Ta Fonseca – (4%)

The most difficult part of the race was the ascent to the summit finish with its 3km long descent that started at 7.2km. The peloton were racing very hard on that climb and it was difficult to see the road gain much time on them. At the top of the climb there were many sections where more than half of the peloton could be seen pushing hard in the final 50km and there was a danger of a breakaway.

On paper there wasn’t a lot of climbing so it was really important for a team like Trek to control the final climb, something that is really difficult for teams with strong climbers who usually come from the fast and technical finale. Trek always looked for every chance to control the situation and after a few aggressive moves the front group disappeared as they all passed near the top of the final climb.

In the end the breakaway was able to gain a maximum of 6kms but this was a bit too much for them to overcome and they just got caught at the finish line leaving Trek to finish first.

Stage 8 – El Gondy to Montgocolo – 194.5km

The penultimate stage of the Vuelta started in the Pyrenees with the team from Britain teaming up with the French team Vélibron for the first time and it wasn’t easy work by any means. They’d just launched the Vuelta as a WorldTour team and so many things had to go right for everything to go right.

After a few tough days of racing on race day the weather was ideal and the team had no problem in getting a nice breakaway going into the final two days. They all attacked hard at 5km from the finish on the penultimate day just before the climb to Montgocolo and they had some really quick moves in the process. This was the day that all of the big teams would compete and it seemed like every break got hit and dropped.

For the GC chances it was Vélibron that ended up with a decent general classification advantage going into the final stage and the stage was a classic where every single breakaway would be caught by the team that got everyone together. With 2km to go the final climb of El Gondy began and it was very hard for the big teams who still had a lead on the GC to catch everyone else. That’s how it was until a crash