Vuelta stage 4

I was thinking to myself before this tour which out of the Giro/Vuelta has the really good road book? Turns out its the Giro, the Vuelta roadbook contains almost no useful information beyond the basics.

Here is today's profile.

The cat 2 that peaks with 26km to go is about 8km at 5% with some higher gradients but no km averages more than 6%, I think there will be some attacks over this but I suspect FDJ and particularly Giant will be very keen to race for a sprint as it's too far from the finish for a GC man to attack on the climb so I don't see why a GC team would want to waste too much energy to ramp up the pace. Therefore Orica, FDJ and Giant to share duties controlling the breakaway.

So presuming we get a sprint the finish is a very slight 1% drag with a few sharp corners in the last 5km.

It is very very hard to see past Bouhanni again today. 1.5pts 2/1 Various

Debus for the podium! 0.5pts ew 40/1 Various