Vuelta a España 2025 stage 2 preview

• Start time: 13:35 CET
• Finish time: 17:21 CET
• How to watch stage 2 of the Vuelta a España
• Favourites to win the stage: João Almeida, Jonas Vingegaard, Junior Lecerf, Tom Pidcock, Santiago Buitrago

The first summit finish of the Vuelta a España comes early on stage 2 to Limone Piemonte. While not the hardest of the race's 10 summit finishes, it should be more than enough to unseat sprinter Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) from the race lead.

The stage begins in Alba for a second outing in Italy, and is fairly flat until the final climb.

Clocking in at just 159.6 kilometres, it's a relatively short stage and, with so many fresh legs in the peloton Limone Piemonte's relatively benign 5% average gradient over 10km might not be enough to put any of the Vuelta a Espana contenders into difficulty, especially in the absence of Tadej Pogačar.

However, the climb will be an opportunity to test the wits and fitness of some of the second-tier challengers.

Keep an eye on Tom Pidcock (Q36.5), who is the highest-placed of the declared contenders in the Vuelta current GC standings.

Climbs

• Limone Piemonte (cat. 2), km. 159.6

Sprints

• Busca, km. 68.4 - time bonus