Pezcyclingnews: Lee’s Vuelta Rest Day Lowdown

Vuelta Lowdown: Lee Rodgers is back from his short break and he has the Spanish Grand Tour in his cross hairs. As always Lee gives us his unique lowdown on the good and the bad from la Vuelta. Nibali, Sagan, bike motors, Oleg and the UCI all come under the Rodgers microscope on the second rest day. Ah, la Vuelta! Like crack to the Tour, crystal meth to the Giro, its always been the poor cousin of the three Grand Tours and has never quite got its barbs of addiction under my skin, but some are claiming that its been the best of the big races over the past two years, which, I still believe, says more about how poor the Giro and the Tour have been than representative of any real improvement of the Vuelta. Could it be that the formula of insane finishes and super hard days coming one after the other is working? The Giro tried it and ended up with a rider strike and all minds of complaints. The Tour has generally not strayed into that territory as its position as #1 is largely unassailable, but the Vuelta is still gambling on that, and it might be the only card is has to play.Yet another summit finishMark Cavendish certainly is not impressed, as his interview with Britains ITV the other day proved. The Vuelta has just become stupid now; 11 mountain-top finishes this year, he said. One thing for the viewers: sprinters arent bad bike riders....

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