Vuelta a Espana 2014: Stage 13 live blog, preview

Stage 13 of the 2014 Vuelta a Espana stretches 188.7 km from Belorado to Obregón. Join The Roar for live coverage of Stage 13 from 12:00am (AEST).

Looking back at stage 12, and with one of the final chances for the sprinters passing, a couple of the big guns weren’t there for the final sprint.

These men included Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ) and Michael Matthews (Orica). The win ended up going to John Degenkolb (Giant) who beat Tom Boonen (OPQS), Jacopo Guarnieri (Astana) and Peter Sagan (Cannondale).

On a fast finishing circuit certain sprinters will be extremely disappointed they weren’t there to contest the stage.

Now moving back onto Stage 13 and the stage kicks off with a very rolling first 95km. Over this time one would expect a moderately sized breakaway to escape, probably somewhere around the mark of 5-9 riders and build a gap, however with the potential for the breakaway to succeed, it will be a very fast start and could take quite a while to actually have the breakaway established.

The riders will hit the first intermediate sprint after 93km and that’s where the easy part of the stage will end.

6km after the intermediate sprint or 99km into the stage comes the first categorised climb for the day which will be the Category 3 climb of Alto Estacas de Trueba which is 11km long at a very steady average gradient of 3%, however it ramps up to 5-6% in the last couple of km of the climb.

Because the first 90km are a little bit more to the uphill side of things, the descent off the first line is long and technical and the peloton will probably look to take things a little bit easy to make sure no one crashes.

As soon as the riders come off the descent after 126km, the riders go straight back uphill into another Category 3 climb, the Puerto de la Braguía, which is an average gradient of 6% for 6km. After this another tricky descent follows so don’t expect fireworks to be flying from the peloton.

Then the riders will hit the final categorised climbs, the Alto del Caracol which bumps up to a Category 2 with the gradient fluctuating between 6% and 8% for the 9km duration of the climb.

Following the top of the last categorised climb for the day, there is about a 20km descent which is a little bit up and down, then a flat section which includes the second intermediate sprint with just 9km to go.

The finish will be most certainly a very interesting one. The breakaway should still be away which will make it marginally safer for the riders on the very narrow roads of the Cabárceno Natural Park.

Within the national park there will be about a 1km ramp with gradients getting up over 10%. Inside the last km the race slopes back downhill on narrow roads which could be very dangerous for the peloton.

The final corner, with 100 metres to go, will decide who wins the race, as it slopes down to the right at a very quick pace.

My tips for the breakaway, as hard as a breakaway is to pick would be Damiano Cunego (Lampre), one of the boys from BMC being Cadel Evans, Rohan Dennis or Samuel Snachez, Luis Leon Sanchez (Caja Rural), Romain Sicard from Europcar or Adam Yates (Orica).

If the peloton are to keep up the likes of Michael Matthews (Orica), Peter Sagan (Cannondale) and John Degenkolb (Giant) will battle to keep up with the pack, but one would think they would struggle, particularly if the GC riders go for bonus seconds.

With no Quintana, the battle will be one between Alberto Contador (Saxo), Chris Froome (Sky) and Alejandro Valverde (Movistar), whilst Dan Martin (Garmin) and Fabian Cancellara (Trek) are the dark horses for the stage win. Dan Martin was very good on Stage 7 and will be out to make a play on Stage 13, no doubt about it.

Either way it should be a fascinating stage. Join me on The Roar from 12:00am as we follow all the action live.