September 6, Vuelta a España Stage 19 began as scheduled.
The riders would set off from Logroño and ride all the way to Alto de Moncalvillo.
This stage covered 164.8 kilometers, with total elevation gain of only 2,601 meters.
Just looking at the total elevation gain made it clear that this was merely a hilly stage. Overall, the difficulty of completing it would certainly not be too high.
And that was indeed the case. There were only two categorized climbs along the entire route.
One was a Category 3 climb, with its summit located at the 94.5-kilometer mark of the stage, called the Pradilla climb.
It was 5.3 kilometers long, with an average gradient of 5% and a maximum gradient of 5.9% per kilometer.
Although the riders had already been worn down by constant travel and racing by this point, a climb of this difficulty would still pose no challenge to them.
However, Alto de Moncalvillo, the summit finish climb, was a mountain ascent that only the general classification riders could hope to conquer first.
Officially rated as a Category 1 climb, it was 8.6 kilometers long, with an average gradient as high as 8.9% and a maximum gradient of 11% per kilometer.
Around 1.5 kilometers before the finish, the riders would also pass the steepest section of the entire climb, where the gradient would reach 16%.
It could be said that apart from the opening one kilometer at the foot of the mountain and the final 600 meters after reaching the summit, which had average gradients of just 4.7% and 7.4%, every remaining section of the seven-kilometer pine forest road had an average gradient of no less than 9%.
With such a steep summit finish, if the general classification riders had no intention of deliberately giving away the stage,