Key stages you can't miss in La Vuelta 2025

We are already counting down to the start of La Vuelta a España 2025 which will kick off from Italian lands next Saturday, August 23. Three weeks that are expected to be exciting and in which, as always, there will be certain stages called, a priori, to be the judges of the race in terms of the general classification.

The stages of La Vuelta 2025 that you should mark on your calendar

Despite the many mountain finishes in this 2025 edition of La Vuelta a España, there will be 5 stages that, surely, the contenders for the red jersey in Madrid will have marked on their agenda as key days where they will have to give their all.

Obviously, this is always a reading based on experience and what the route may present, as La Vuelta usually aims for the race to remain as open as possible until the third week in order to maintain excitement until the last moment.

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That is why, until the end of the second week, we will not find the most relevant mountain stages, which come on stages 13 and 14 with the Asturian duo that the race loves so much. The first of them, with more than 200 kilometers, will challenge the cyclists to the fearsome Angliru, a deceptive stage because the first 145 km are completely flat and only the climbs of Mozqueta and Cordal precede the Asturian colossus, something that, on the other hand, is almost irrelevant since the tremendous hardness of the Angliru totally conditions the stage, making none of the favorites move until the inhuman final kilometers of this ascent.

What we do not know is what the next stage will bring, with a finish at the also very tough Farrapona and preceded, as usual when La Vuelta arrives in these parts, by the terrible San Lorenzo. However, there is nothing more in a stage of a ridiculous 133 kilometers.

After Asturias, the race will travel through Galicia with two interesting stages, however, the next stage that we cannot miss will be stage 17 with a finish at Morredero, a colossus of 20 kilometers with long sections above 10% gradient although not reaching inhuman levels that prevent attacks. The only downside is that it is an almost single-port stage although, the preceding terrain, despite not having categorized climbs, has hardly any flat meters.

With tired legs after this stage, just the next day the cyclists will exchange the mountains of León for the plains of Castilla with the only individual time trial of this edition taking place in Valladolid. A time trial that, being held in the last week, usually produces greater differences due to the accumulated fatigue throughout La Vuelta since, let's not forget, it is stage 18.

Finally, as is almost a tradition in La Vuelta, the Sierra de Guadarrama will once again provide the final showdown between the favorites for the overall victory. A stage, again, with a very interesting route and that has more than once caused a turnaround in the general classification. However, as it happened in the Angliru stage, the tremendous hardness of the final ascent to Bola del Mundo usually results in the race being blocked until reaching its inhuman concrete ramps.