Thirty years after its final summit end on the Alt de Montserrat, the 2025 Volta a Catalunya will return to what’s arguably the nation’s most emblematic ascent for a full-scale mountain battle.
The final time the Volta visited the Alt de Montserrat was in June 1995, with a victory for French champion Laurent Jalabert on stage 1, within the course of permitting ‘Ja-ja’ to clinch what proved to be an unbreakable maintain on the general lead.
The Volta triumph was all a part of Jalabert’s best-ever season, claiming Milan-San Remo, Il Lombardia and the Vuelta a España in the identical season, in addition to placing five-times Tour winner Miguel Indurain up in opposition to the ropes in a memorable ambush that July within the Tour en path to Mende airfield.
Not like 30 years in the past and given the very balanced nature of the ends in the opening mountain stage on Wednesday, it is in no way sure whoever wins within the shadow of the traditional monastery on the Montserrat this yr will take the Volta a Catalunya outright. May it’s new race chief Juan Ayuso (UAE Group Emirates-XRG) or high rival and second-placed Primož Roglič (Crimson Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe)? Will a brand new contender rise to the event?
Besides, Thursday’s ascent, ranked class 1 and totalling 8.8 kilometres at 6.6% is difficult sufficient to make sure that whoever is available in as GC chief for the Volta’s showdown stage on Saturday may have proved they’ve some severe climbing credentials.
Whereas the one different labeled ascent of stage 4 is the class 2 Turó del Puig, practically 60 kilometres from the end, the complete day has over 3,000 metres of vertical climbing. The previous day’s 5,000 metres of vertical climbing by way of the Pyrenees will possible have a knock-on impact on riders’ ranges of tiredness, too. As Mikel Landa, second general final yr, informed Cyclingnews, “the stage is unquestionably exhausting sufficient for there to be some good GC gaps”.
“The final climb is sort of lengthy, even when it would not have any actually troublesome gradients. It isn’t a Pyrenean climb, nevertheless it’s very a lot within the line of these lengthy, regular climbs you get in these mountains within the Tour de France,” Sergi López-Egea, a Catalan journalist with El Periódico de Catalunya who reported on the 1995 Volta and who has been up the Montserrat climb each by bike and by automobile on a number of events, informed Cyclingnews.
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“The riders will get into a gentle tempo, they will not want to make use of any of these actually excessive gears which can be so fashionable within the peloton now. The primary climb itself is broad and well-surfaced as a result of so many buses go as much as the monastery on the high.
“It is a very well-known climb right here in Catalunya, the entire space round Montserrat is sort of a ‘temple of Catalan cyclotourism’.”
The Volta a Catalunya’s summit end at Montserrat types a part of the millennium celebrations for the monastery on the high of the climb, however biking is way from being the one sport with robust connections to one of many nation’s most vital non secular websites. As López de Egea factors out, again when Catalunya’s premier soccer facet, FC Barcelona, was coached by legendary Dutch coach Johan Cruyff, if the group gained the league or some other vital championship – as occurred quite a bit again then – the gamers would have a good time by biking up the climb in homage to the Madonna of Monserrat, the patron saint of the nation.
Aside from the Volta Montserrat has been tackled by different races, most not too long ago by the Vuelta a España in 2019 as a part of a stage that completed in a bunch dash some kilometres additional on, within the metropolis of Igualada.
“But it surely’s principally very well-known for cyclo-tourists as a result of there are many gravel tracks and sideroads resulting in the primary one,” López de Egea stated. “And one in all Catalunya’s most well-known cyclo-tourist MTB occasions, La Portals, takes place on it yearly. On Thursday, although, I am predicting a special form of battle – one between the 2 high riders at La Moliina, [Primoz] Roglič and [race leader Juan] Ayuso.”
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