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Published on Tuesday, 22 August 2017 21:04

Vuelta Stage 5

Benicàssim to Alcossebre

Wed. 23rd August, 175.7kms

A lumpy day in the saddle, a typical Vuelta 'medium mountains' stage which seems to hardly have a flat kilometre of road in the whole stage, and finishes with a tough uphill climb to Alcossebre.

Fernando Escartin described the terrain of this stage on the Vuelta website as a 'real leg-breaker'.. not sure I'd agree with that given some of the stages that still lie ahead of them, but it will be tough all the same. Three Cat 2s and two Cat 3s, spread pretty evenly over the 175km distance will have the peloton under pressure all day long, and it is the sort of terrain where we might see a strong break hold on to contest the win. 

But the big climb of the day, the Cat 2 Alto de la Serratella comes with over 50kms still left to go, so it shouldn't really cause any problems from the GC point of view. But the uphill finish in Alcossebre could - it averages 10% for 3.3kms, with parts that hit well in to the double digits. We saw in the Tour at the finish of the stage to the airstrip in Peyragudes that even the likes of Chris Froome can lose 20" plus on tricky finishes like this, could someone already joepardise his chances for the GC if on an off-day here? And on a similar sort of finish last year on stage 3 here several riders lost time, including Contador who lost 28" to Froome.  

Stage 4 Review

So - finally a winner - Trentin did the business to cap a fine performance from QuickStep in the closing kilometres, the kind of performance I expected of them to be honest as I mentioned in my preview. Trentin always looked comfortable, always looked in control and never panicked, even when Lobato kicked for home.. He did it very nicely indeed. So a profit, but no blowing trumpets just yet, it was only a small profit as the other bets lost. 

Annoyingly I found out too late today that MCN is not going to be sprinting, but instead looking after the GC guys in this Vuelta. That's a bit shit out of Orica, they may as well not have brought him and brought someone else more suited to that role instead of him. Maybe he just isn't feeling good at the moment, they are just saying that and then BAM! One day he is feeling better and comes and surprises everyone... 

Debusschere did indeed get a lot closer, finishing 5th, but fucking annoyingly TVA was just ahead of him in 3rd to bust that one. It was definitely value though at 13/8, he went off at 4/5 with 365. It was a good day for Trentin for the Points jersey too though, he's 18pts clear and looks good enough to take another stage or two along the way. If he can get in breaks and take intermediate points he could go very close for us. 

The Route

They start in the party town of Benicassim, but rather than heading north towards the finish in Alcossebre they actually start heading south from Km 0 to start on a circuit of 33kms that takes them on a loop south and north of the town, and takes in the Cat 3 climb of Alto del Deseirto de las Palmas after just 16kms. It averages just 4.8% over 7.8kms, so we shouldn't see any GC men get in to trouble this early, but it should help the break go and could well see the sprinters shouting "Grupetto" pretty early in the race. 

After that loop is done with 33kms gone, they head north-east along the coast in the direction of Alcossebre, but suddenly turn left inland, and after 40kms start climbing the first Cat 3 of the day, the Alto de Cabanes, which they crest after 55kms. They continue heading inland and are climbing more or less from km 67 to km 87, but the Cat 2 part of the climb of the Coll de la Bandereta is officially given a distance of just 4.6kms at an average of 7.6%. A 14km descent is followed by a flat run for a few kilometres before they are straight back in to it again, tackling the third Cat 2 of the day, the Alto de la Serratella. 

The Alto de la Serratella averages just 3.75%, but it's long at 13.2kms, the GC teams could be in full flight here, both trying to pull back the break and shed some deadwood ahead of the finale. They then descend for more or less the next 47kms until they reach the coast again, but it's interesting to note that the intermdiate sprint comes with just 15.5kms to go, so the break will find it very hard to hold off a charging pack who will be interested in the bonus seconds and points. Then it's down to the coast before they loop back on themselves to tackle the final climb up to the finish in Alcossebre. As they descend between 4 and 3kms to go the road is quite tricky with 3 hazard warnings on the map. 

It's a really hard finish too with the road kicking up with 3.4kms to go - the last 3.4kms averages 9.5%, but there is a particularly steep part between 2kms and 1.5kms to go which hits the high teens - but what needs to be really known about this road is how rough and small it is.. it literally is a dirt track in places, unless they have resurfaced it for the Vuelta, but you can see how rough it is in the pics below of the final hill.

It seems to suggest that it eases back to 4% in the final kilometre, but that includes a slight downhill and a flatish finish, the parts before that are quite steep.. so there may be a small regrouping of the strongest puncheurs/climbers before a final sprint to the line. They'll have to watch out for that tricky bend with about 300m to go that could decide the winner, they turn sharply left on to the final stretch and the road kicks up around the bend.. the perfect place to launch the winning kick maybe.. (below).

Contenders and Favourites

This one again looks like a day for the breakaway lottery, they get a good chance early in the stage to get away, with the climb that comes after just 16kms, the stronger guys who want to get away will use this as a launching pad. We may even get one of those 30+ strong groups as there are still lots of relatively fresh and strong guys out there who have lost plenty of time already. And there even is a chance that a first group goes on the first climb but a second wave of attacks could come when they start on the second block of climbing between 48-88kms. 

You need to be a strong all-rounder on a day like today, first to get away early on, then to keep the power going on a lumpy, sticky kind of a day which saps the energy, but then also to have kept something back for the final pull up to the finish and those gradients in the teens half way up. But who's going to be in the break? Still a lot of guys too close to be let go, but plenty who are not, the demolition job by Sky on stage 3 put some big gaps already between the top guys and the rest. But I think a lot of teams have their eyes on this stage, every team is packed with climbers and puncheurs after all, so you might get a good number of teams prepared to chase compared to only 1 or 2 on the sprinter's stages. 

If it does come down to a GC battle then this is going to be a very interesting finish - will they be able to put Chris Froome under pressure like in the Tour? Unlikely you'd think given how well he looked on stage 3, it could actually be Froome doing the attacking.. He might struggle early on the climb when the first attacks come, only to recover later and pass a lot of the guys who went too early.. Either is possible to be honest - I think there will be lots of the younger, lighter guys eager to attack him early on and put him under pressure, if they wait and he attacks they might not see him again.

The two Yates brothers look perfectly suited to this sort of finish, and can double-team it, going one after the other, and if that doesn't work and they are chased down to quickly, then they have Esteban Chaves waiting in the wings. Chaves has a great chance on a finish like this, especially as he seems to be back to near his form of two years ago judging by how strong he looked on the Alto de Comella.

He landed a bet for me at 150/1 two years ago on stage 2 to Caminito del Rey on an almost identical sort of finish to this one, averaging nearly 10% for 3.5kms, and repeated the feat on stage 6 to Sierra de Santi Cazorla, which was almost 8% for 2.8kms. Orica really do have a strong deck of cards to play on this one if they are all feeling good, but Chaves definitely looks to be the one with the best legs and I would expect him to play a key role in the outcome of this stage. 

Astana will have two cards to play too, with two livewires who are sure to try to light it up. Miguel Angel Lopez should be on your shortlist for a finish like this, he recently just won a brilliant stage to Lagunas de Neila in the Vuelta a Burgos which finished with an 11km climb, but the final 4.5kms or so were at an average of around 8%. But he struggled early on on stage 3, getting dropped on the Rabassa, quite a long way from home. But he seemed to rally late on and limited his losses to just 1'14", coming home with Kelderman, Kruiiswijk and that small group, he should go a lot better on this climb. 

Fabio Aru was tapped for pace when Froome and Chaves attacked, he rolled over and let the others do the chasing, but he recovered and got going again and in fact helped drag Bardet up to Froome and Chaves again. He also was very impressive of course in the Tour on La Planche on the steep finish, and he seems to have recovered from his illness that weakened him at the latter part of the TDF. He sits in 7th place now and is just 38" behind Froome, he can't afford to lose more time inside the first 5 stages if he is to be able to mount a challenge. I'm not sure he'll be quick enough on this finish though, but he'll be top 10. 

One that I am definitely going to be having an interest in though is Michael Woods, I was impressed by him on Monday and I've been told that the Cannondale man is looking forward to this finish and is targeting it. He was caught a little bit for pace too when Froome attacked but he chased and led home the first of the next lot home, 25" down. These gradients are much more his liking though and he could well attack with the likes of Chaves and I think he has the sprint to beat him to the line if it's just him and maybe Froome and Aru. I like him a lot for this. 

Nicholas Roche has been going really well too and sits only 2" off the leader's jersey right now. He too got dropped when Froome accelerated, but fought back really well when it looked like he was going backwards and helped Nibali get back on and tried a dig near the finish. How is he on finishes like this? Well on that steep finish to Caminito Del Rey in 2015 he finished in 3rd just 9" behind Chaves, ahead of Martin, Froome, Quintana and Valverde. And in 2013 he won on the finish to Alto do Monte do Groba on a similar sort of stage which had a last kilometre which averaged 8%. He's getting older and slower, but he seems to be in really good shape at the moment and 28/1 is not bad at all. 

David de la Cruz sits just 2" off the leader's jersey and was gutted that he didn't win on Monday as he wanted to wear the jersey in to his home area of Catalunya, but he could have a big chance of taking it tomorrow with a top 3 finish, depending on where others finish. If he can hang in there with the leaders up to the last 300m I think he has a decent chance too of winning this sprint, we saw him come from last to first of the lead group in the sprint on Monday, if he hadn't started chasing Nibali from some 20m behind him he might have caught him.  At 33/1 he's worth an e/w.  

His team-mate Julian Alaphilippe really struggled on the Ramassa the other day, he looked like he had overheated and was dropped pretty early on in the stage. There is still a lot of climbing in this stage, but he should be able to handle it a lot better than Monday, and he'll like this finish too.. but I think if DLC is anywhere near the front, Alapolak will be working to get him the victory and the race lead. So from that point of view, he's a no-bet for me at just 9/1. 

Romain Bardet rode ok too on Monday, chasing Froome with Aru, we saw how well he went on a finish like this in the Tour on the pull up to the airstrip in Peyregudes. Vincenzo Nibali might find this too steep though, but he won't be far off. Domenico Pozzovivo rode well too on Monday, helping Bardet to get back with the leaders, he looked lively and sprightly and he could go well on this finish too, but he came down in that crash today 3kms from home, he looked uninjured, but it could affect him.

Steven Kruijswijk has revealed that he has been suffering from the flu since before the Vuelta, why the hell is that kept to themselves, openness and transparency about it would have saved lots of people having bets on the fucker not knowing he was sick... Who knows, maybe he'll recover and still feature, but he's after losing valuable time. I can't see him getting up here if he's still feeling ill. 

Warren Barguil, Dani Moreno, Carlos Betancur, Louis Meintjes, Igor Anton, Rui Costa, Sergio Pardilla... the list goes on.. they could all be close and could get involved in the finish, but it's hard to see any of them outpacing the likes of Chaves, Woods, Froome or Lopez. Betancur might be interesting though if he can get in the right place at the right time, he has the kick to go with some of the best on a finish like this.. but knowing Betancur he'll be too far back and unable to mount a challenge. And Dani Moreno got hurt in that crash 3kms from home too.. 

Sky have back-up options too of course on a day like this, they won't have to go too hard like on Monday towards the end of the stage and that could free up the likes of Poels, Puccio or Moscon to give it a dig from the bottom and catch the others by surprise. Gianni Moscon and Salvatore Puccio were incredibly strong on Monday, they just tore the race to pieces before Froome went. But it's unlikely, this early in the race, maybe later when the GC might be closer to being wrapped up.  

I'm leaving De Gendt, Atapuma, Fraile and the other breakaway types out but will reassess in-play if it looks like the break might just go all the way. And that's about it - Woods is about where I expected him, I tried to take the 16/1 that 365 went on the open but I was too slow, I took the 14/1 instead. I think between Chaves, Roche, Woods and De La Cruz we should get some reward here. Better odds might come out later, but I'm putting this live early tonight as I've been working on it ahead of the stage and have been looking forward to backing Chaves and Woods. 

Recommendations:

2pts win on Esteban Chaves at 11/2 with Bet365

1pt each-way on Michael Woods at 14/1 with 365

0.5pts each-way on Nico Roche at 28/1 

0.5pts each-way on DDLC at 28/1

Matchbets

DLC to beat Nibali - 2pts at evens with 365

Adam Yates to beat Simon Yates and Woods to beat Roche - 2pts at 1.45/1 with Will Hill