Vuelta a España stage 6 preview - Which GC contender will conquer the first high mountains challenge?

• Start time: 12:35 CET
• Finish time: 17:16 CET
• How to watch stage 6 of the Vuelta a España
• Favourites to win the stage: Jonas Vingegaard, João Almeida, Egan Bernal

The 2025 Vuelta a España route has no less than five different summit finishes in its first week - a record even by the Vuelta's extreme standards - but there can be no doubt that Thursday's ascent of Pal in the Andorran Pyrenees is the most important.

It's not just because after the skirmishing of stage 2 at Limone Piemonte, the ascent to Pal and the preceding Alto de la Comella and Collado de Tosses comprise the first major encounter with high mountains in the 2025 Vuelta.

So it's not surprising that while in Italy, some 25 riders were still in the front group, a handful of seconds behind stage winner Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) when he and three others clipped away in the finish. In Andorra, with a 9.6 kilometre Cat.1 ascent to finish off a day through the Pyrenees, it will be another story altogether.

The climbing gets underway immediately, no sooner have the riders left Olot on their 170-kilometre trek to Andorra, with an 11-kilometre category 3 ascent of Collado de Sentigosa, presumably more than long enough to get the early breakaway sparks flying.

But the real damage will be done by the 22-kilometre monster ascent to Collado de Tosses that follows, and after a long descent through the ski resort of La Molina - familiar to riders from its near-constant inclusion in each year's Volta a Catalunya - the race will take a familiar right-hand bend at the junction of Seu d'Urgell into Andorra and the final climbs of the day.

With so many riders now living in the landlocked Pyrenean state, given its severely limited number of training roads, both the Cat.2 ascent of Cornella and the final climb to Pal will be familiar, for all they last appeared in the Vuelta back in 2010.

But if the win that day went to Basque climbing star Igor Anton, the gaps were only a minute between the top 18 finishers. This time round, even if - as seems likely - nobody will want to put their hat in the ring for an all-out assault on the GC so early in the race, recent Vuelta history suggests the main men for the overall win will definitely be coming to the fore. Particularly as the route is much harder than 15 years ago, when Pal was the only major ascent of the day.

Last year's first week victory on the ascent of Pico Villuercas for overall winner Primož Roglič, for all it was claimed by a bare tyre's width against Lennert van Eetvelt, is just the precedent you might expect.

As former road pro and ex-resident of Andorra for several years, Nathan Haas points out to Cyclingnews, the difficulties begin way before Andorra, on the category 1 Collado de Tosses. Tosses is never excessively hard with gradients mostly hovering between 3 and 6%. But "it's the second-highest peak in the stage, and it tops out at 1,790 metres above sea level, which means they're spending a fair amount of time getting into oxygen deprivation, so this is going to favour the guys who'll have done their altitude training."

"It's not a climb that'll obliterate the race because everybody will be waiting for Andorra, but it's definitely going to put some hurt in the legs."

The Big Finale

On paper, as Haas points out, the two Andorran climbs of Alto de la Comella and Pal begin at km 145, the foot of the Cat.2 ascent. But the reality is "you're climbing from the minute you leave Seu d'Urgell [on the Catalan frontier] so apart from that short drop off Comella you're gaining altitude from kilometre 126 all the way to kilometre 170."

Comella, he says simply and categorically, "is a damn hard climb. I've done it a lot and the hard thing is the really, really steep switchbacks and that's going to be where we'll see the first explosion of the entire Vuelta."

"On the hairpins as hard as that you get this wicked, wicked acceleration effect, because if you get a team like Visma on the front, if they decide to accelerate out of the corners, it's the chasing back up which is really hard."

Then another tough feature of Comella is that "as ever in Andorra, one of the hardest things are the downhills. Coming here to Massana" - the town at the foot of Comella - "it's a semi-suburban area with tight switchbacks. Not dangerous, but steep and heavy on the braking so if gaps open up, they're tricky to pull back."

Then starts the final climb and Haas says that by itself, it's one of the easiest climbs in Andorra and where it'll be unlikely that a top contender like Vingegaard will move far head. But the combined effect of the previous ascents will make it much more difficult.

"No one's overly fatigued yet and the final kilometre of Pal, before you get to the ski station, is actually quite flat, it tapers down."

"The only place where you can actually do damage on this climb is at the start. There's a series of switchbacks before you go through a long tunnel. And I'd predict that's where the team will really put the hammer down."

However, while Vingegaard will be the favourite to win, Haas doesn't think he'll make it there alone.

"It goes up to 1,900 metres which is where riders feel a noticeable difference because of the elevation. But I don't think it'll do enough damage in itself to impact."

"What I like though, about this stage is that it's sure to produce some fantastic racing, a very exciting stage to watch. Not just because of the final but because that early ascent out of Olot is long enough to ensure it's only the very strong climbers who are ahead, and more of the same on the Collado de Tosses."

"But the teams who want to make time back on GC will have to work hard on the valley roads that follow and then you've got that crazy steep climb of Alto de la Comella to really get things going for the finish."

Because the finale in Pal is not so hard, though, strategy should play a bigger role rather than the strongest rider muscling his way to the front and crushing the opposition. "It'll make for dynamic racing, and it'll give us a big indication of who the chiefs are. But it shouldn't make it overly clear who's going to win the Vuelta - yet."

Haas concurs with fellow Australian Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) that the usual headwinds in Andorran climbs could well conspire to help keep things together. But, Haas concludes, modern-day racing styles should force things open.

"There's so much impatience in riders and teams and tactics, it demands a more aggressive way of racing. For spectators, we love it because they're at it every single day. The egos are going to be swinging, and there's going to be the typical jostling for power. And on the first GC mountains test - I don't think they're going to be able to help themselves."

Climbs

• Collada de Sentigosa (cat.3) 11.4km
• Collada de Toses (cat.1) 66.4km
• Alt de la Comella (cat.2) 149.2km - time bonus
• Pal (cat. 1) 170.3km

Sprints

• Andorra la Vella, km. 145