It's been a week since the sprinters had their last clear shot at glory, when the Vuelta raced into the Catalan town of Igualada, but here finally is another stage that should definitely tempt them into action, assuming, of course, that there are plenty of them left in the race after duelling with the time limit in Andorra and having to negotiate yesterday's full-on mountain experience.
Starting in the Cantabrian fishing port and resort of San Vicente de la Barquera, the route principally hugs Spain's rugged Atlantic coast. Route director Fernando Escartín has described this stage as flat, and while there is only one classified climb on the road to the Asturian city of Oviedo, the roads along this stretch of coastline undulate almost incessantly so that by the finish the riders will have notched up almost 2,300 metres of vertical gain without going above a height of 350 metres at any point.
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