Running from Saturday August 18th to Sunday September 9th 2012, the 67th Vuelta a España will be made up of 21 stages and will cover a total distance of 3,360 kilometres. These stages have the following profiless:

11 flat stages
8 mountain stages
1 team time-trial stage
1 individual time-trial stage



Again, what I propose is that as a team of 9 riders we try and ride between us a distance each day equal to or greater than the distance of that day’s stage in the La Vuelta Espana. The person in the team who rides the largest total km’s gets the Red Jersey, the person achieving the fastest average speed overall gets the Green Points Jersey and the person who posts the highest total ascent figure in metres gets the Climbers King of the Mountains jersey ( a horrible white shirt with random blue shapes on it iirc last year!) . Hopefully the Jerseys in the Vuelta will match what I've just typed - they have an annoying habit of changing the colours from year to year - to my knowledge the leaders shirt has been Orange, White, White with a red Stripe, Yellow, Gold and Red, but I may have missed a couple... :laugh:

The stages for this race, and distances involved are as follows…

1 Teams time-trial Saturday 18 August Pamplona > Pamplona 16,5 km
2 Plain Sunday 19 August Pamplona > Viana 181,4 km
3 Mountains Monday 20 August Faustino V > Eibar (Arrate) 155,3 km
4 Mountains Tuesday 21 August Barakaldo > Estación de Valdezcaray 160,6 km
5 Plain Wednesday 22 August Logroño > Logroño 168,0 km
6 Plain Thursday 23 August Tarazona > Jaca 175,4 km
7 Plain Friday 24 August Huesca > Alcañiz. Motorland Aragón 164,2 km
8 Mountains Saturday 25 August Lleida > Andorra. Collada de la Gallina 174,7 km
9 Plain Sunday 26 August Andorra > Barcelona 196,3 km
Rest Day Monday 27 August
10 Plain Tuesday 28 August Ponteareas > Sanxenxo 190,0 km
11 Time-trial Wednesday 29 August Cambados > Pontevedra 39,4 km
12 Plain Thursday 30 August Vilagarcía de Arousa > Mirador de Ézaro 190,5 km
13 Plain Friday 31 August Santiago de Compostela > Ferrol 172,8 km
14 Mountains Saturday 1 September Palas de Rei > Puerto de Ancares 149,2 km
15 Mountains Sunday 2 September La Robla > Lagos de Covadonga 186,5 km
16 Mountains Monday 3 September Gijón > Valgrande-Pajares. Cuitu Negru 183,5 km
Rest Day Tuesday 4 September
17 Plain Wednesday 5 September Santander > Fuente Dé 187,3 km
18 Plain Thursday 6 September Aguilar de Campoo > Valladolid 204,5 km
19 Plain Friday 7 September Peñafiel > La Lastrilla 178,4 km
20 Mountains Saturday 8 September La Faisanera Golf. > Bola del Mundo 170,7 km
21 Plain Sunday 9 September Cercedilla > Madrid 115,0 km

Total distance 3360.2km (call it 2087 miles - or just under 100 miles a day on average...)

On a similar basis to the last challenge, to verify the distances/speeds/ascents rides would ideally need to be logged via some form of GPS and posted to appropriate websites, e.g. Strava / Garmin Connect / Endomondo. As I’d be looking at average speeds and climbs, I think that it’s only appropriate to restrict this challenge to outdoor mileage only. Only riders that have fully logged rides can be considered for the "jersey" competitions - though, allowances may be given for "equipment fails" - we've all had batteries give up half way around the ride, after all!.

So – anyone up for a challenge ??