Pezcyclingnews: Vuelta’15 Roadside: Lost In Murcia!

Roadside: Stage 8 of the 2015 Vuelta a Espaa finished in the town of Murcia and thats not too far from where PEZ-Man Al Hamilton lives. He doesnt get out much, so we had to prize him from his laptop and send him Roadside for some fresh air and let him see a bike race in the flesh for a change. Murcia is not his favorite part of Spain, but we persuaded him to go.Stage 8 was heading north from Puebla de Don Fadrique and I came south to meet the race at the stage finish in Murcia. A sprint finish was a possibility, but with two climbs of the Alto de la Cresta del Gallo, the race could be split before the line. There was a sprint finish and the peloton was split, not by the climb, but by a string of crashes. But lets start from the beginning.There have been quite a lot of changes at la Vuelta since ASO bought a large share of the race. The worst change seems to be the lack of signage to the race start/finish and the Sala de Prensa. Before there would be signs on the motorway on the outskirts of the town, now there might be one at the end of the street.Strange place Murcia, they have what looks like the giant statue like Christ the Redeemer atop Corcovado Mountain in Rio de Janeiro in what can only be described as a rough area of town.Eventually the accreditation truck was...

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