This ProSeries race takes place on the scorched by the sun plateaus around the city of Burgos in Castile.
This year, it doesn’t look like there will much space for sprinters on this punchy race, the GC of which goes to a climber. The first stage is the traditional hectic finish in Burgos (sprinters-punchers have a chance there together with punchers-climbers), and the last one the traditional mountain finish at the lakes of Neila.
The official website is very thorough, and the technical guide even more: for example, for stage #1, it contains over 100 photos of the various curves, crossings and even of the manholes covers and cracks in the road!! 👍 👍
Riders
This is Gaudu’s comeback to actual (?) competition. Since May, he’s only started the National Championship in June, and the San Sebastian classic on Saturday, for 2 DNF… Let’s see if he can put out this week something that justifies a bit of his salary…
There are quite a number of rather high profile contenders! F. Gall (🇦🇹 Decathlon), J. Vine (🇦🇺 UAE) if he can survive the usually stressing finishes of the first days without crashing, G. Ciccone (🇮🇹 Lidl-Trek), Pellizzari (🇮🇹 Bora), M. Rondel (🇫🇷 Tudor).
As outsiders, P. Sivakov (🇷🇺🇫🇷 UAE) already won the race, A. Eulalio (🇵🇹 Bahrain) will try to find his crazy Giro legs, J. Nordhagen🇳🇴 and B. Tulett🇬🇧 will defend Visma’s chances, L. Bisiaux (🇫🇷 France) will supplement Gall, and M. Beloki (🇪🇸 EF) has just won the (much, much weaker) Tour de l’Ain.
Stages
Stage 1
165 km, D+ 1500m
The traditional punchy finish on the castle hill in Burgos, after the flattest stage.
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Stage 2
177 km, D+ 2300 m
A finish for long punchers on this murito.
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(yeah, I know, the less important climb got a larger picture 🙂)
Stage 3
183 km, D+ 3200 m
This stage and its almost-on-top-finish will very likely start sorting GC favourites. They won’t be able to hide on this difficult Puerto del Escudo (a new one on this race, but it was apparently ridden a few times on the Vuelta).
Stage 4
178 km, D+ 1900 m
Can sprinters make it through this one in a front group? Otherwise, it looks like a good chance for breakaways, between 2 mountain stages.
The ‘climbs’ are not terrible at all today:
Finnish profile: 
Stage 5 (last)
137 km, D+ 2900 m
The usual decisive finish on top.
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Stage 4
I didn’t see if there was a lot of fight to form the breakaway or not at all; however when I saw the breakaway, it was only composed of 2 Caja Rural (including a trainee) and 1 Burgos, so it looked like nobody wanted to try his luck in a breakaway. That’s strange considering the number of strong riders present in yesterday’s breakaway, for what looked like a GC stage…
So, a mass sprint was expected, and indeed the whole peloton (minus the running gag Gaudu) arrived for sprint. Brennan (🇬🇧 Visma) was badly located on the left, while everyone was taking over by the right side; yet the guy sprinted alone in the wind on the left side, and passed all other sprinters who were fighting on the right lane, one after another, to win. Pithie (🇦🇺 Bora) managed to pass through an extremely tiny hole near the right fence where everybody but Brennan🇬🇧 packed, to grab a second place.
Still 0 UCI point scored by Cofidis 😞
GDFJ and Total did no better.
GDFJ and Cofidis will/may score one small top-10/15 in GC in the end (with Berthet🇫🇷 and Meehan🇮🇪, respectively), but not Total…