La Vuelta 2019

One week to go, might as well have its own thread...

Vuelta a España 2019 route: all you need to know about the route for the 74th edition - Cycling Weekly

Good to see the Spanish tradition of making riders go up insanely steep hills is alive and well.

No Yates brothers, No G.

 

Roglic is the strong favourite with the bookies. I presume Jumbo are taking a strong team.

 

To answer my own question, Wikipedia lists them as taking Kruijswijk, Gesink, Bennett and Martin to support Roglic. So yes, a strong team.

 

GCN preview show:

 

Hmmm. The Tour of Germany has a stronger line-up and as a bonus it's a couple of weeks shorter
Deutschland Tour 2019 | Startlist
Go Remco!

 

Looking forward to this. The mountain stages are brutal but they said that about the TdF (which had 2 stages shortened), these are more so, it'll be interesting to see what happens in the last week. Will the team deliver Roglic or will he burn out ?
Wouldn't write off Wout Poels, he has the experience and ability but has he recovered from the TdF?

Just looked at the route again , Quintana for Stage 9?

 

Well, that wasn’t quite the start Jumbo had hoped for

 

That was comedy apart from probably costing DQS the win.

 

Now seen two very uneventful stages, nothing remarkable. I gather Ineos are having a bad race and will be settling for stage wins.

 

Blimey. Couldn’t be any closer than that

 

First proper brute of a finish coming up - the final 5km are all double digit gradient.

 

Do you reckon it'll ever be revealed what Movistar's tactics are?

 

Playing a one two in favour of valverde I shouldn't Wonder...keeps other teams guessing as well

 

It’s a cunning plan of supporting your team leader by dropping him on a tough climb.

 

A fantastic ride from Madrazo though. Even he looked slightly surprised at the end

 

I still haven't caught up with the time trial crash, or was it on stage 2. Watching highlights now and they say Roche, Uran and 3 others have crashed out

 

The jury still seems to be out on how you pronounce Pogačar, at least amongst English-speaking commentators.

 

Do we know whether the cameraman and their rider are OK? ITV4 didn't say.

 

Quite glad I’m not riding this today, looks savage...

 

I saw live coverage. No mention at end of coverage
Hoping to get off work soon for today's stage.

 

Does the climb marked "ESP" mean it's like hors catégorie in the TdF?

 

Yes.

 

I was watching live coverage...its stair ridding again
No idea what's occurring with 17 maybe 18k to go

 

Fantastic, tough day today...

 

Brailsford will be kicking someone's ass tonight about not buying Pogacar when they bought up all the best U23 talent last year. Will be a real threat to Bernal in the next year or two as long as UAE get in a good level of support. Not that he even needed it today.

 

Chuffed that the Basque lad made to the finish.

Forgive my naivety: how closely related are Euskadi-Murias and the late Euskatel-Eskadi?

 

I don't think there's much except for having an all-Basque roster.

 

Weed farm discovered from vuelta helicopter footage

Vuelta a Espana: Helicopter TV footage leads to cannabis farm raid

 

The highest-placed INEOS rider is David de la Cruz at 48th
The highest placed Brit is currently 18th (James Knox)

 

I was shocked when I saw they had a French rider in the breakaway today. However, I've looked him up and he's very much from the south-west of France.