so many ‘flat climbs’ in this 2026 Vuelta, beat him each time. 🙄 Then nobody disputed him the Green jersey points…

The peloton quickly let the breakaway go, and the gap grew up to 7′30″, which meant that the young Omrzel (🇸🇮 Bahrain) got on the virtual GC podium. Movistar was just pacing around, and it was a bit strange that teams from the other top-5 guys were not acting in any way.

Movistar accelerated a bit in the first big climb. The only attack was Carapaz’ (🇪🇨 EF) doing, when the slope got easier: he quickly gained 20-30 seconds, but then the gap stabilised and he was caught before the summit.

In the second, they kept on accelerating, reducing the peloton to a small number. Then Decathlon prepared Gall🇦🇹’s attack. It didn’t work well, as Mas🇪🇸 and Roglitch🇸🇮 rather easily stuck or came up back to him. It was a bit more difficult for Carapaz🇪🇨 and Onley🇬🇧. Onley🇬🇧 had undergone a crash 20 km after the beginning of the stage, and he was dropped later: after one attack too many, his little group of 3 came back without him (a bit like Sivakov earlier in the race).

The breakaway fought for victory, as the best riders there had enough of a gap over the peloton to be safe. From the breakaway, the 2 Movistar riders and the 1 Decathlon rider dropped at calculated times to help their respective leaders behind: it was unusually well executed (it probably helps that unlike in Pogatchar/Vingegaard case, their leaders are not 3 legs above them).

Urko Berrade (🇪🇸 Kern Pharma) was the last rider able to follow Omrzel🇸🇮, after Buitrago🇨🇴 and Bisiaux🇫🇷 were dropped. He was dropped a bit later too, and had a hard time preserving his 2^nd place.

Behind, Mas🇪🇸 left Gall🇦🇹 and Roglitch🇸🇮 stunned when he attacked. His advance quickly grew, he also got the support of R. Garcia🇪🇸 coming from ahead, and reached perhaps 40-45 second. On the line, it was down to 30 seconds, Mas🇪🇸 was getting tired; we can confirm that by the fact that he couldn’t follow the sprint of Vansevenant (🇧🇪 Soudal-QS) whom he had caught a bit earlier.

Overall, it was a confirmation of the levels riders exposed in previous mountain stages. The small differences today were:

• Onley🇬🇧 loses a bit, we may blame this on his crash early in the afternoon;
• Omrzel🇸🇮 jumps to 6^th place thanks to his breakaway and good finish for the stage victory;
• Widar (🇧🇪 Lotto) lost again, he is now 12 minutes behind top-10.

Buitrago🇨🇴 could score max points in the climb before the final one, even though an attack by his own teammate Omrzel🇸🇮 followed by Bisiaux (🇫🇷 Decathlon) endangered him. Luckily, the French rider didn’t relay. And he also

Wait, I see that Lutsenko (🇰🇿 NSN) finished 4^th? I never noticed him! 🤣 I remember he was on TV at some point, but in my idea, it was somewhere else, not among the last survivors, it couldn’t be… 😄

I also see that Vine (🇦🇺 UAE) withdrew today.

Bottles resupply have become a farce. Basically nobody makes an effort any more to go and get bottles; they get them from cars which come up to where the riders are, they get them from standing suppliers in a ton of places, they get them from motorbike without even leaving their position in the group for a second. We can now see riders getting a bottle 4 times in just 1 kilometre… They just press them twice to moisten their jersey, throw them right away and ask fo another one. They throw them anywhere. Bottles are flying anywhere, they don’t care, a ton of them end up where there is no one (of course outside of ‘litter zones’), in buses, in fields. In urban or semi-urban areas, they bounce off walls and gutters and come back inside the pelotons. There are more and more incidents with suppliers.

Today, commissars finally started giving a few penalties and fine. But that’s still ridiculous compared to the number of offenses we can witness (and the number of offenses we can witness is most likely ridiculous to the number of offenses that are performed).

Pedersen out - probably a sensible decision, he’s not been himself. Seems like a good plan to recover and try to find out what’s wrong before the WC.

Stage 11, Wednesday 2

151 km, D+ 1400m

Contrarily to the previous day, today the elevation is concentrated in one main climb. Its slope isn’t steep and there are still 30 km to go after its summit. We can note that the first 15 km are designed to create a breakaway. But the whole profile shouldn’t be very hard to control.

Visma and Cofidis rode all day, they even caught the breakaway very early.

Van Aert (🇧🇪 Visma) went to ‘rob’ 1 Mountain point from Buitrago (🇨🇴 Bahrain) at the top of the climb, I don’t know why.

Coquard (🇫🇷 Cofidis) was left alone by his team in the last miles, but he managed to stay hidden, except for 2 repositionings, one by the left side, to get back into the ‘ball’, and a second one by the right, to put himself right in the wheel of Brennan (🇬🇧 Visma), which he didn’t leave for the last mile. It was a bit funny, because unlike many other races, everybody played it gently, accepting to share a wheel at times: there were no shoulder hits to stay exactly in someone’s wheel, they all accepted to have only half the shelter at times.

So, Brennan🇬🇧 wins again, and Coquard🇫🇷 finishes juste behind him.

Coquard🇫🇷 also did the I.S., just behind Van Aert🇧🇪 (I didn’t see that section of the race, just the results). So it seems that we may finally get a bit of competition for the podium of the Points classification, if not for the Green jersey itself.

Stage 10, Tuesday 1

185 km, D+ 2700m

No big climbs, no steep climbs, but a number of them again. The finish may be decided by small hump 5 km from the line, and the survival over the following 4 km long uphill false-flat that brings the riders to the line. Who will win, a puncher? a false-flat sprinter? a breakaway?

The last breakaway survivor was Dvernes (🇳🇴 Uno-X), he even relayed when he was caught by a few guys coming from the peloton a few miles from the line.

In the peloton, Visma was controlling anyone who would try to break away, sometimes with Kuss🇺🇸, most of the time with Brennan🇬🇧. It was obviously meant for Van Aert🇧🇪, in the sprint or through an attack in the last miles. Given how easy Brennan🇬🇧 was in the slopes when he was jumping after attackers, it really didn’t look like a good idea not to preserve the Brit and bet on him in a sprint on an uphill false-flat…

1 km (or 1 mile?) from the line, Fedorov (🇰🇿 Astana ?) attacked, followed by Azparren (🇪🇸 Q36.5). I don’t know what Azparren🇪🇸 was thinking: that guy is able to perform good finishes alone, and he had the chance that the Kazakh was pulling him well, yet he never relayed nor attacked before it was too late. I swear I believe that I even saw him braking! It looked like, “this guy is going to bring me 50 m from the line and I’ll jump him, the peloton doesn’t exist”. By the time he finally accelerated, the first sprinters were already on him…

And Van Aert🇧🇪 failed and only finished 4^th. This is yet another surprise victory for a French (semi-)sprinter: Tronchon (🇫🇷 GFDJ); Coquard (🇫🇷 Cofidis) finishes much farther today, back to his usual rankings. M. Cort (🇩🇰 Uno-X) rewards the good day of his team with a 2^nd place.