The third and final day in the Asturias mountains sees the peloton tackle a brutal, undulating stage on which five brutal ascents in all are packed in.

Among those is the twisting, technical ascent of La Cobertoria – a category-one climb which comes close to halfway through the 160.5km stage.

La Cobertoria was tackled in the 2.1-ranked Vuelta Asturias in 2013, with Nuno Bico (Radio Popular-Onda) the fastest of the Strava users over the top.

The rising Portuguese star, who will ride this year’s Tour de l’Avenir, set a time of 32:38 on the nine kilometre ascent – which boasts an average gradient of ten per cent.

Another rider that day, Ibon Zugasti (Start-Trigon), used a power meter – which gave his power as 321 watts for the climb, which he took 35:08 to crest.

Given both finished well down on riders from the likes of Movistar and Euskaltel-Euskadi however, the Vuelta peloton could well be closer to the half-hour mark.