Subject: Vuelta a España 2011

The Vuelta a España (English: Tour of Spain) is a three-week road bicycle racing stage race that is one of the three "Grand Tours" of Europe and part of the UCI World Ranking calendar. The race lasts three weeks and attracts cyclists from around the world. The race is broken into day-long segments, called stages. Individual times to finish each stage are totaled to determine the overall classification winner at the end of the race. The rider with the lowest aggregate time at the end of each day wears the Red Jersey.



The route
Running from Saturday August 20th to Sunday September 11th 2011, the 66th Vuelta a España will be made up of 21 stages and will cover a total distance of 3,300 kilometers. These stages have the following profiles:
• 9 flat stages,
• 10 mountain stages
• 1 team time-trial stage
• 1 individual time-trial stage

Distinctive aspects of the race:
• 6 summit finishes
• 2 rest days
• 14 km team time-trial
• 40 km individual time-trial stage

New stage towns:
La Nucía, Petrer, Sierra Nevada, Úbeda, Almadén, Villacastín, Sarria, Villa Romana La Olmeda (Palencia), Faustino V and Noja

New finishes:
Totana, San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Estación de Montaña Manzaneda, La Farrapona-Lagos de Somiedo and Noja






Teams
All 18 teams in the UCI's Pro-team category are entitled, and obliged, to enter the race:
• Ag2r-La Mondiale
• Astana
• BMC Racing Team
• Euskaltel-Euskadi
• Garmin-Cervélo
• HTC-Highroad
• Team Katusha
• Lampre-ISD
• Leopard Trek
• Liquigas-Cannondale
• Movistar Team
• Omega Pharma-Lotto
• Quick Step
• Rabobank
• Team RadioShack
• Saxo Bank-SunGard
• Team Sky
• Vacansoleil-DCM

Also 4 UCI Professional Continental teams are invited:
• Andalucía-Caja Granada
• Skil-Shimano
• Geox-TMC
• Cofidis

Favorites Overall Classification
Igor Anton
Michele Scarponi
Joaquin Rodriguez
Vincenzo Nibali
Denis Menchov
Jurgen Van Den Broeck
Bradley Wiggins
Janez Brajkovic
Andreas Kloden
Carlos Sastre


Info
Stages, results and more Vuelta a España 2011:
lavuelta.com
wikipedia.org

Live
lavuelta.com - See the dynamic route summary
live cycling on procyclinglive.com

(edited)

Forza Nibali! We want a bis!!!

Visca Nibali!

Igor Anton
Michele Scarponi
Joaquin Rodriguez
Vincenzo Nibali
Denis Menchov
Jurgen Van Den Broeck
Bradley Wiggins
Janez Brajkovic
Andreas Kloden
Carlos Sastre


last 2 are not going for GC
I think it's gonna be for Anton or Rodriguez
but watch out for wiggo , he said is now much better than before the tourstart

Taaramae gonna deliver!

i hope it , great rider !
hope someday he will join the sky-team !

I used a bookmakers site and these 10 are the overall favorites so I copied them :)

Jakob Fuglsang in was in the red jersey after the team time trial on saturday :D He is only the second Dane to do that after Lars Michaelsen had it for a few days back in 1997. He's a great talent so I hope we'll get to see more from him. According to the papers he's the captain of Leopard-Trek in this Vuelta, so it's possible :)

Menchov and Klöden won't win the Vuelta.

Live
lavuelta.com - See the dynamic route summary
live cycling on procyclinglive.com

im bored to check :P what day they got the mountain trial?

Today was a mountain stage ending at Sierra Nevada. Daniel Moreno unfortunately won before Chris Anker Sørensen :( Sylvain Chavanel is the new guy in red with Moreno and Fuglsang as the following riders in the GC.

Someone kidnaped Taaramae :(

Oups, he actually finished 82nd almost 17 minutes back, away of his team-mates.. :( And Anton, Le Mevel and Roche - also lost some time.
Another very interesting stage will come tomorrow. I am not expecting GC attacks. But Sagan could show something... ;)

Not 1km flat tomorrow.. Maybe another breakaway will last till the end? Who in the peloton will want to ride in such hot temperatures with 2 and a half weeks to go? Quick-Step will try and let some riders, who are already far away in GC, escape. That's my best guess.

Liquigas won't ride for Sagan because they have to save their efforts for Nibali..

I don´t think they will do much work for Sagan. But this profile can really suite him and if Nibali will be feeling fine, I think there will be possibility of one Liquigas´ lead-out man for him or even attack without lead-out, like we saw in Giro´s stage 9 (win of Gatto ahead off Contador after his surprising move). So Sagan is definitely my bet! ;)
However there is Van Avermaet, Cancellara, Gavazzi, Omega-Pharma and Quickstep.... of course and they all can try to do something. Will be very interesting to see!