Record breaking climbs
The race’s second weekend brings two very different mountain stages. The first heads through the home region of 2008 Tour de France winner Carlos Sastre, taking in the cat 1 Mijares pass and two cat 2 hills, the San Bartolomé de Pinares and the Alto de Santa María. There’s one final climb to the line in San Lorenzo de El Escorial, the first time this has been used as a stage finish. That final cat 3 ascent features ramps of up to 28 per cent, which could be the steepest ever to feature in a grand tour. If the previous climbs haven’t split
the CG contenders, these ramps surely will.
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