La Vuelta Ciclista a España 2025 Stage 11

September 3, 2025 The last few stages have been a bit predictable with a single summit finish after long stretches of highway riding but a day in the Basque Country will certainly break the pattern. Leaving Bilbao, the race heads North to the small port town of Bermeo on the Bay of Biscay. There are two categorized climbs on the way with the second, the Alto de Sollube, being the hardest at 7KM in length and 4% average but the first 3KM are above 8%. A turn South takes the riders over the Balcón de Bizkaia and the Alto de Morga before things get more serious with a circuit around Bilbao taken on twice. The first passage contains just the Alto de Vivero, a 4.3KM climb at 8% but the second lap adds the Alto de Pike, a 2KM climb over 9%. The Alto de Pike, which featured in the opening stage of the 2023 Tour de France, tops out 8KM from the finish and is the perfect attack point if the race hasn't exploded already. In all, there is over 3,000M of climbing across 157KM of Basque roads that twist and turn all day. The riders rolled out for the neutral start beside the Museo Guggenheim and it wasn't long after the flag waived that we saw the first attacks. Visma-Lease a Bike showed their intent to control the day by adding a few men at the front to patrol and keep the break to just a few riders. Mads Pedersen of Lidl-Trek and Joel Nicolau of Caja Rural-Seguros RGA got away and were riding together off the front for quite a while as they waited for more riders to join. Gal Glivar of Alpecin-Deceuninck and Jordan Labrosse of Decathlon AG2R tried to bridge up but the peloton was coming from behind and caught them and the Pedersen group on the steep early slopes of the Alto de Sollube. Pedersen attacked again when the gradients eased near the top and brought along Marc Soler of UAE-XRG and Orluis Aular of Movistar. Their gap reached 50 seconds by the time they arrived the coast passed Bermeo through the town of Mundaka. The leaders still only had 1 minute by the bottom of the Balcón de Bizkaia with 99KM to go. Nearly all of the work load was being taken on by Dylan van Baarle but he was getting help from his Visma-Lease a Bike teammates who were all massed at the front. The break continued riding to the bottom of the Alto de Morga but their gap was down to 30 seconds. Soler accelerated in the first kilometer of the climb and went solo while Pedersen and Aular were reabsorbed into the peloton. By the top with 71.5KM to go, Soler had built a 1 minute 10 second lead. In the bunch, Louis Vervaeke of Soudal Quickstep went for the remaining Mountains points with Nicolau and Santiago Buitrago of Bahrain Victorious following. Visma-Lease a Bike didn't want a new group forming so they sent Victor Campenaerts to mark the move. Vervaeke got away from the others and bridged up to Soler but the peloton were just 5 seconds behind. The race was all together a few moments later at the bottom of the first ascent of the Alto de Vivero. The first attack from the peloton had to come from Mikel Landa of Soudal Quickstep, one of the most popular Basque riders of the modern era. Landa went over the top 5 seconds ahead of Buitrago and 25 seconds ahead of another group containing Campenaerts, Kamiel Bonneu of Intermarché-Wanty, Guillermo Juan Martinez of Picnic-PostNL, Eddie Dunbar of Jayco AlUla, and Louis Rouland of Arkéa-B&B Hotels. Pedersen was dogged in his pursuit of Sprint points and was able to join the Dunbar group with 47KM to go at the base of the descent. Buitrago made contact with Landa and the pair worked together through the finish line at 38.5KM to go with a gap of 30 seconds to the Dunbar/Pedersen group. Visma-Lease a Bike were unrelenting in their pace however and caught the chase group 5KM later, leaving just Landa and Buitrago up the road but not before Pedersen got his prize of the remaining sprint points on offer. A few kilometers later, Landa looked to be in pain, likely from lingering effects of his hard crash on the opening stage of the Giro, and was forced to let Buitrago go and slip back to the peloton. Buitrago started the Alto de Vivero with a 35 second advantage but he was caught about 1KM from the top. There were a few accelerations on the climb but the main favorites were all together by the top in a group of over 15 riders. With 12KM to go, the organizers announced that the stage would finish at 3KM to go due to the Pro-Palestinian protests at the finish line. There would not be a stage winner but GC times would count based on rider position at 3KM. The group doubled in size by the bottom of the Alto de Pike with 10KM to go. UAE-XRG and Visma-Lease a Bike took turns leading up the climb but it wasn't until Tom Pidcock of Q36.5 attacked that the group split up. Less than 1KM from the top, only race leader Jonas Vingegaard of Visma-Lease a Bike was able to follow. On the steepest gradients of over 16% at the top, even Vingegaard had to let the Brit's wheel go. As the road flattened through the KOM point, Vingegaard clawed his way on to Pidcock's wheel and the pair worked to create as much distance as possible between them and the four chasers of Jai Hindley of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe, Felix Gall of Decathlon AG2R, João Almeida of UAE-XRG, and Matteo Jorgenson of Visma-Lease a Bike. Pidcock and Vingegaard descended down to 3KM to go where the race commissaire flagged them down at the point where GC times were taken. There was a 10 second gap back to the Hindley group with others finishing in groups at 24 seconds and 46 seconds. Vingegaard extended his lead in the GC out to 50 seconds over Almeida with Pidcock jumping to third at 56 seconds. Torstein Træen dropped to fourth and Giulio Ciccone slipped down two places to eighth while the other GC riders kept held places but now sit a bit further away from Vingegaard on time.