The most important Spanish cyclist after Miguel Indurain raised his arms. Alberto Contador beat the four-time winner of the Tour de France Chris Froome and sealed the 2014 Vuelta a España at the Alto de Ancares just a week before the start of the World Championships in Ponferrada. As if it were a relay race, the synergies seemed to conspire to make the region of El Bierzo a cycling reference point. With the World Championships, burdened by the debts generated by its financing, turned into a kind of nightmare for public opinion, it is now the mountain pass that is coming out of its lethargy and returning to the elite ten years later, once again as a goal but now debuting the Leonese side in high competition on Friday 30 August. As if it were a time trial, the peloton still has time to revitalise the area, now in the heat of greater development of cycle tourism.
One of the most charismatic Spanish cyclists after Perico Delgado had raised his arms in 2012. Joaquim Purito Rodríguez took victory the first time Ancares was the final stage of the Vuelta a España (on the Balouta slope and a few kilometres before the summit, which was refurbished two years later to accommodate all the infrastructure for the finish line). The climb had already been a place of passage in a 2011 stage with a finish in Ponferrada. The capital of El Bierzo hosted the World Championship in 2014 just a week after Alberto Contador was virtually crowned winner of his third and final Spanish round. Ten years have had to pass before the summit returns to the routes. Now the map will have to be folded.
With three slopes that originate in neighbouring Galicia, the route will now be explored in Leon via Tejedo de Ancares. It was an old dream. The manager of the Hotel Rural Valle de Ancares (in the town of Pereda), Gerardo Jorge Ovalle, even remembers having suggested scheduling a time trial from Vega de Espinareda in an informal conversation with the general manager of the Vuelta, Javier Guillén, in the wake of those editions of the past decade. The logistics of the return of the cyclists complicate this possibility, responded the manager of the tour, whose return has already aroused tourist interest apart from the caravan itself (two television technicians will spend the night in this rural accommodation). There are regular clients who will extend their stay, says Ovalle. There are people who have changed their holidays to enjoy the passage of the Vuelta, notes the mayor of the municipality (which is undergoing a name change to be called Valle de Ancares from the old Candín), José Antonio Álvarez Cachón.
The controversy with neighbouring Galicia unleashed by this process of renaming the municipality has another front in the ownership of the summit of Alto de Ancares, assumed by the municipality of Navia de Suarna in Lugo, while the Bercian part claims its origin. “It was never called Puerto de Ancares, but Puerto de la Magdalena or Puerto de Anteiro”, says the mayor. The person in charge of the rural tourism establishment offers more arguments without ignoring the “handicap” that “80% of tourists identify Ancares with Galicia”.
Now the profile of the cycle tourist has changed. People move around a lot more. They travel to places
Cesar Garcia Calvo
— Former professional cyclist
In any case, the arrival of the 2024 Vuelta finds itself in a more fertile ground for cycle tourism. “Now the profile has changed. People move around a lot more. They travel to places,” says the former professional cyclist from El Bierzo, César García Calvo, nicknamed The Wild Boar of Bierzo and winner of the Vuelta sprints in 2001, the last time this partial classification was put up for grabs. “Ancares is a very tough and spectacular mountain pass and the scenery is incomparable,” he adds before mentioning the “eagerness” of fans to discover new places and even measure their skills and times through social networks and applications.
The example of the Camperona
The 2014 Vuelta, the last one until this one in 2024 for Ancares, was the first for the Camperona, also in the Leonese municipality of Sabero. An allusion from the sports newspaper As to this port as The son of Angliru He led his then mayor, Francisco García, to explore its cycling possibilities. A family connection led him to the director of the Vuelta a España, who included the summit as the finish of the stage. “There were 10,000 people. I have never seen so many people,” says the former mayor to gauge the impact of the race. The Provincial Council of León was involved in improving the road and the Camperona repeated as a finish in 2016 and 2018. The Sabero City Council assumed disbursements of 20,000 euros. “And it seemed to us that it was little money for the result it gave,” says García, who was removed from the Mayor’s Office after the municipal elections of 2023 when he already had in mind ideas such as asking for a time trial climb (“it is much more expensive, but I would find a way”) and a project to take advantage of the pull of cycling tourism: installing large screens in the towns of Olleros and Sabero to reflect the ascent times of the fans.
The initiative sought to answer the question of how to take advantage of the passage of a competition such as the Vuelta a España, the third cycling stage race of reference in the world along with the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia. “The possibility of marking the ramps and their slopes on the ground has been considered,” says José Antonio Álvarez Cachón from Ancares, who considers this possibility “viable with the support of the Provincial Council”, which in 2024 has been financially involved in both the Lugo-Alto de Ancares stage and the following one, Villafranca del Bierzo-Villablino, with a foray into Asturias through Cerredo and a return after climbing the Puerto de Leitariegos. The Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility will debut in Pajares, between Asturias and León, the installation of information plates with details such as altitude, length, gradients and average and maximum slopes with data for each kilometre. There are climbs that already have something similar, such as the legendary Angliru, highlights García Calvo, who urges public institutions to promote this type of spaces at tourism fairs.
There is much more cycle tourism than there was ten years ago. And there is also more biker tourism. But that doesn’t mean there is more tourism than there was in 1995.
Gerardo Jorge Ovalle
— Manager of the Valle de Ancares Rural Hotel
From the Hotel Rural Valle de Ancares they confirm the increase in cycle tourism. “There is much more. And there is also more biker tourism,” confirms its manager before making a clarification. “That does not mean that there is more tourism than in 1995, which was when we opened. The best years were between 1995 and 2005. And that data has not been seen again,” explains Gerardo Jorge Ovalle, then citing the impact of the pandemic and a subsequent stabilization. On the other side of the province, in Sabero, its former mayor recognizes the importance of the Vuelta, but includes it within a group in which he includes other sporting attractions such as the World Cup of Whitewater and cultural and tourist attractions such as the Museum of Steel and Mining to be able to get municipalities marked by the closure of coal mining out of the hole.
“What we can demand is that it doesn’t take another ten years for the Vuelta to return,” says Gerardo Jorge Ovalle from Ancares, while its mayor is willing to create parking and transport (to the extent that the organisation and Traffic allow it) from the area around Tejedo. From there, with the road already climbing from Vega de Espinareda and a second-category pass through Puerto de Lumeras (Alto de la Cruz for the people of Ancares), the route becomes steep in a first-category pass, with a length of 7.5 kilometres and an average gradient of 9.3% with constant percentages above 10% in the last five kilometres of the climb.
“Ancares is a colossus. The climb is extremely hard. One of the hardest I have ever done,” stresses César García Calvo, comparing it to some sections of the Covadonga Lakes or the Gamoniteiro. The Bercian remembers his teammates from that time “being delighted” when they had to train in an area that is a “cycling paradise.” And now he hopes for a spectacular end to the stage that will remain in the minds of spectators to maximize its subsequent use. “If there is no breakaway, a well-known cyclist will win,” he predicts, showing his bet before the competition began on the current champion, the American Sepp Kuss. Ten years later, with Alberto Contador already retired, the poster of the cyclist with his arms raised will have to be changed. Ancares hopes that, in the short, medium and long term, the winner of the stage is the valley itself and its surroundings.
