It's the Vuelta! It's the Vuelta! It's the Vuelta! Yer 2021 Vuelta a Espana in Preview: the Course!

 Yap, Tour, yap, Sagan, yap, Olympics, yap: we all know what's *really* important--it's almost time for the fabulous 2021 Vuelta a Espana! First order of business: *40 kilometers* of individual time trials?  What the !@#$ is *wrong* with you people?  If I wanted to see the !@#$in' Tour de France again, I'd garb myself in a neon Borat mankini and a stupid !@#$in' Viking hat, pound back a !@#$load of cheap Champagne, and run screaming by the side of the road at Filippo Ganna fer chrissakes!  Okay, deep breath, because other'n that, it's actually a very fine course.  So what've we got, besides (but also including) serious pain?  This!

Week One(ish): we start off in Burgos by only minimally (we hope) screwing over Mikel Landa with a 7.1 k, hill-in-the-first-third course.  Just stay upright just stay upright just stay upright!  Having handed out the first leader's jersey, stage 2 is a 166k really darn flat stage to appease the sprinters before they run crying home to mama.  But not for long--the Vuelta brings on the hurt early with the race's first mountaintop finish on Stage 3, quite mild beforehand til you hit the Cat 1 finale up the nippy 17% gradients of Picon Blanco.  Free Landa!  Stage 4: flat again.  Ok, that's enough, we done coddling the sprinters already?  Sadly, no--but the pan-flat Stage 5 *does* bring the prospect of catastrophic, GC-hosing crosswinds.  Don't !@#$ this up, Bahrain-Victorious!  Stage 6:  oh thank heavens! We hit the hills, if not the high mountains, on a weird 158k breakaway (?) fest with an unruly start, an utterly flat middle, then a 1.5k climb to the end to confound the climbers, nut-kick the sprinters, and favor the puncheurs with a solid final kick.  With that having messed with everyone's heads, a 152k Stage 7 sandwiches a quartet of Cat 2 and Cat 3 climbs between a Cat 1 opener to immediately !@#$ up yer cold legs and, because this is the Vuelta, a Cat 1 finish up Balcon de Alicante with nonetheless a mostly single-digit gradient except that little section at 14% halfway up.  Wait, *when's* the last time I can grab a bidon?  Stage 8: we haven't forgotten you, sprinters, though I hope we do soon--here's a chill 173k to enjoy with a perfectly flat finale. But don't get complacent: for Stage 9, you got 4,500 meters o' suffering crammed mostly into the second half,  including the 29 kilometer, Cat 1 Alto Collado Venta Luisa, and ending with another mountaintop finale--we love you so, dear Vuelta!--on the HC Alto de Velifique with pitches up to 13+ percent.  Kuss, you're here for Roglic, right? Anyway, time for a nap!

Week Two(ish): Stage 10--another tactically problematic stage, dead flat til 160k, then a 10k-long Cat 2 with a 15k plunge to Rincon de la Victoria.  Breakaway or GC, if you can't descend, get the hell outta the way so you don't kill anybody!  On Stage 11: for anyone not covered in bandages we have a theoretically mild day with a Cat 2 climb near the end--at least til you hit the final kilometer, when you ease into your evening with a gradient of 20%. Whose lovely, twisted, sick idea was that? Stage 12 to Cordoba doesn't give you much of a rest by non-Vuelta standards, unfortunately, with a Cat 2 and Cat 3 preceding a presumptively sprint finale.  This is what you freaks call 'flat'? Stage 13: Ha ha, just kidding--if you've got any legs left, and haven't already left the country in a sobbing jelly-legged mess, here's an *actual* flat stage--but you'll have to schlep 200k to get the victory, sucker! Stage 14: back to the mountain goats, with a mellow start, a Cat 3 midway to wake the GC teams outta their stupor, then down to business with the short sharp 2.8k Cat 1 Alto Collado Ballesteros and its midpoint *and* ending of 20%, and, because you haven't built up enough lactic acid, a 15k but much gentler grind up to Pico Villuercas.  But no rest for the weary: Stage 15 gives you 197k with a rather stomach-churning Cat 1, Cat 2, Cat 1, *then* Cat 3 rollercoaster, *then* a descent and a sprint for the line, with a slight chance of total carnage on GC.  All right, *now* you can rest--if there were ever a time for that marginal gains fluffy-pillow bull!@#$, today is *it*!  

Week 3ish: But if you're still in pain, never fear: Stage 16 is for the two remaining sprinters, with a midway Cat-3 teaser then just a few little lumps til the flat final k to Santa Cruz de Bezana.  Cav, you *sure* you didn't want to be here for this?  I thought not!  Stage 17: a *circuit* with *mountains* in it? What new fresh hell is *this*?  Well quit cryin', cause after you hit the 14% max gradients Cat 1 Collada de Llomena twice, you *still* get the thrill of the iconic climb of the vicious and potentially podium-making Lagos de Covadonga.  Bahrain, *now* is the time to start setting the pace and spitting out the weaklings for the jackals to handle!  Which brings us to the 150k of downright agony--and the last chance before the stupid time trial to cement your place on GC, so Mikel, you better drop Rogla and heck even Carapaz--on Stage 18, including a coupla snoozy little Cat 1s, a smooth 35k or so to lull you into complaceny, a Cat 2 to snap you outta it, and then, a thrilling new Holy Crap climb to Altu d'el Gamonitieuru, 14.6 k of steady 10% then a 17% absolute crawl to the finish.  For those of you on the juice, *this* is where you pretend to collapse on the tarmac in pain.  Bonus points for hurling on the cameras!  Stage 19: last chance for the breakaway, as we go from a bumpy start in Tapia to a heavenly flattish final 10k to Monforte de Lemos.  Didjer domestiques get a chance to shake the ol' calves out?  Good, because the race organizers thought it'd be a great idea to insert a Classics stage for #20, with nary a rest after the first half and not a single cobble to blame your crap performance on.  Belgians, are there any of you left? Finally, no ceremonial Champagne-swilling photo-op bull!@#$ to meander to the end in *this* Grand Tour--yep, we absolutely blast apart the hard-won climber's GC with a Rogla-friendly 33k final time trial, with nice big hills and dips to screw their rhythm and enough technical terrain to--oh, I can't even think it, *please* say you've been training on that idiot aero machine Mikel!  Anyhoo--race organizers, despite the overall bitchin'ness of this course, I hope *not* to see this last-day ridiculousness again next year!

Oh, and did I mention there's no more "Vuelta in November" bull!@#$, and you're gonna be boiling like lobsters (but without even the benefit of water) this year? Astana, get those cooling vests ready--and everyone else, just try not to dehydrate into a pile of ashes!  Next up: the Contenders!