The official La Vuelta route has recently been confirmed by organisers for 2019 and appears unsurprisingly challenging, including 8 uphill finishes and some relentlessly tough stages.
The 74th edition will take place from August 24th - September 15th, departing from Salinas de Torrevieja with an opening Team Time Trial and finishing in Madrid, concluding a total of 3,272.2km of racing.The opening three stages will remain in the Costa Blanca area of Eastern Spain before heading to the province of Alicante and onto Valencia, Teruel, Castellón, Tarragona and Barcelona. This first week will certainly be bringing some heat with several sprint stages and three back-to-back summit finishes to really get the GC battle stirring.
On Stage 9, however - just ahead of the first rest day, the games will truly begin as the peloton travel back to the mountainous Andorra, which proved to be a real game-changer to the race in 2018. The ascent dominated stage will include a succession of viciously challenging mountain passes, including a new edition to the race - Coll d’Engolasters and an additional 4km of dirt track, just to ensure fireworks are firing!
Concluding the rest day, riders will briefly cross into France to tackle a 36km individual Time Trial into Pau, also a stage host of the Tour de France.
The race will then return to the Peninsula via Navarre, onto the Basque Country, Cantabria and Asturias. Included will be a combination of sprint stages and mountains, with some familiar and new ascents on the menu - the Santuario del Acebo and Alto de La Cubilla to name a few.
Throughout the final week, the race moves to the central region of Spain, from Castile-La Mancha, Castile and Leòn, and onto Madrid for the spectacular Grand Finale.
The final bid for GC honours will take place in the Gredos and Guadarrama mountains, and could well prove a real opportunity for a late race shake-up. Included is the brutal La Morcuera, which will be tackled not once but twice! The famous ascent was featured in the 2015 edition when Fabio Aru dramatically stole the lead from Tom Dumoulin on the penultimate Stage 20.
As the last Grand Tour of the season, La Vuelta never fails to put on a real spectacle with the professional peloton in full force and primed for serious battle. Paired with the Spanish heat, sensational atmosphere and incredibly challenging terrain - the 2019 edition will be one not to miss!
Defending champion, Simon Yates’ confirmation of return will not be officially determined until later season concluding the Giro D’Italia. However, now that the challenging route has been revealed, we have a strong feeling he’ll be back to fight it out for Red with all guns blazing.
Concluding La Vuelta route launch late December, Yates (stated by GreenEDGECycling) said, “There’s some spectacular summit finishes, some that I know already and it looks really difficult.
"I think in general the route looks good, with a team time trial at the start we have a really good strong team there and also the stage to Andorra I know the roads really well, which we saw this year.
“With the individual time trial I am slowly improving year on year and I think I am at a level now were I am not afraid of the time trials. For the rest of the stages, there’s many mountains and from what I have seen from the route there’s a lot longer climbs which is good.
“Watching the video tonight from the race this year, it brings back really good memories and it's good to see that the Vuelta 2019 look as hard as always.”
We’re backing Yates and will be there alongside him and the Mitchelton-SCOTT squad with GreenEDGETravel.
Join us on an experience like no other, that will allow you inside access to the defending champions and to truly feel part of the team as they fight it out for a consecutive victory!
Head here to learn more about our La Vuelta experiences.