A typically unrelenting second week in the Vuelta a España 2025 has seen the general classification crystallise as the favourites come to the fore and the hopefuls fall by the wayside.
There have been surprises though, including the way UAE Team Emirates-XRG continues to keep pulling winning card after winning card out of the deck, despite controversy over their team spirit.
1. Jonas Vingegaard is not running away with this race
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Jonas Vingegaard goes into the rest day with a 48-second cushion over next best rider Joāo Almeida. As far as cushions go, it is not the most comfortable. Think tatty bar stool rather than plush lounge armchair.
There’s no doubt he would have preferred the plushness of, say, a two-minute gap, especially with the Portuguese rider looking as dangerous as he does.
After Vingegaard’s PB-busting performances in the Tour de France, where he professed to have seen some of his best numbers and stood head and shoulders ahead of everyone in the race bar Tadej Pogačar, it might have been easy to assume that the Visma-Lease a Bike rider would walk the Vuelta a España.
But Almeida of UAE Team Emirates-XRG, who has won three week-long stage races this year, is clearly on fine form and determined to push him till the end.
With an extremely tough week ahead that includes three summit finishes, two high mountain stages and a time trial, that 48-seconds could disappear rapidly down the plughole of one bad day. The GC still hangs in the balance.
2. The Angliru is still tough – but so are the riders
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Much of the talk last week was of the fearsome Alto de L’Angiru on stage 13 – one of the toughest climbs not just in this race but in the entire repertoire of pro cycling. There’s no doubt that its ultra-steep slopes, which surpass 20% in places and feature a six-kilometre section that averages between 10 and 16%, inspire fear in those tasked with racing up it.
And just in case the riders had forgotten what a 10%-plus slope looked like, the Angliru was preceded on the stage in short order by a pair of category-one climbs that featured plenty of them.
But for all the talk, the day itself was a thrilling masterclass in the power and grace of the professional bike rider (as well as the importance of choosing the right gear ratios).
The GC riders, led by Joāo Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) seized the climb by the scruff of the neck and powered from bottom to top without missing a beat.
It was clearly extremely hard going, but the panache with which it was ridden, not just by the top riders but pretty much all comers, reduced it to something far more palatable.
As someone who remembers riders crawling up steep climbs, zig-zagging across the road on corn-cob blocks, this modern taming of the terrain takes a touch of the spectacle away from it.
Nevertheless, it’s an impressive watch.
3. Mads Pedersen’s wait for a stage win is over
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A classification leader’s jersey is all about consistency rather than highs and lows. On occasion, for example, a rider will win a Grand Tour without actually winning a stage. It’s never the preferred way, but the raison d’être of a GC rider is to win overall – everything else is secondary.
The raison d’être of the sprinter, on the other hand, is to cross the line first. That’s why Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) was sporting an expression of almost pathological relief when he won stage 15 to Monforte de Lemos on Sunday.
Barring incident, the green points jersey looks as though it will almost certainly be his on Sunday in Madrid – he currently leads second-placed Jonas Vingegaard by 98 points – but that all-important stage win had so far eluded him.
He came close in Ceres with second on stage three, losing out to David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ), and he was fifth on the hilly stage 12, unable to bring back breakaway pair Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) and Javier Romo (Movistar).
Pedersen is not a pure sprinter. One of his strengths is his ability on lumpier, classics-style terrain. But all the same, he will now consider his green jersey campaign complete with the addition of a stage victory.
4. Tom Pidcock’s GC campaign shows no sign of faltering
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As the race closed out at Monforte de Lemos on Sunday evening, Tom Pidcock (Q36.5 Pro Cycling) was still there in third place on GC, a useful (though far from decisive) 32 seconds ahead of fourth placed Jai Hindley (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe).
This is uncharted territory for the Yorkshire rider. Never before this race has he ventured higher than fifth place on the overall, and that was for a single day in week one of the 2022 Tour de France.
This is very different. He’s been ensconced in third place on the Vuelta for five days now, having spent the previous two days in fourth.
Week three does, of course, have a way of finding a rider out, as the distance and the mountains take their toll.
But the 26-year-old continues to look solid. If he can take this all the way to Madrid it will be a career high for him.
5. UAE Team Emirates-XRG appears to be an unstoppable juggernaut
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When Juan Ayuso appeared to fall apart in week one, losing more than 10 minutes on GC on stage six to Andorra, it seemed as though one key weapon in the UAE Team Emirates-XRG armoury had been comprehensively decommissioned – at least for this race.
Their other GC contender, Joāo Almeida, may have remained, but the team looked severely weakened. (Ayuso’s tirade against his employer in week two over his early contract termination didn’t seem as though it would help either, but that’s another story).
But few would have predicted that the team would continue to thrive, only appearing to become stronger and stronger as its riders inspired each to greater feats.
The situation as it stands, is that UAE Team Emirates has won seven of 15 stages. What makes this even more impressive is that this isn’t down to one stand-out individual. Rather, these wins have been taken by four separate riders – Jay Vine (stages 6, 10) Ayuso (stages 7, 12), Almeida (stage 13), and Marc Soler (stage 14). Plus of course there is the cherry on the cake – their team time trial win.
The only question for UAE Team Emirates-XRG right now is who will win next.
