Vuelta a España 2023: Laguna Negra summit precedes Pyrenees battle - stage 11 preview

Stage 11: Lerma to La Laguna Negra.Vinuesa

Date: September 6

Distance: 163.5km

Stage type: Flat

The Vuelta a España's time trial in Valladolid on Tuesday was the first big GC challenge of the second week and the Pyrenean stages on the Tourmalet and Bonaigua will be the last, but in between it is the stage 10 summit finish at Laguna Negra de Vinuesa that will raise the curtain on the mountain battles to come.

A 6.5-kilometre wooded ascent lying deep in the little-known sierras of Soria in northeast Spain, Vinuesa has only featured once before in the Vuelta, in 2020.

Following almost directly on from the hilly stage at Arrate, the short, punchy climb of Lagunas Negras acted as a scenario for a dramatic ding-dong battle between Primož Roglič and Richard Carapaz, finally first and second in Madrid.

Neither rider was able to drop the other and the stage finally went to retired rider Dan Martin following his trademark late uphill acceleration. And just as Laguna Negra de Vinuesa provided an excellent indication of how the two were ahead of almost all the rest of their fellow GC contenders, this time round the climb will serve as something of a form guide before the main Pyrenean climbing stages.

“Primož and Richard had a great battle, but it's nothing excessive,” EF Education-EasyPost sports director Juanma Garate, a former Mont Ventoux winner who was directing the team in 2020, told Cyclingnews.

“It’s a climb that can do some damage because when Dan Martin went for it, the other guys were instantly in trouble. It starts off easy, too, but it gets harder and harder.”

“So it's a deceptive kind of climb, one where you need a good explosive final acceleration to get away and win.”

Image 1 of 2

The fourth summit finish of the 2023 race and the first (discounting Arrate, which ends after several kilometres of downhill) of 2020, the data confirms Garate’s comments. Averaging 6.8%, apart from one brief mid-climb segment of 13%, the last kilometre at over 9% is the hardest part of the ascent, with the steepest ramps of 14% and 13% close to the summit for good measure.

On a very similar course in 2020, which had one cat. 2 climb early on but which was largely flat, the time gaps at the top were minimal. Roglič and Carapaz were tied on time, key rivals Enric Mas and Hugh Carthy came home 9 seconds and 12 respectively and there was a minute between the top 25 on the stage.

“It’s got an easy start and it's not hard to regain positions and although it gets narrower and narrower the higher you go, it's not that tricky technically. On top of which it's a single climb and the wind isn't forecast to have much effect, so I don't think it's going to be that complicated.”

Assuming the stage does not go completely haywire early on - never a total certainty in a Vuelta like this one - Lagos should serve as something of a test ground for the Pyrenees, as Garate says, to try and gain some much-needed clues on what the climbing form of the leading favourites is really like.

“Remco’s [Evenepoel] going very well on the climbs, Roglič is getting better by the day, and [Jonas] Vingegaard seems to be performing a little less well," Garate says. "At the moment, these three are very equal.” 

That's not forgetting Roglič and Vingegaard's Jumbo-Visma teammate Sepp Kuss, of course, the winner of the hardest climbing stage so far and the rider wearing red. But this Wednesday, some more clues as to how they compare in the mountains should emerge.