The 2025 Vuelta a España is living up to its reputation as cycling’s “Grand Tour of Chaos.” Thirty years after moving to its late-summer slot, the race continues to deliver unpredictable battles, bold raids, and breakout performances. This year’s edition has already brought major headlines for Canadian cycling—with Michael Woods announcing his retirement and Derek Gee preparing a high-profile transfer—while underdog Torstein Traeen has stunned the peloton by defending red against Jonas Vingegaard. With aggressive racing, surprise winners, and the GC fight finally heating up, the Vuelta is once again proving why it’s often the most thrilling three weeks of the season.
La Vueta 2016 – Quintana vs Froome
This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Vuelta a España’s move from Spring to late Summer, and in that time, the race has carved out its place in the World Tour calendar as the Grand Tour of Chaos. It is often the most exciting three-week race on the calendar, giving us everything from Contador and Quintana’s brazen raid on Chris Froome, to Horner’s age-defying win, to one of the most tense GC wins in history for Sepp Kuss only two years ago.
This perennial drama is fueled by an unpredictable mix of GC contenders in unknown form and motivations, the start of transfer season, and a last-chance saloon feeling for many teams looking to save their season with breakthrough results in the waning days of the calendar. This Vuelta, despite racing mostly outside of Spain thus far, has delivered exactly what fans have been pining for after a largely paint-by-numbers edition of the Tour de France earlier this summer.
An Unsung Hero in Red
Previously unknown domestique Torstein Traeen of Bahrain Victorious is treating us to the underdog performance of the season so far. He put in a bold and powerful ride on Stage 6 to take the red jersey with a three-minute buffer on the prohibitive GC favourite Jonas Vingegaard. He then put on an inspired defense over this weekend’s challenging mountain stages to keep his lead going into the rest day. Grand Tour’s often have surprise, “loaned” GC leaders but Traeen was 617th in the UCI rankings coming into the race, making his performance reminiscent of Nocentini, Pereiro and countryman Odd Christian Eiking. With the grit he has shown, he may be able to hold onto red for a few more stages until the Angliru on Friday.
Wide Open Racing with Only One Super-GC Rider
The Tour lacked some spark this year due to the stalemate between UAE’s Tadej Pogacar and Jumbo Visma’s Vingegaard. The superstars and their mighty teams marked each other almost every kilometer of the way and overpowered other teams’ attempts to shake the race up. With only Vingegaard racing this Vuelta, the opposite dynamic has been allowed to develop and unpredictable, captivating racing has been the result.
Riders like Traeen, FDJ’s David Gaudu, and Ineos’s Ben Turner have ridden brilliantly and taken bold risks to steal results from Visma and sprint favourite Phillipsen wherever they could. It’s the type of racing that makes three-week races so special, with riders desperately seizing each opportunity for a result, knowing it could be their last with the GC stages to come.
UAE inevitably still started with a full arsenal of firepower, even without Pogacar, and has made sure they don’t leave the Vuelta empty-handed in the wake of Vingegaard’s GC dominance. They began with an impressive win in the difficult, technical Stage 5 team time trial and followed with two more consecutive stage victories with different riders, with Jay Vine and Juan Ayuso taking solo victories on stages six and seven.
Ayuso on his comeback ride on Stage 7.
This streak is actually an historic achievement. I couldn’t find another instance when three different riders on the same team won consecutive stages. It might exist somewhere, but even AI couldn’t find me an example. It also shows deft direction by the UAE management, allowing their riders to take their shots at glory before Almeida needs full support in the overall GC battle to come. The early reports were full of shock when Ayuso “faltered” and got dropped from a selection of more than thirty on Stage Four and appeared to struggle. However, I think it was a well-executed tactic by the team to position Ayuso far enough back to allow him to join breakaways and even sow some doubt about his current form among competitors. No one saw it coming when he jumped away and put on an devastating display of power to win two days later.
The GC Battle Rumbles to Life
Sunday’s Stage 9 mountain stage didn’t look like a defining GC day on paper. We haven’t reached Spain’s infamous, double-digit gradient goat path climbs yet, where Vingegaard is expected to blow the race apart. Still, Visma took the opportunity to launch a vicious team attack on Stage Nine’s final climb, and Vingegaard put big time into everyone but Almeida and Q.365’s Tom Pidcock. Pidcock confirmed he is in the form of his young career, clinging to Almeida’s wheel. Almeida was unable to match Visma’s initial acceleration but nearly went pedal stroke for pedal stroke with the two-time Tour de France winner after that.
Was Vingegaard looking to simplify his GC picture, or was he responding to Almeida’s uncharacteristic aggression in the first week and aiming to land an early blow. Even in losing twenty-four seconds, Almeida looked to be at a new level of performance today. The looming GC battle could be a lot closer than we expected.
Transfer Season Changes for Canada’s Top Riders
As the World Tour transfer season opens, Vuelta time often means drama even outside of the race itself. For Canadian cycling fans, two major stories hit the news. First, Canada’s best racer in a generation, Michael Woods, announced his retirement after almost a decade of electric rides and world-class results in the sport. The move was somewhat unexpected after the 38 year-old Woods put on a fine attacking display in this year’s Tour, showing he still has the capacity to race with the world’s best when the road tilts upwards. Instead, Woods cited the danger of racing as a large contributor to his decision.
Michael Woods enroute to winning Stage 9 at the ’23 Tour.
It’s an understandable reason, given the several horrible, high-profile incidents in recent years, and particularly for Woods, whose sparkling palmarès has been punctuated by serious crashes. I had the good fortune to race with Mike in his North American years, and he is an almost otherworldly talent on the bike. Chapeau Mike.
Gee winning stage 3 of the ’24 Dauphine.
Derek Gee seems more and more like the heir apparent to Woods as Canada’s top star after a top GC finishes in the Dauphine, the Tour, and the Giro in the last two seasons. In a bigger surprise, Gee also announced his departure from the Israel Premier Tech team this week, with the intention of joining a new squad in 2026.
Inevitably, the move has been politicized with social media bots and ostensibly respectable news outlets alike suggesting the move is a statement against Israel. These suggestions were buoyed by a recent anti-Israel statement from former IPT rider Jakob Fuglsang. Fuglsang, interestingly, only raised his voice after he was done cashing pay cheques and underperforming on a seven-figure deal with the team.
In a more sane but less click-worthy assessment, Gee’s departure is almost certainly career-based. His value as a rider has skyrocketed since he signed a five-year deal with IPT in 2023 and despite their best efforts, the team likely can’t afford to keep him bidding against super-teams with massive budgets. The rumour is he is headed for Ineos with something around a two million euro per year contract that would likely triple his current deal with IPT. It’s a tough play but one that a smart professional athlete has to make ten times out of ten. Hopefully, Gee’s career will continue to flourish over the next decade, but there are many examples of riders hitting an elite peak for only a season or two before regressing. Even Ryder Hesjedal’s truly elite GC window spanned just a few seasons. Gee can’t afford to take a chance on life-changing earnings.
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