Oscar Rodriguez wins from the breakaway as Jesus Herrada retains leaders Jersey

Another breakaway succeeded on the ultra tough parcours of Stage 13, Oscar Rodriguez  won the stage as Herrada retained race lead

It was a tough day for all riders, with steep hills and two categorised climbs to deal with, on what was a mostly uphill course from the off. The summit finish saw a handful of riders attempt to pull away, but it was the Oscar Rodriguez (Euskadi – Murias) who crossed the line first to take home an extraordinary stage win.

Three climbs dotted the stage, with the final ascent – a long, difficult grind to the finish – seeing riders having to tackle gradients of almost 20%.

The first of three big mountain stages, this was a day of reckoning for the GC riders. The 174.8km started climbing almost from the start, and it didn’t stop until the finale on Alto de la Camperona. While there were no climbs more difficult than first category, this would still be a long hard day of ascending, with the road continuing to go upwards even where the climbs weren’t categorised. The first crested 21km from the start, while the second, the first category Alto de Tarna, was where the proper climbing started, with an average gradient of 5.8% over its 13km length. To close off the day, riders would have to contend with the first category Alto de la Camperona – where the gradient would hit an eye-watering 19.5%. It would be essential that anyone who wanted to be in a position to take the win or take some GC time was able to gauge their efforts so that they had enough in the tank to stay in touch over the day, as well as have the energy to push hard on the final climb.

There were attacks from the start, as riders with their eye on the stage win organised themselves into the day’s break. At the first climb, a small group grew massively to thirty-two riders, with it becoming clear that there was going to be a huge fight going on today.  The gap moved out to a little more than seven minutes, and the peloton well aware that the red jersey of race leader was lost to one of the break on yesterday’s stage, and so pushed that little bit harder to try and keep the escapees in touch, but with such a large group, this was proving hard, and their lead went on to hit almost ten minutes.

As the day went on, the climbing began to pick off the weaker riders, at the top of the second climb, the lead was at 6:30, with Rafal even taking a point in the King of the Mountains contest. With just the Alto de la Camperona to go, the mood was subdued in both the break and in the chasing peloton, and depending on their ambitions in the race, this was either going to be where they’d have some fun, or where they’d really be in some pain. Hitting the lower slopes,  twenty-nine riders still left, further back, the peloton was doing a good job of staying in touch and reducing any GC losses, bringing the lead back to a more manageable 3:30.

When the road hit its steepest point, rather than drop back, Rafal Majka attacked, taking one other with him, the road so steep that as the minutes passed, the distance to the finish barely dropped. Passed by another rider a kilometre from the line, Rafal dug deep to try and make the catch, but it just wasn’t possible, taking second after a brutal finale.

Further back, the GC group had splintered, and many suffered on the final climb.

It will be another day amidst the mountains tomorrow with riders facing a 171km route from Cistierna to Les Praeres de Nava. With a short but steep hill coming at 3km, the breakaway could choose to make their move early, ahead of the category two climb that features at 50km. Once the peloton reach the summit, it’s a long downhill stretch for over 20km before tackling two category one and a category three climb. The final 4km will be played out on a steep, 12.5% incline and the winner will have to have conserved some energy to tackle the summit which has never appeared at the Vuelta.

VIDEO: 2018 La Vuelta Stage 13 by CGN

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2018 La Vuelta Stage 13 Top 10

Oscar Rodriguez Garaicoechea (Spa) Euskadi Basque Country-Murias 4:17:05
2 Rafal Majka (Pol) Bora-Hansgrohe 0:00:19
3 Dylan Teuns (Bel) BMC Racing Team 0:00:30
4 Bjorg Lambrecht (Bel) Lotto Soudal 0:00:38
5 Laurens De Plus (Bel) Quick-Step Floors 0:00:43
6 Merhawi Kudus (Eri) Dimension Data 0:01:00
7 Ilnur Zakarin (Rus) Katusha-Alpecin 0:01:12
8 Pieter Serry (Bel) Quick-Step Floors 0:01:21
9 Edward Ravasi (Ita) UAE Team Emirates 0:01:25

2018 La Vuelta GC Top 10 after Stage 13

1 Jesus Herrada (Spa) Cofidis, Solutions Credits 54:50:19
2 Simon Yates (GBr) Mitchelton-Scott 0:01:42
3 Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar Team 0:01:50
4 Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Movistar Team 0:01:54
5 Miguel Angel Lopez (Col) Astana Pro Team 0:02:23
6 Rigoberto Uran (Col) EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale 0:02:33
7 Ion Izagirre (Spa) Bahrain-Merida 0:02:35
8 Tony Gallopin (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 0:02:40
9 Steven Kruijswijk (Ned) LottoNL-Jumbo 0:02:44
10 Emanuel Buchmann (Ger) Bora-Hansgrohe 0:02:47