The Vuelta a Andalucia Ruta Ciclista Del Sol 2018 route will include a summit finish at the Alto de Allanadas, the scene of Chris Froome's dramatic stage victory in 2015. The course will conclude with a final time trial in Barbate.
It constituted a spectacular early season duel between Froome and arch-rival Alberto Contador [who raced for Tinkoff-Saxo at the time] back in 2015. Froome's stage 4 solo win on the Alto de Allanadas enabled him to bounce back from a stinging defeat by Contador 24 hours earlier on stage 3, which took place in a snowstorm in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Taking the lead at the Alto de Allanadas from Contador, albeit by just one second, also set Froome up to become Britain's first-ever overall winner of the 82-year-old race.
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One of Spain's best known early season events, the five-day Vuelta a Andalucia will start in very similar fashion to 2017, climbing inland from the Mediterranean coast for a rugged finale through the hills surrounding Granada.
Stage 2, the most mountainous of the race, concludes on the Alto de Allanadas, averaging 12 per cent over three kilometres for a third time since 2010. Andalucia's one 'transition' stage then follows, on stage 3, with a flattish run from the town of Mancha Real - at the foot of the Peña del Aguila climb where Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) outpaced a flagging Contador in 2017 - to Herrera in western Andalucia.
Stage 4 heads from Andalucia's capital, Sevilla, southwards to Alcala de los Gazules, the race's second uphill finish, not as hard as Alto de Allanadas, but which includes short sections of cobbles and ramps of up to 18 per cent. Andalucia's biggest innovation, though, is to shift its individual time trial from its usual mid-race point to the final day. Starting and finishing in the village of Barbate in the province of Cadiz, the time trial will include six kilometres of rough trackway, running uphill through a natural park, and is expected to decide the race.
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