This years Vuelta traveled thru all the provinces of Andalucia and during part of the journey it passed thru San Pedro de Alcantara where we live.
Unfortunately an evening commitment meant I couldn't get to the summit finish, sad as one of my Marbella cycling buddies had booked at table in the refuge at the top by the finish line.
It started off to the East of Marbella and head towards Cartama, Coin, Mondo, Ojen and into Marbella, for those that have ever done the Marbella 70.3 Ironman the ride from Cartama is the return leg of the cycling part of that.
The race then went thru Marbella and then onto the A7 autopista and thru the San Pedro tunnel, so how do you take a cycle race down a motorway, well clearly you close it (one way anyway). It started off by the Guardia Civil closing the entrances between Marbella and Estepona (where the race left the A7) and eventually closing the junction where the A7 comes down from the AP-7 to the coast. Once the race had past there was essentially a rolling roadblock behind it and as it past junctions the Guardia Civil opened up the junctions, that also ensured those of us that were standing on the carretera watching the race had time to get off.
The race then head down to Penas Blancas in Estepona, the climb is category 1, going up 1239m in 19.7km at an average of 6.7%. Although the first 14.6km according to Strava are HC, doesn't seem to be a segment yet for the whole of it since the new part was added.
They recently resurfaced the last part of the road adding 5km, previously those last few kms were more of rough road / gravel track.
As with the TdF not just this part got resurfaced but so did other elements of the route including other parts of the climb.
The climb itself is brutal and for the first 8km aside from a little downhill bit is as brutal as any climb you'll do with sections of 15%.
The previous weekend we we drove to down to Estepona, cycling down the A7 from Marbella whilst legal is suicidal, we have done it but in a group of about 20 or so.
Then with fresh legs we tackled the climb, none of us had done the whole of the new climb so after about 14.6km it was new territory for all of us. To put it in perspective the pros did the first 14.6km in around 35 minutes, half the time of all of our PBs, and it was hot for them as it was for us when we did it. Plus they had done 175km before they got to it! Even if you are used to the heat it still has a negative affect on your riding, so just because we are crazy we went off and did a further 60km+ and another 1000m of climbing that day.
None of us are particularly bad riders we ride in the order of 10000km and climb something like 100000m which is non trivial (one of the benefits of where we live is winter training is readily available as it only rains 30 days a year, typically during November and March).
The finish line on the new road was somewhat quieter when we did it.
So this year I got to watch not only a stage of TdF (and ride a summit finish for that) but for a stage of the Vuelta as well now I just need to do the Giro.
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