Vuelta a España 2026: week 2 preview — Calar Alto and the Sierra de la Pandera await after the rest day
After the shock of Pogačar's crash, the Vuelta heads into the Andalusian mountains for its first rest day on Sunday. Week 2 holds off on a summit finish until stage 12, but then delivers a one-two punch: the Alto de Velefique followed by the climb to the Calar Alto observatory, and three days later the feared Sierra de la Pandera. Everything you need to know about stages 10 through 15.
A rest day with the Vuelta wide open
Monday 31 August is this Vuelta's first rest day, and the peloton gets a chance to catch its breath after an opening week nobody saw coming. On his first day in red, Enric Mas did more than just defend it: he attacked twice on the Alto de Aitana and outsprinted Oscar Onley, and heads into the rest day 1:18 clear of Roglič and 1:39 clear of Gall. Read the full story in our stage 9 report. What follows the rest day is a second week with fewer summit finishes than the first, but two that matter enormously.
Stages 10 and 11: transition days before the mountains return
Stage 10, from Alcaraz to Elche de la Sierra on 1 September, didn't turn into the quiet breakaway day it looked like on paper — instead it produced a nail-biting, chaotic sprint won by surprise winner Bastien Tronchon; read the full stage 10 report. Stage 11 (Cartagena-Lorca, 2 September) was the last pure sprint opportunity of this Vuelta for the sprinters who survived week one's mountains, and it went to Matthew Brennan — his third stage win of the race. Read the stage 11 report.
Stage 12: the Alto de Velefique and the Calar Alto summit finish
On 3 September, week 2's first real referee lived up to the billing straight away: first the Alto de Velefique, 13 kilometres with ramps up to 16 percent, followed by a short descent and then the 17-kilometre climb to Calar Alto at 2,168 metres, at the observatory home to the largest telescope on continental Europe. Jakob Omrzel soloed there to his first Grand Tour stage win, while Enric Mas took 27 seconds out of his GC rivals. Read the full stage 12 report.
Stages 13 and 14: Almuñécar-Loja and the feared Sierra de la Pandera
Stage 13 (4 September) starts hard with the Puerto de los Guájares, still 160 kilometres from home, before a largely flat run to Loja. A day later, stage 14 brings a short but brutal mountain stage: from olive-oil city Jaén, the route crosses two second-category warm-up climbs before the Sierra de la Pandera, one of the steepest and most feared finishes in all of Spain — all in the searing early-September Andalusian heat, exactly the kind of day where Pogačar's absence will be felt most.
Stage 15 and the second rest day: the last breakaway party in Córdoba
On 6 September, with the second rest day looming and a few rolling third-category climbs along the way, stage 15 to Córdoba is a classic day for the GC teams to let the break go. The flat finale could end in either a solo win or a group sprint, in one of this Vuelta's most beautiful finish towns — Córdoba, with its UNESCO-listed Mosque-Cathedral. The second rest day follows on 7 September, before the Vuelta enters its brutal final week, featuring the time trial near Jerez and the summit finish at the Collado del Alguacil in the Sierra Nevada.
More Vuelta reading
Want to catch up on the opening week first? Read our stage 5-8 recap, the stage 4 report from Andorra or the complete guide to the 2026 Vuelta a España. Test your knowledge with our week 1 quiz, or build your own tier list of the contenders now that the cards have been completely reshuffled.
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