For the riders heading into Madrid on Sunday, they will need to survive two more challenging mountain stages. While the peloton will leave the Basque Country on Friday, they will remain in northern Spain, in the province of Castile and León.

The nineteenth stage features the first uphill finish of the third week. After starting in Logroño, the stage includes an eight-kilometer final climb to the Alto de Moncalvillo (11.3 km at 7.6%).

Both the start and finish locations are familiar to the Vuelta organization. Logroño has hosted a Vuelta stage 36 times, and the Alto de Moncalvillo was a finish in 2020. On that occasion, Primoz Roglic won the stage, which had started a few hours earlier in... Logroño.

The eighth stage of 2020 shares many similarities with the 2024 stage. The approach to the Alto de Moncalvillo is not very challenging, featuring only one categorized climb: the Puerto de Praillida, which reaches an elevation of 1,200 meters. Though it is a relatively short climb at 5.3 kilometers with an average gradient of 4.9%, it has a long, false flat approach.

After the Puerto de Praillida, it’s mostly downhill to the base of the Alto de Moncalvillo. This climb is tough, with an average gradient of 7.6%. Near the top, the gradients do not drop below ten percent, ensuring that the battle for the overall classification will intensify here.