Mate and I are planning to go to Spain for the Vuelta, including watching the Covadonga stage. Anyone watched a previous stage there? Any advice? Can you cycle up on the day and if so when do they close the roads?

only a partial answer. I’ve been but not to watch a race. the road is wide and gentle on the valley floor until the covadonga monastery then it ramps up really steeply but its narrow like a dales or lakes climb, not a lot of space either side, not like the alps. the monastery is the last civilisation until the top. The best bit of the climb is the first 2/3s, after that it descends again into a bowl past the lakes. from the TV there never seems to be any crowds there. Then it climbs a little with an uphill sprint round a bend to a tiny wooden cafe at the top but thats it. its no alpine ski resort. cangas de onis is a pretty sizeable town for supplies.

Thanks eddie11, we’ve booked a hotel in Cangas de Onis for the two nights around the stage so we’ll be pretty close.

I might hunt out some video of the last time they went there – that should give an idea of how far up the fans go.

Ive cycled up there, brutal. I don’t recall it being as narrow as Eddie says, cars could certainly pass each other. There’s an off-road descent from 2/3 up that the locals wouldn’t let us do on our gravel bikes (they literally barred our way, but that might have been some Spanish male ego at play as they were fully armoured yet on Xc bikes) but it’s meant to be brilliant.

I just watched the 2014 stage – climb seems to top out with about 2km to go. Looks like plenty of people rode up there on the day judging by the bikes and lycra. Certainly nowhere as busy as a major TdF climb (or even a TdYorkshre one).

We’ll be on road bikes so we’ll probably give the off-road a miss!