Vuelta aims high with 11 summit finishes

Short, lung-burstingly steep ‘walls’; 17.3km-long gentle but interminable ascents; two mountaintop finishes in the race’s first three days and the Angliru to finish off with – should Spanish media reports on Friday be believed, the 2013 Vuelta a España will be a guide to all the different varieties of mountain climbs possible within a single stage race.

Alasdair Fotheringham

Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews, he has also written for The IndependentThe GuardianProCycling, The Express and Reuters.