La Vuelta Ciclista a España 2025 Stage 6

August 28, 2025 For many riders in the peloton today will be a homecoming. On the menu is 170KM and 3,700M of climbing from Olot, known for its Zona Volcànica de la Garrotxa Natural Park which contains around 40 extinct volcanoes, to Pal, Andorra. The day kicks off with the 11KM, 4% climb of Collada de Santigosa which leads into the incredibly long Collada de Toses, a 24KM climb at 3.5% average. The next 58KM are all descending or false flat downhill to La Seu d'Urgell where the riders turn North up a false flat valley road and into Andorra. Once in Andorra la Vella, the climb of the Alto de La Comella begins, a 4.2KM climb at 8%. At the top, only 20KM remain on the stage but 9.6 of them are the classified climb up to Pal for the finish. With an average of 6.5%, it should split the favorites out but many of the riders know the climb and say there is usually a head wind which would dampen any potential attacks. A storm blew in overnight and the rain continued into the day. A group of 10 riders got away including Torstein Træen of Bahrain Victorious, Bruno Armirail of Decathlon AG2R, Louis Vervaeke and Gianmarco Garofoli of Soudal Quickstep, Lorenzo Fortunato of XDS-Astana, James Shaw and Archie Ryan of EF-Education EasyPost, Pablo Castrillo of Movistar, Jay Vine of UAE-XRG, and Ramses Debruyne of Alpecin-Deceuninck. Rain was pouring down and with 88KM to go, they had 4 minutes on the Visma-Lease a Bike led peloton as they were descending the Collada de Toses towards Alp at the base of La Molina ski resort. The group continued down the valley towards La Seu d'Urgell and with 60KM to go, the rain stopped, the road was dry, and the gap was out to 5 minutes. The break entered Androrra with 35KM to go and a gap of 6 minutes 30 seconds which was looking like it should be enough to contest the stage win. Træen was best placed at 58 seconds with six others at 4 minutes or less at the start of the day on GC so the Red Jersey also looked likely to change hands. The gap was cut by 1 minute 10KM later at the start of the Alto de La Comella. The rain returned and was hammering the riders in the peloton as they fought to bring their leaders to the base of the Alto de La Comella as far in the front as possible. Raúl García Pierna of Arkéa-B&B Hotels attacked from the bunch near the bottom but he only had a few seconds on the bunch by the top and was eventually reeled in. At the front of the race, Vine went over the top first and found himself with a gap back to the rest of the break. He started climbing with 15.5KM to go and had built the lead back to 4 minutes on the bunch with the chasers at 20 seconds. Vine climbed up through La Massana and started the classified climb to Pal with 55 seconds on the chasing group and 5 minutes to the bunch. Castrillo tried on several occasions to break out of the group but was consistently marked by Fortunato and Træen. Træen went off solo in pursuit of Vine with 5.5KM to go but he still had over 50 seconds to close on the Australian for the stage win. Vine was on a great day and held his gap back to Træen all the way to the finish to take the stage win, the third Vuelta stage of his career. Træen came across in second, 54 seconds after Vine but it was more than enough time to take the Red Jersey as race leader. Fortunato was next to come home, 1 minute 10 seconds down in third. In the peloton, Lidl-Trek took on the pace setting from the bottom and only about 2KM later, Juan Aysuo of UAE-XRG was dropped while there were at least 50 riders still in the bunch. With 3KM to climb, Giulio Ciccone of Lidl-Trek attacked and race leader, Jonas Vingegaard of Visma-Lease a Bike, jumped on his wheel. João Almeida was the only UAE-XRG rider still in the group and was forced to ride down Vingegaard and Ciccone who were working well together. Almeida managed to claw them back and then put in a dig of his own but the favorites group of 12 stuck together. Matteo Jorgenson of Visma-Lease a Bike went to the front to control and led the group until 250M to go when Almeida made one last attack. It wasn't enough to force any gaps and the favorites came through together, 4 minutes 19 seconds down on Vine. Træen now takes over the race lead by 31 seconds on Armirail and has 1 minute 1 second on Fortunato in third. Vingegaard is the best of the pre-race GC favorites, now sitting in fifth at 2 minutes 33 seconds. Ben O'Connor, Mikel Landa, and David Gaudu continue to leak time. They came in together 28 seconds behind the rest of the GC favorites.