Vuelta a Andalucia Ruta del Sol

The Vuelta a Andalucía, also known as the Ruta del Sol, is a men's cycling stage race across Andalusia in southern Spain, held in February. It was first raced in 1925, and the organizer counted the 2026 race as the 72nd edition. The route changes from year to year; the 2025 and 2026 routes each had five stages and more than 800 kilometers.

The Vuelta a Andalucía, which its organizer also calls the Ruta del Sol, is a men’s stage race held across southern Spain in February. It was first raced in 1925, and its route changes from year to year. Alejandro Valverde holds the record with five overall wins, and the 2015 and 2017 editions were won by two seconds and one.

First raced in 1925, second edition in 1955

Ricardo Montero won the first Vuelta a Andalucía in 1925, over 735 kilometers. The list of winners in the organizer's road book then jumps 30 years: it numbers the 1955 race, won by José Gómez del Moral, as the second edition. It has no race for 1978 either, the year between the two wins of the German rider Dietrich Thurau in 1977 and 1979. That is how the 2025 race could be the 71st edition and also mark 100 years since the first.

Alejandro Valverde’s five overall wins

Valverde won in 2012, 2013 and 2014, and again in 2016 and 2017. No other rider on the list has won more than twice. His first title came with a stage win at the Santuario de Araceli above Lucena, where he rode away from the other favorites in the final kilometer and took the leader’s jersey.

The fifth came down to a single second. Before the 11.9-kilometer time trial on the third stage in 2017, Alberto Contador led Thibaut Pinot by three seconds and Valverde by five. Valverde took six seconds out of Contador in the time trial and led him by one. That was still the margin two days later, when the overall victory became the 100th win of his career.

Alto de Allanadas: Froome takes the 2015 race from Contador

Two summit finishes on consecutive days decided the 2015 race. On the third stage Contador rode away from Chris Froome on the Alto de Hazallanas, in the Sierra Nevada, and won alone, which put him 27 seconds ahead overall. A day later the stage finished on the Alto de Allanadas, a short and steep climb above Jaén. Froome attacked a little over two kilometers from the top, Contador held his wheel for about 200 meters and then lost it, and at the line Contador was 29 seconds behind. Froome led by two seconds that evening, and that was the margin he won the race by.

Alcalá de los Gazules, the cobbled finish Tim Wellens won twice

The finish in Alcalá de los Gazules, in the province of Cádiz, is a cobbled climb about a kilometer long. In 2018 Tim Wellens and Mikel Landa went clear inside the final kilometer; Landa attacked first, Wellens countered and won by five seconds, enough to take the race lead from Wout Poels. He kept it by eight seconds over Poels in the 14-kilometer time trial the next day.

In 2019 he won on the same climb again, with an attack inside the last 200 meters. When the race returned in 2023, strong wind made the organizer cut the final climb from the stage, and Wellens won in the town once more, this time from the day’s breakaway.

Tadej Pogačar’s three stage wins in 2023

Tadej Pogačar won three of the five stages in 2023 and led the race from the first day to the last. On the opening stage he attacked alone 12 kilometers from the finish, on the climb of Despiernacaballos, and reached Santiago de la Espada 38 seconds ahead of Landa, Carlos Rodríguez and Santiago Buitrago. The next day he won on the cobbles of the Fortaleza de la Mota in Alcalá la Real, four seconds ahead of Enric Mas. Two days after that he beat Mas again in Iznájar.

Why was the 2024 race only five kilometers long?

The 2024 edition was reduced to one time trial because the Guardia Civil officers assigned to the race were called away to police protests by farmers and the transport sector across Spain. The organizer suspended the first stage, then planned a race of three days, and in the end could hold only the time trial in Alcaudete. It was 4.95 kilometers long and climbed almost all the way from the town’s old railway station to its castle. Maxim Van Gils won it in 8 minutes 17 seconds, ten seconds faster than Antonio Tiberi and Juan Ayuso, and the organizer lists him as the winner of the 70th edition.

Iván Romeo’s 2026 breakaway over the Puerto de la Cabra

The 2026 race was settled on the highest climb of its route, the Puerto de la Cabra, whose summit at 1,254 meters came 77 kilometers from the finish of the second stage. Near the top, Iván Romeo and Andreas Leknessund jumped from the peloton and joined Josh Burnett, who had been in an earlier breakaway, and the three crossed the summit together and pulled away on the descent. Burnett later fell back. Romeo attacked two kilometers from the line in Otura and won alone, and the peloton finished almost a minute behind. Three days later he won the race by seven seconds over Leknessund.

In 2015 Alberto Contador beat Chris Froome on the Alto de Hazallanas, and a day later Froome dropped him on the Alto de Allanadas and went on to win the race by two seconds. In 2017 Alejandro Valverde took his fifth title by one second from Contador. In 2026 Iván Romeo won by seven seconds after he and Andreas Leknessund left the peloton near the top of the Puerto de la Cabra, 77 kilometers from the finish of the second stage.