The Vuelta a España’s stage 9 finish line on Sunday in Granada was only one of two for the riders that day.
When the race resumed after Monday’s so-called “rest” day, the peloton and the accompanying travelling circus would find itself 1,000 km to the northwest in the Galician town of Ponteareas. For the riders, who no doubt wanted and needed that full day of rest, that meant many more kilometres to cover Sunday evening after the 178.5 km raced during the day.
Quick showers, or none
Well before the start of the stage, teams were briefed on the logistics to get them to the other side of Spain as quickly as possible. With the speed-limited team buses needing to set off directly after the stage 9 start in Motril, showers had instead been commandeered at a hotel situated 200 metres from the finish line. Riders would have to be quick, however, as the plan was to then load them all into special buses provided by La Vuelta leaving at 18:30 sharp for a police escort to the airport for their chartered flights north.
UAE Team Emirates’ stage 9 winner Adam Yates crossed the line at 17:31 local time and was then wheeled off for interviews and podium ceremonies, meaning he wouldn’t be the first into the showers. Instead, better to be a second-placed Richard Carapaz of EF Education-EasyPost, 1:39 down on the stage, to likely receive that honour.
For the last few riders in – Dylan Teuns (Israel-Premier Tech), Brandon Rivera (Ineos Grenadiers) and Welay Hagos Berhe (Jayco-AlUla) – it would have needed to be a lightning-quick turnaround. Their day’s deficit of 43 minutes saw them cross the line at 18:14, meaning just 16 minutes from stopping the Garmin to being seated for a bus trip you couldn’t afford to miss. Most likely, a shower was forfeited and whoever ended up sat next to them on the flight had pulled the short straw for the trip.
But while the riders and a select few fortunate support staff were able to travel by plane to give them an actual day of rest, the remainder of the race’s entourage faced a day spent in transit.
Night-time drives
Before setting off on the longest transfer since the journey from the 2022 Tour de France Grand Départ in Copenhagen to its French pick-up in Dunkirk (and for which an extra travel day was included) a plan was needed. Teams had to figure out which vehicles needed to go straight after the stage 9 start (the team bus, the mechanic’s truck, the ice van, the kitchen truck), while the race caravan, scouting and feed zone cars had to first complete the stage, then check the riders were on the bus to the airport, before they too set off north.
Once on the Autopista, a Burger King at a service station was descended upon by nearly every team, the caravan and the staff of the Vuelta organisation. After that, it was driving into the night, with some staff stopping at hotels northwest of Madrid, a surprise boon for inland hotels in regions the Vuelta didn’t visit this year. A couple of teams were then rewarded by arriving at organisation-designated five-star hotels in Vigo for the next three days as the race circles around Galicia.
For some team staff, this is just a normal part of the day job. They are often instructed to drive team cars and trucks down from Belgian-based service courses to race starts in Italy and Spain, so days spent on motorways is their regular 9-5, often with a few more hours tacked on either end.
For the media, however, whose area of employment is understandably a dream job for many cycling fans and are therefore loathe to complain too hastily, it did add complications. Some photographers drove through the night as they had appointments to shoot for teams on the rest day, while some media outlets flew in extra journalists early to help with the long drive for colleagues who had already covered 2,800 km of driving over the week leading up to this cross-country trip.
These two hours of driving before and after stages over the past week, as well as huge rest day transfers, leave people less time to do their actual jobs: bringing the race to people at home, which means certain textures fall away into the abyss forever, forgotten by everyone not present in Spain.
Questions of heat and hypocrisy
There are a couple of things that have rankled, murmurings being discussed in corners before stage starts and at finish lines waiting for the peloton to arrive, with this transfer just typifying a sport that at times seems to have lost touch with reality.
One is of this 1,000 km transfer, that may have been palatable if there were not also questions being raised over designing the route so they go south before north, when switching these around and waiting an extra week leaves the chance for cooler temperatures in the infernal south.
This Vuelta the peloton has raced through infernal temperatures during the opening week and a half, peaking at 40°C / 104°F on stage 4. Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers) needed medical attention in an ambulance straight after stage 7 as he suffered from heatstroke, while the white jersey Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious) was forced to abandon due to heatstroke, headaches, and a high body temperature that needed stabilising, according to a statement from his team. “I know every year they say the weather is hot here and whatever else,” one person travelling with the race texted, “but it’s actually been diabolical.”
Israel-Premier Tech’s Michael Woods told Velo that he saw temperatures hit 49°C / 120°F on the road during the stage at one point and that he believes the extreme heat protocol should have already been put in place this race.
Some have questioned why the race couldn’t have headed north after the Gran Partida to the Galician and northern stages that fill the second and third weeks, giving the south of Spain an extra 10 days or so to cool down. That said, forecasts show temperatures remaining high, and there will be numerous sporting, administrative and financial reasons why the Vuelta course designers laid out the route the way they have.
When contacted for comment, Vuelta organisers told us: “The 1,000 km transfer in La Vuelta is indeed a significant distance, but it’s important to understand it in the context of Spain’s vast and diverse geography. Spain is one of the largest countries in Europe, with regions that vary greatly in terrain, climate, and culture. As organisers, one of our core objectives is to ensure that La Vuelta truly represents the whole of Spain, from the mountainous north to the southern coasts. This sometimes necessitates longer transfers to reach different regions, allowing us to showcase the full breadth of what Spain has to offer and bring the race closer to more communities, spreading the excitement of La Vuelta across the country.”
Taking a wider view, there is the dissonance of countries such as Spain that will be heavily impacted by ever-increasing temperatures and the excessive pollution caused by bike races held within their borders. The first rest-day transfer is the longest of the Vuelta, but far from its only significant drive between stages: stage 4 saw a 200 km transfer from Pico Villuercas to the stage 5 start in Fuente del Maestre; stages 7 and 8, immediately preceding the monster rest-day trip, saw transfers of 150-200 km each. And after stage 20, teams have to get off the Picon Blanco summit and transit 350 km south to Madrid for the final stage, without the benefit of a rest day. All told, that’s 1,900 km of major transfers, not including the shorter ones more common between stages.
Attempts to “green” professional bike racing are necessary, especially from a PR perspective, but these can often fall into a pit of hypocrisy. Physical copies of the 2024 Vuelta road book, bibles containing all information about the race and its logistics, were not provided this year, with the stated aim of reducing the race’s carbon footprint, merely leaving those in the cavalcade to print their own off so as not to be stuck without maps when phone reception cuts out somewhere up a mountain. For many, the claim that it’s the paper books and not the 1,000 km transfers that will make the race sustainable rings hollow, and challenges the idea that appetite amongst organisers to reduce their event’s environmental impact is anything more than PR spin.
Similarly, electric vans equipped with large batteries are employed to recharge the sponsor-correct electric vehicles that travel as part of the race convoy. “These battery-powered vans are charged with electricity from the grid, ensuring that we maximize the use of renewable energy sources where possible,” La Vuelta explained to us. “Due to logistical and timing constraints during the 1,000 km transfer, these electric vans were the only vehicles transported on [gasoline-powered] trucks, a necessary step to ensure that the recharging infrastructure was ready and in place for the next stages of the race.”
While the riders didn’t have to bear the brunt of 1,000 rest-day kilometres this time, it will be them, as we’ve seen at this race so far, who have to deal with the effects of a warming world where we still want them to continue to race their bikes.
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