Vienvenitos to the Lantern Roos Cycling Podcast for the preview slash recap of the Vuelta

2026 route presentation. We have this race going through three countries in the first, no,

four countries in the first five stages, which has to be a record, one would think, for a grand tour, although it hasn't actually been billed as that.

So it was released yesterday.

It was supposed to be, according to the organisers, the hardest route of the year, the hardest route.

It does have the most elevation gain 58,000 meters of climbing, does have a lot of mountaintop finishes, does have the most T-T-I-T-Ks, and it will definitely,

it will definitely have the highest average temperature of any of these three-ground tours,

because what did you text me about lava? You said it about lava this morning, Benji, when you text me.

Well, basically I said that the north of Spain, including bass country and most of

Catalonia and Asturias and so forth, is lava. And the writers themselves will be riding in

lava, was my take. Because if you look at the map of this race, La Valle, Spaina, then you see

them start on the right top of that map

in Monaco, but then they venture over to true France, to Spain, to Andorra.

So like you say, many countries along the way.

And then they jump straight to the south.

And they spend the entire time in the South.

But let's have this conversation now, Patrick,

because there have been discussions numerous times about,

oh, should the Giro and Veltas switch places because the Giro has its high mountain stages

when it's snowy in Italy, and then the Vuelta has its, it's staged in the south of Spain,

when it's super hot in Spain. We've had years where it's been 35 40 degrees in the

south of Spain in some stages in i don't know what the uh what the uh cities were where they were

...