Vuelta a España organizers have a reputation to uphold when it comes to designing routes, and they did just that on Thursday when they unveiled a 2025 parcours with a whopping 10 summit finishes. Even for the Vuelta, which revels in grueling climbs, next year’s race stands out as a particularly summit-heavy affair.
With the fearsome Alto de l’Angliru among those key summit finishes and a relative dearth of time trial kilometers (one of the two time trials is a team affair) next year’s race will favor the mountain goats just as much or even more than is normally the case at the Vuelta. In short, whoever succeeds Primož Roglič as Vuelta champ in 2025 will have good climbing legs – which will come as a surprise to no one.
The 80th edition of the Spanish Grand Tour, celebrating 90 years since it was first launched in 1935, will get underway with three full stages in Italy’s Piedmont region, marking the first time the race has ever started in Italy. From there, the race will head west into France for a day, and then riders will fly to the Iberian Peninsula.
Early highlights along the route include a Cat 2 finish at Limone Piemonte on stage 2, a mostly flat 20 km team time trial in Figueres on stage 5, and a Cat 1 ascent to close out a big day of climbing in Andorra on stage 6. The race then heads back to Spain for another big climbing day on stage 7; for those counting at home, that is a total of four countries visited, and all in the first week.
Stages 9 and 10, separated by a rest day, also have summit finishes, while stage 11 will feature a punchy route around Bilbao in the Basque Country. Heading west along the Bay of Biscay, the race will arrive at the famous Alto de l’Angliru on stage 13, last visited on a dramatic stage in the 2023 Vuelta. Riders won’t be taking it easy the next day either as a brutal one-two punch of Cat 1 climbs closes out stage 14. The next big GC day is likely to come on stage 17 when the Vuelta climbs into the mountains around Ponferrada, which hosted the Road World Championships back in 2014.
From there, the red jersey hopefuls will switch bikes for a flat 26 km TT in Valladolid on stage 18, and the GC riders will have one last shot at making a difference on stage 20, which closes out with the Bola del Mundo near Madrid. The categoria especial climb is also the highest point in the whole race, at 2,258 meters above sea level. A sprinter-friendly stage 21 will bring the race to a close the next day on the streets of the Spanish capital.
Organizers have deemed all of one single stage to be “flat,” but they estimate “between four and six” chances for the sprinters across the 21 days of racing. That will hopefully entice some fast finishers to make the start at a race otherwise tailored to those who prefer going uphill.
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