For veteran Haimar Zubeldia (Trek-Segafredo) -riding his twelfth Vuelta a Espana- stages 12 and 13 through the Basque County represent a kind of homecoming. On Friday the race route passes less than a kilometre away from his front door.
As one of the most experienced Vuelta riders this year - his first was in 2000, when he finished tenth- the 39-year-old Trek-Segafredo tells Cyclingnews: "This year is not one of the hardest I've done, but the hardest sections have come very early this year. That's meant we're already at the half way point and we've had a big sort out of the general classification."
"There are maybe 20 people interested in GC now at most, and the rest of us are all hunting for stage wins. That's making the breakaways much harder to get into, and why so many are managed to stay away."
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Zubeldia is amongst those chasing one day of glory.
"I'm feeling fine, waiting for the day that I really feel on form," Zubeldia points out. He will be particularly keen tomorrow [stage 13] from Bilbao to Urdax, "because the stage goes so close to my home, less than a kilometre from my front door and along the road that I drive or ride down every day. It'll be very special, seeing the family.
"Then on Sunday's stage" - from Sabiñanigo to the first category finish of Aramon, 116 kilometres - "it's an area I know very well, because that's where I go training every summer in the Pyrenees."
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